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The biggest flaw of Christianity, which sets it apart from many other religions- including the pagan traditions of the fathers of their father, is that Christianity requires a superstitious belief in the literal truth of claimed miracles. Is such a religion sustainable?
Paganism was about worshipping symbols and myths of the people, with collective public and familial rituals, to direct society in a positive direction. Other non-theistic religions like Buddhism also do not require the allegiance of faith in the truth of claimed miracles. Whereas there is no shortage of superstition in Judaism, especially among religious Jews, the Religion is ultimately about The Chosen People and so it coheres even non-religious Jews who internalize that sense in a non-theistic manner.
Christianity on the other hand... it's ultimately about belief in the truth of claimed miracles that emerged from the body of Jewish superstition. It's in fact historically unusual in this regard. If those claims are false then the religion is a farce, whereas the Jews exist as a coherent people even if you don't believe in a literal Yahweh. Yahweh as nothing more than a tribal mascot of the Jews is infinitely more real than Christianity if you take away the truth of the miracles. If you don't believe in the literal truth of those miracles, even if you were to support the religion in every other way, you are a heretic and in the outgroup.
You think Christianity is based? That it promotes good morals and is necessary to save Western Civilization? Too bad, you can't be a Christian if you don't believe in the literal truth of it. Or you can just pretend, and sit in the pews with a Religious experience that is totally discordant with everyone else sitting around you.
I've seen fairly large-sample Telegram polls in the DR and the polls were split exactly 50/50 on the Christian Question, making it highly divisive in that space. But the divisiveness is good, because it's a hard problem that has to be solved to move forward.
@Job mentioned he's seen people turn towards religious extremism. I've also seen the same, high-quality people (some previously atheist) who turn inwards towards their relationship with God and closely studying Christian doctrine. They avoid the alienation but what is that going to accomplish?
This isn't how anyone but weirdos like us think about things though. The majority of good christians are just followers. For them, believing in the "literal truth" of it is not challenging, but it also isn't a profound intellectual thing. Most people don't analyze the truth claims of their religion like that. They just believe and repeat and thats it. No bigger implications.
In my experience, you can participate without believing in the miracles, and not have a Religious experience that is totally discordant with everyone else sitting around you. The collective effervescence is there for you whether you intellectually accept the physical reality of miracles or not. Why can't you accept it symbolically like the pagans you refer to?
There are clear "game theory" advantages for social groups espousing wild shit. It represents a signal with a cost. A core selective challenge for social groups is to sort people who are actual team players from parasites. There is a minor cost associated with saying something crazy like "Jesus rose from the dead". It harms your credibility with every other group that doesn't claim that crazy thing. That cost acts as a clarifying pressure for people to either be all in on being truly members of christianity (who will cooperate with christians) as opposed to fakers who want to play both sides.
I'm not at all convinced by this. Any social group with good mechanics to maintain cohesion over multiple generations is going to have systems to make signaling group identity somewhat costly. I think many groups require their members to claim that actively believe weird shit, that's not just christianity. There are plenty of miracles professed by other religions. There are other methods to make signaling group membership costly, like wearing stupid looking clothes, or ritual scarification, etc. But publicly espousing weird nonsense is a really common trait. And it looks adaptive to me.
I do feel you on it being uncomfortable because I am also a weirdo that cares about things like that. Thats part of what is so grating about modern american progressivism - that it requests me to say so much weird stuff, so I don't. But if I thought it was "based" and would lead to healthy outcomes for me and mine - I might not be as bothered.
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It does not work this way.
"If YHWH is just ancient myth, if the bible is just book of ancient tales, why shouldn't I marry this nice Gentile in romantic interfaith Jewish-Catholic-Buddhist-Wiccan ceremony?
"Ancient tradition? You mean thousands of years of persecution, pogroms and genocide? Thanks, but no thanks."
Actual Jewish leaders do not share your complacency about great future for Jews in absence of religious faith.
Secular Jews seem no less inclined towards worshipping their own suffering and persecution. Their identity as the eternally, innocent persecuted is a pull factor rather than a push factor for secular Jews.
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Which miracles do you question?
Resurrection of Jesus for start.
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