Thread by @tommycollison

1/ For the last year or so, I've been wondering about religions: are the positive attributes of religion unique? Why be (or become) religious?

@NotoriousTIB has written a book on this: "Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World."

Thread: the Great Unbundling of Religion

2/ The sorts of questions I was wondering about:

- Why do people say a Soul Cycle class is a spiritual experience?
- What is Jordan Peterson saying that is so un-ignorably popular?
- What is the effect (on a person, on a community, on a society) of institutional religion?

3/ Enter, @NotoriousTIB, with a theory on what religions are. I'm simplifying here (the whole book is worth reading), but Burton maintains that religions provide people with four things:

- meaning
- purpose
- community
- ritual

Let's quickly break those down.

4/ Meaning is the "bigger-picture" question -- "why the world is the way it is." It's not (just) a question of God or a higher being, but more about how things came to be: does fate dictate our every step? What makes meaning, in the world?

5/ Purpose is how we shape our lives, given that meaning. In what ways are your personal choices fitting in with a bigger narrative of why the world is this way? Why do we do the things we do?

6/ Community is maybe the most easily-observed parts of religion -- mosques, synagogues, and churches. Receiving the Eucharist, sitting shiva, eating with loved ones on Eid al-Fitr.

7/ Finally, there's Ritual. Shabbat dinners. Friday prayers. Midnight mass. The things we do (repeatedly) that are, in Burton's words, "solemnized, formal occasions," where we participate and get a sense of belonging and purpose.

8/ If we define religion as that which gives us those four things (meaning, purpose, community, ritual), then we get to a really interesting question: what is going on with religion/spirituality/belief these days?

The answer? Remix culture.

9/ We LOVE to remix things. Think:

- Harry Potter fan fiction, where we write stories from Hogwarts or pair characters who didn't get together in the series.
- Tumblr, where you can "reblog" and add commentary to memes.
- TikTok, an entire social network dedicated to remixing.

10/ Burton's thesis is that Americans are essentially remixing their spirituality. They get their meaning from A, their purpose from B, their community from C, and their ritual from D. They mix it together and become, in Burton's words, "creators of their own bespoke religions."

11/ What does this look like in practice?

It looks like, say, someone getting their meaning/purpose from advocating for social justice. This also provides them their community, but they're an avid CrossFit fan, which gives them community & ritual. (And maybe meaning!)

12/ Today's Remixers, Burton writes, "don’t want to receive doctrine, to assent automatically to a creed. They want to choose—and, more often than not, purchase—the spiritual path that feels more authentic, more meaningful, to them."

13/ I don't know if @NotoriousTIB is 100% correct, but I think that the theory she puts forward in "Strange Rites" advances the conversation is a lot of important ways. It's well worth a read: publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/tara-is…

14/

Two open questions I still have:

- If we assume that a given religion gives you all four things (meaning, purpose, community, ritual), and we assume that you can "create" religion by remixing, is that equally good? Is religion more than the sum of those parts?

15/

What's the long-term effect of this sort of individualized belief/practice?