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I think the there is an opening along the culture war’s line of contact in the zone of religious behavior. Specifically, that the non-left has the opportunity to take ground among the growing percentage of persons who do not believe in god.
I assume that there is general agreement on the following points:
religiosity, in general, is on the decline. Pew’s longitudinal religious landscape study tracks associated metrics, as do many others.
many individuals and groups are experiencing negative outcomes due to the overall decline in religiosity. There is the often talked about crisis of meaning, the declining birthrates particularly among the non-religious, etc.
putting aside the question of whether or not the leftism is a religion (a proposition I support), that the general decline in religiosity is broadly favorable to leftists.
Taken the above as weak, but broadly agreed upon, I would also argue that, similar to @erwgv3g34 post on Scott’s Kolmogorov Complicity and the Parable of Lightning, the cat is largely out of the proverbial bag on the question of whether or not any particular diety or similar set of theological claims is true. To be clear, I don’t think that every single person will inevitably believe that god doesn’t exist. I do think, however, that there is sufficient atheism, and scientific thinking and knowledge in our society that significantly many people cannot be convinced to believe or to feign belief.
The avowedly religious probably think that this state of affairs is an unalloyed, net negative, but is it? Returning to the generally agreed upon points at the top, there is a growing number of people who don’t believe in god, but are suffering and seeking out the type of benefits that religion classically provides. From the perspective of these atheists, all religions are obviously false in the sense that god doesn’t exist, but religiosity is still important and desirable.
Accordingly, I think there is a lot of ground to be gained by offering these people a way to participate in religion that doesn’t, in Scott’s words, make them insist that lightning comes after thunder. I think there is an opportunity for something like a Christian Atheism, where people can feel connected to the obviously Christian origins of American culture, can participate in group rituals and be supported by a moral framework that they obviously desire, but without the humiliation of professing that thunder comes first.
Is there a good analogy for something like this? I’m not sure. Secular Judaism is the model that comes to mind but I’m sure there are other examples.
Is this optimal from the perspective of the faithful? No. But so what? The devout are hemorrhaging adherents and the only other game in town is the enemy’s.
If I was the Catholic Church or [insert non-Catholic denominational leadership], I would be funding such groups as hard as possible and conditioning my political donations on candidates plugging the idea in their stump speeches. Obviously, I would prefer them to come to Jesus. But if they aren’t coming to Jesus anyway, surely I would prefer to funnel those people into a group where they can proudly and honestly proclaim that ‘of course Jesus isn’t real, but that’s not the point; the 10 commandments have served our people well for 2 thousand years because they work and you should follow them too.’
I think a well crafted message along these lines could be highly effective in the current environment.
You can have religion without god, but I don't see how you can have religion without faith. By "faith" I mean roughly this definition that popped up when I googled it: "Firm belief based upon confidence in the authority and veracity of another, rather than upon one's own knowledge, reason, or judgment."
In this form of the religion you have faith in the Ten Commandments or in biblical laws more generally. If the adherents take this faith seriously, then they end up being every bit as "religious" as if god existed. As you put it, people would still have to be "convinced to believe or to feign belief" in the inerrant properties of the Ten Commandments. So at best you have effectively replaced god with the ten commandments, and I think you will find it just as hard to convince atheists to truly believe in them. Alternatively, if the adherents don't really take their faith seriously, then it's hard to see what holds the religion together, or how it answers the kinds of existential questions that people look to religion to answer. It's reduced to a social club at that point. If people were excited to join secular social clubs we'd see participation in clubs like Rotary Club, bowling leagues, etc., rising rather than declining.
Open to being wrong here, but secular Judaism has threaded this needle; at least somewhat better than American Christians, no? Secular Jews identify as jewish, don't make bones about their non-belief in the literal existence of YHWH, participate in jewish rituals which are fundamentally religious but often carried on in a secular form. Again, I'm not an expert, but if what I said is loosely true, then secular Jews have a sort of belief in the Torah/Talmud, if not a belief in YHWH, and yet they still participate in jewish-coded social activities.
As to the larger body of atheists in America, I think most of them actually do believe in the 10 commandments, but just don't identify their belief with the commandments as such. I think most of them actually do believe that adultery and murder are wrong, etc. However, unlike the Secular Jews, they don't identify as Christian Atheists or associate their belief that murder is wrong with its likely causal origin (from their persepctive) in the 10 commandments.
This is where I think there is room for maneuver. The atheists basically already believe the underlying moral framework of Christianity but don't identify their beliefs and behaviors as such. What they need is the identity (and some supporting rituals, etc.), the attachment to Christian Atheism, not just atheism, in the same way that we can speak of self-identifying Secular Jews.
It seems to me that secular Judaism is more of an ethnic or cultural identity than a religion. But I don't really know enough about the topic to have an informed opinion. And I doubt that secular Judaism is actually capable of succeeding at the goal you mentioned in your OP: "to take ground among the growing percentage of persons who do not believe in god." It doesn't evangelize and doesn't seem capable of "taking ground."
They may agree with these statements, but they don't give any weight to the fact that they're part of the 10 commandments. And there are a number of commandments that atheists explicitly reject, such as the first four.
They agree with certain aspects of the Christian moral framework, but reject many other aspects. And most of the aspects of the Christian moral framework they agree with are not specific to Christianity and are common in most cultures all over the worlds (e.g. murder and theft are bad).
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