Yup - Christianity - that State religion of the empire will survive whatever. Providing a guide to irrationalism, bigotry and abuse of minority groups. A track record of violence and intolerance that makes use of the word morality laughable.

oh bum "Roman Empire"
- and i thought i had checked it

Hence the attacks on any kind of special treatment for marriage, when it is just one choice among others

Why should it need or get special treatment?

Andrew has already missed the boat. Sure, we do need dreams and pacifiers.

We already have them.

Or pacifiers and active fantasies and dream states and irrationality is no longer provided by the Church of England, they are provided by the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo and SONY.

Who needs God when I have a (virtual) Dodge Viper I can drive at 200 mph on Lombard Street?

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This is the most bizarre description of rational secularism I've ever read. I would point out how the author is misunderstanding his sources but I cannot guess what his sources might be.

In the decade to come, technocracy and modernity will fade, and people will likely turn back to the old religious illusions

Hope not... so you admit they're illusions then?

The underlying claim is that freely made, rational choices will end up delivering the best results for everyone.

Maybe I've misunderstood, but I simply haven't read anyone who thinks this. A huge proportion of rational choice theory is dedicated to problems precisely where rational choices lead to sub-optimal outcomes. Public goods are the classic example, but anything with externalities, poverty of information, etc. - all examples of market failure (i.e. where markets fail even though agents are behaving rationally).

Dead right. We'll get tired of computers, electricity and medicine and decide to live in freezing cold caves praying to the spirits of the forest until we die of sepsis at 38.

There is no evidence that Christianity will survive intact.

Just as Christ displaced Mithras in Ancient Rome, Elvis could easily replace Jesus as the centuries to come.

Most religions tend towards to polytheism anyway - note the proliferation of Chrisitian saints, Buddhist entities and Daoist immortals as they progressed.

If writing claptrap like this article is what religion does to you then I'm glad I'm a heathen.

Stop press!

Evan Harris lost his seat because he offended christians in his constituency!

Really? Evidence please. Not something we're used to seeing when talking about religion, I know, but thought I'd ask.

He's not saying what ought to happen, but what he thinks is likely to happen.

I don't think it's quite right though: I agree that religion will probably stick around but it won't be more of the same -- it seems very obvious that less and less of the population are going to describe themselves as Christians - and as Nick Spencer pointed out the other day, this is a cohort thing, not a life stage thing - I'm much less likely, when I'm eighty, to find consolation in religion, than an eighty year old is now.

The problem with very traditional religion is that it's 'devil take the hindermost': if 90 couples out of 100 are on aggregate happier with a socially imposed monogamy than the freedom to do anything, then religion will tend to impose that, squishing beneath it's remorseless heels the

... balls, hit the wrong button.... to finish what I was saying:

the ten couples out of a hundred who are destroyed by such an arrangement. Can religion get better at dealing in a non-bonkers way with exceptions, while not weakening its core too much? I think over-rigidity could kill it, even if no-one much fancies the technocrat version either.

I'm trying to see what there is in the content of this article that in any way reflects reality. Brown appears to have invented a vague and vacuous position, mis-ascribed it to the Lib Dems, and then written a load of rubbish about it. I hope he doesn't get paid for this empty and asinine pap.

Andrew writes ...

Now that the Lib Dems have seen their policies on Europe reversed, they are trying to cheer themselves up by becoming a party of rational secularism.

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being Rational.

(Earl of Rochester, 1648-80)

Technocracy and modernity may well fade, and new forms of social movements grow. But the 'old religions' bounce back without considerable change?

Too many of them have been shown to contain myths and legends or support hateful attitudes. Too many of them have no answers for modern problems (like over population or scarcity of resources).

Something after the technocracy phase of the Enlightenment? Perhaps. But not what existed before the Enlightenment.

There is no evidence that Christianity will survive intact.

Just as Christ displaced Mithras in Ancient Rome, Elvis could easily replace Jesus as the centuries to come.

I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that... if Jesus turned up today and made the claims he did 2,000 years ago, he'd quickly be identified as a nutter and either ignored, locked up or executed depending on which country he had the mosfortune to turn up in.

You still get your occasional mass religious conversion - the cult of Prince Philip, the similar cult of John Frum and whatever else - but generally in small, backward countries.

I can't see Christianity disappearing from the Americas any time soon, although Europe might well eventually become majority Islamic - probably followed by a short, sharp rejection of Islam by the masses, followed by an almost entirely secular society.

But this dislike of other people's claim to truth is based on the unspoken assumption that we know better. And we don't.

Yeah and the claim that no one knows better is based on the unspoken assumption that he who knows that no one knows better knows better in knowing that no one knows better.

It's the tyranny of skepticism - the original and greatest monotheism.

[that should stir some sh1t]

Very nice and scary. Where does the modern self, anxious, go looking for answers? The atheists, new or otherwise, have no answers, nor the fundamentalists in religion. I'm interested in scientists who are as critical in their belief of something divine in the universe at large and who humans can relate to, as they are in their scientific work. People should find comfort in that they so believe. Easy also to develop a top down approach into a philosophy for all. It's evidence based, scientific but also personal.

