Have we lost faith in faith itself? 05-17-18
We produce a fascinating show called The Next Chapter that tries to answer (from a practical and philosophical point of view) what comes next...particularly for us aging baby boomers who've been gifted with a whole extra inning in life. As a group, we baby boomers will live longer than any generation in history with many of us making it well into our nineties or beyond. So what will we do with that bonus time and our new found next chapter? Hosted by former CEO coach and evangelical minister Charlie Hedges, this show took an unexpected turn the last three weeks into exploring religion. Will our aging group of baby boomers find our way back to the "faith of our fathers" (as the end grows nearer). Or will we stick to our "enlightened" agnosticim and/or scientific athesim? Or find a "new religion" in some new age "force" to make sense of the universe and our place in it. These are (after all) the age old questions that have gnawed at man since the dawn of time. Who are we, where did we come from and where are we going? The so called "meaning of life". But as I note in this post series summary, we seem to be entering into a strange new world where a growing number of people just don't care about these questions at all anymore. Meaning we've lost faith not just in our leaders but in faith itself. We trust no one and believe in nothing. So it's not just a battle between "believers" and "non-believers" (in politics, religion, philosophy, democracy or any belief system you can name) but the emergence of a new category never seen before...NO belevers. People for whom "none of the above" is the default answer to just about any question you can ask. Where the majority of voters (here in Orange County and elsewhere) are now listed in the voter roles as "decline to state". And where a growing majority of people would rather stick a needle in their eye than talk about politics, philosophy, religion or anything "greater than themselve". So do you agree with my gloomy assessment that we're in some strange new "post belief" world. Where facts are all fungible, news is all fake and the experts are all wrong? And is this just a transition to some new "age of enlightenment" or the new normal. A new dark age where anything goes, chaos rules and the old rules or belief systems just don't apply. Or even interest us anymore...