We'll get tired of computers, electricity and medicine and decide to live in freezing cold caves praying to the spirits of the forest until we die of sepsis at 38.

Under the tories we wont be getting tired of these things, we just won't be able to afford them any more. And living in a freezing cave will most likely be a result of having housing benefits capped and squatting made illegal.

Similarly, the free sexual marketplace turns out not to be the recipe for happiness. It's another arena where the strong make the rules and the weak suffer. Monogamy is probably the earliest and most successful human experiment in taming the power of markets and harnessing them to social use.

A lot of very questionable assertions with no evidence there.

Who says that sexual freedom doesn't improve happiness? Is the author suggesting that people (and women in particular) were happier with regards to sexuality at the height of Victorian repression than they are now?

What on earth is meant by the contention that the strong make the rules, given that if its a free market place, there are presumably no rules?

But of course we don't have free sexual market place, as we generally believe that its open to consenting adults only. So who are the 'weak' in it, and how do they suffer? And how does monogamy stop this happening?

And as for the idea that monogamy is the earliest experiment in taming the power of markets... Presumably the author missed the concept that monogamy began as a market run by men where women were traded?

Honestly, this piece is just throwing words at a page.

When that happens, the Lib Dems attachment to modernity will look quite as quaint as beards and sandals.

I think you're confusing, throughout the article, 'modernity' with 'consumerism'. There is nothing to say the new 'modernity' will be a step back to religion. It could just as well be a step towards non-consumerist rational hedonism - revelling in those things that bring enjoyment beyond the pleasure of purchase. We're already seeing that with music moving away from albums/singles and back to the live experience.... not saying it will be, but I do think it unlikely that people will unlearn all the things that make religion untenable - and the thing about 'modernity' is it really is just whatever happens to be new/current, so it will always be around...

Also British. The British flag of India contained the words; " Heaven's Light our Guide" and it was often said that the missionaries followed the army. Religion was at the very centre of Victorain imperial (middle class) society

Monogamy is probably the earliest and most successful human experiment in taming the power of markets and harnessing them to social use.

Monogamy is actually a rather eurocentric way of doing things and comprises only 16% of all independently described human cultures. Monogamy has been common only in Europe and its colonies (colonial and post-colonial North and South America and Australia), and parts of the Middle East (post-exilic Israel). This is according to the largest cross-cultural database of anthropological information is the Human Relations Area Files, established in 1949 and maintained at Yale University.

So, you can't really claim it as a universal human way of doing things.

But this dislike of other people's claim to truth is based on the unspoken assumption that we know better. And we don't.

Errm, on quite a lot of things we do know better. For example the God believed in by Young Earth Christians can't exist.

There will be new illusions, other dreams. These need not be religious, though I think they will be, if only because religions are better – have more experience – at claiming that they're true. This is, of course, the thing that modernity is meant to hate about them most. But this dislike of other people's claim to truth is based on the unspoken assumption that we know better. And we don't.

We do actually. At least we know what is not true. Even followers of religions know that every other religion is not true. At least as much as their claims to truth people dislike religions' claims to be the sources of goodness and morality. There may be future illusions, but religions have suffered so much damage to their claims- much of it self-inflicted or inflicted by other religions- that they probably won't be able to make the claims for power and respect they once did.

....and the meek will inherit the Earth, i suppose?

This is, of course, the thing that modernity is meant to hate about them most. But this dislike of other people's claim to truth is based on the unspoken assumption that we know better. And we don't.

OK - 'them' is religions. I got that far. But who is 'we' here? If its the non-religious, does that mean that the author is not religious? Not judging by what sense I can make of the rest of the piece. Is 'we' modernists? But the author is setting himself apart from modernists, isn't he?

Seriously, I can't make head nor tail of this - but perhaps that just proves what a theologically unsubtle mind I have.

The Lib Dems will return to entrenchment within the political wilderness in a decade, irrespective of how quaint they may look.

But this dislike of other people's claim to truth is based on the unspoken assumption that we know better. And we don't.

Sorry. No. We do know better. Hell, already Galileo knew better. Darwin knew even better. And since the WMAP experiment, we know beyond all reasonable doubt that all religious claim towards the existence of the universe, the human species and morality is simply bogus.

If the world will truly fall back into the old pattern of non-thinking,
the only way is down.

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There may be future illusions, but religions have suffered so much damage to their claims- much of it self-inflicted or inflicted by other religions- that they probably won't be able to make the claims for power and respect they once did.

None of the issues you mention are problems outside of Europe and its colonial off shoots in Australia and North and South America. Religions seem to be doing very well in the third world and that is where most population growth has been and probably will continue to be. And this is relevant to the UK because so many people from the third world like to move to the UK.

The future will be very religious.

I'd agree that there is no evidence that Harris lost his seat because he offended Christians in his constituency, however he did lose is seat to a Christian in a rather shocking defeat and .....

However, post-election analysis in the Oxford Mail suggested that Harris' strident secular opinions appeared to have "alienated a sufficiently large percentage of the electorate to lose what was considered a relatively safe seat for the Liberal Democrats".[34] It detailed that while the Liberal Democrats had nationally gained a 1% swing in their favour, in the Oxford West constituency there had been a 6.9% swing away from the party to the Conservatives. Although 2001 census figures show that Oxford had the 10th highest proportion of people in England & Wales who listed themselves as having no religion, the census also showed that 76.1% of those surveyed did not class themselves as having no religion.

Source: Wikipedia

Not seeing the breakdown of rational humanism any time soon. Blair only went on about god near the end of his premiership, Brown said little, Cameron only played the Christianity card recently for a particular argument. Religion wasn't prevalent in any of the three party manifestos. There's no big, religious revival going on now, unless you think immigrants are going to take over the population.

There's plenty of non-religious woo but that's mostly part of the marketplace anyway. As the shopping fades, those taking up non-religious woo will be those who were shopping for more expensive woo in the first place. I have no idea why the author thinks consumers will jump on homoeopathy or Christianity just because they can't afford plasma TVs any more.

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Far be it from me to make accusations of ATL trolling...

Indeed. Best do some BTL trolling instead.... ;-)

Similarly, the free sexual marketplace turns out not to be the recipe for happiness.

Portraying this as any kind of fact is laughable.

The fact that Andrew Brown has not had a good time of sexual liberalisation does not mean that it is fundamentally anathema to happiness.

On the contrary, the principle that consenting adults can do as they please is the source of some of my happiest memories.

Trying to claim that sexual freedom is inherently ultimately empty is merely the grumbling of a misery guts who either does want to - or wasn't able to - enjoy the benefits.

Atheism at ten paces!

I agree completely.

The underlying claim is that freely made, rational choices will end up delivering the best results for everyone. This is supposed to be true in personal life as much as in economics. Hence the attacks on any kind of special treatment for marriage, when it is just one choice among others.

No. The underlying claim is that it's none of your damn business and that will still be as true in 20 years time as it is know.

Note that I talked about changing rather than disappearing.

Jesus probably won't have too bad a time unless he appeared in somewhere that was too religious (or too capitalistic) and was thus killed for blasphemy. The miracles might present a problem, if he could actually perform them, but Fortean investigators would hot foot over to him and seek to check them out.

However Jesus simply might not be up to scratch for these modern times. Another figure, whether he or she actually existed or not, could be the one to move people.

I don't think much of your Prince Phillip example though.

Nelson Mandela nearly got to the status of a secular saint, for example. Even the most blood-thirsty, poor-starving right-winger (with a public standing to lose) can often be reticient to denounce him.

It's a damning reflection of how absurd this article is that you've purportedly written about the Lib Dems and not one poster here has gotten into a flap about Nick Clegg.

Few may believe in God but even fewer believe in Clegg. His popularity rating has recently dropped from -40% to -55% and the Lib Dem vote in recent polls is now down to single figures from 20% at the election.
The majority of the public are against most of the things he believes in and re-iterating them to the public is only going to make him even less popular as he has proved.
Only politicians are so conceited, and intellectually challenged that they think re-iterating their views will change the views of the public. These same politicians also are under the delusion that newspapers are setting the views of the public rather than reflecting them so they can have good sales. It just proves how little our public school Oxbridge education elite understand ( or want to) of the real world public. We are not like them, don't like them, don't think like them and never will but unfortunately they are the people who always rule the UK. Hence the huge permanent gap between politicians and their beliefs and the public which can never be closed because they are aliens to most of the public. It also explains why trust in politicians and political parties continuously decline as the gap between them and us continues to widen.

Oh dear. Ignoring people's experiences again. It's fundamental to all of us. Need more than objective science for that I'm afraid. You need a science of the subjective.

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Oh, you had to go and ruin it didn't you?!

But of course we don't have free sexual market place, as we generally believe that its open to consenting adults only. So who are the 'weak' in it, and how do they suffer? And how does monogamy stop this happening?

The weak are the fat, the ugly, the old, the unfashionable. They suffer because they are excluded, discarded, understood to have fewer rights than the glorious and desirable.

Monogamy limits this suffering by making it harder to trade up and discard the old model. It's not perfect, but it does make people count more forms of attractiveness than desirability.

I rarely stray into the area of politics on this forum prefering to banter with New Athiests and the anti-God squad but by jove old bean I couldn't agree more with your comment......

I am hopeful about the future and expect that brilliant, inventive, confident young people will be building the future. Wallowing in the past, celebrating ignorance and provincialism, tribalism and dullness is too tacky to contemplate.

Patronizing the less than sophisticated has led to overpopulation and the current financial problems. The Industrial Age is over, let it rest and make way for creativity.