I thought you were talking mostly about the US, not Europe. I would agree that what the Pope was talking about is at the heart of the matter. Though I'd go further: the problems is not faith in some pagan belief (pagans at least have religious beliefs of their own) but unbelief -- nihilism. "Nothing matters," is the credo -- if it can even be called that -- underlying the sneering cynicism and materialistic despair infecting the Western world's liberal, progressive sectors. Religious rightwingers might be old-fashioned, backwards, downright fascistic at times, but at least they have hopes. "Progressives" have talked away hope with their endless removing of what they thought were old, outmoded belief systems, customs, and laws. They thought by peeling away all that stuff they could get at the pure core and start over with whatever it is that is at the heart of everything, but they were peeling an onion. There's nothing left except to steal each other's research notes and buy carbon credits.

I think Andrea is conflating several things that should be kept separate, to my way of thinking. Unbelief (at least, a lack of belief in any religion) is not necessarily nihilism, and forward-lookingness (is that a word?) does not require faith in a Supreme Being (though it does help, I think).

That said, I think some people (too many of them, perhaps) are in the thrall of a certain hopelessness. They may still believe in God, but after the punishment they and their parents and grandparents have been through over the last century, they may feel that there's no point in fighting "fate", instead choosing to acquiesce in the oblivion God seems (to them) to be consigning them to.

Others are nihilists, who believe that "nothing matters", and who are resigned to living out their last days in whatever comfort they can find in their welfare state. Their resignation is reinforced by their belief in "rule by experts"-- it allows them not to think, if nothing else.

Still others lack "forward-lookingness", if you will. They've been told that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket for 35 years now (since the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" study of 1972), and no doubt refuse to bring children into a world that will only get worse. The supposedly omniscient (ha!) bureaucrats and planners say so, therefore it must be so.

All three, separate as they are, do make for a toxic stew, as Andrea notes.

How to untangle them?

Damifino.

A good step would be to dismantle the welfare state, and force people to think about where their next meal is going to come from. There's nothing like the spectre of poverty to concentrate the mind of someone accustomed to a comfortable existence. And with the consequent "unsticking" of their mental transmissions, enough gears might start turning in enough heads to result in other salutary changes.

Marx got a lot of things wrong, but he was right in that a lot of things boil down to economics, one way or another-- "no workee, no eatee" and all that.....

" ...There's nothing left except to steal each other's research notes and buy carbon credits." Ooooh, I like that.

Old riddle: Q: If you peel an apple you come to the core. What do you get if you peel an onion?
A: Tears

I don't think he meant that people were literally believers in a pagan religion. Rather that they were missing something essential to being Christian.

(There are actually people now who claim to be "pagans," or "neo-pagans" or some-such. Really, I kid you not. That's somethng to give you tears. I'd call it nihilism with a coat of gold paint.)

" "unsticking" of their mental transmissions..." Yes, and it works much the same, I'd say, in the worldly sphere and out of it.

Ben Franklin would have agreed, and Newman was also a bit ahead of you; ....I must say plainly this, that fanciful though it may appear at first sight, the comforts of life are the main cause of our want of love of God; and, much as we may lament and struggle against it, till we learn to dispense with them in good measure, we shall not overcome it. Till we, in a certain sense; detach ourselves from our bodies, our minds will not be in a state to receive divine impressions, and to exert heavenly aspirations. A smooth and easy life, an uninterrupted enjoyment of the goods of Providence, full meals, soft raiment, well-furnished homes, the pleasures of sense, the feeling of security, the consciousness of wealth,—these and the like, if we are not careful, choke up all the avenues of the soul, through which the light and breath of heaven might come to us....

Hale, what I mean by "unbelief" is literally that -- a belief in nothing. Or not believing in anything -- that anything matters, anyway. I didn't mention atheists at all -- atheism is a belief system, after all. Don't try to make me slap that tar baby, I won't do it.

All Europeans are more comfortable than an average Chinese or Indian Just compare a european city to an indian city). Does it mean Chinese or Indian would be more spirtual?

I thought India was an extremely religious country. Are you telling us it's a hotbed of secular materialism? I find that hard to believe. As for China, if the Walmart sales are any indication the "comfort index" of that country should be climbing through the roof.

As a matter of fact it's difficult to gauge something like "spirituality," especially in a country where religious expression is severely controlled by the government, as China's is. In any case, there are upsurges in religious movements in China that have been giving that country's ruling body fits -- look up "Falun Gong," as well as the struggles Christian groups have had to be allowed to practice their faith.

Hale is right that this is about much more than religion or even spirituality. This is about belief in anything that is bigger than one's self. If you sat Bisaal's average Chinese or Indian down and told him that just about everything he thought he knew was wrong, that the history he'd learned was largely false, that the heroes he'd grown up admiring were actually villains, and that his entire culture and way of life were oppressive and wicked, he would likely look at you like you had lost your mind. Give the same lecture to a recent college grad in the U.S. and they are likely to nod approval through the whole thing.

Once upon a time virtually all Americans and many throughout the West believed that freedom wasn't just something that was nice to have, but something that was purpose-driven! Such thoughts were eloquently expressed in the speeches of Presidents from Jefferson to Lincoln and even Kennedy.

Very few people believe such things anymore. Few people in the West believe that the distinguishing characteristics of their culture contain any real Truth that is universal. Is it any wonder that we are slow to defend it and ambivalent about propagating it?

Mike,

Thanks for putting your finger on something I was only able to grope blindly for. I think much of Europe's problems stem not necessarily from a lack of a belief in a Supreme Being (call Him what you will), but from a reluctance to think of things or causes larger than yourself. It's that pinched view of the world that's got them in trouble.

Andrea,

No need to slap that tar baby. (It sounds messy, anyway-- I spent too many HOT Saturday afternoons painting my grandmother's porch roof with "roof paint". It's basically tar thinned with gasoline.) I make the distinction only because I come across "unbelief" usually in the context of "unbeliever", used in the sense of "one who does not believe as we do", rather than in the sense of "one who does not believe in any god at all".

I say "toh-MAH-toh", you say "toh-MAY-toh".... :)

I know several neo-pagans and I wouldn't call them nihilistic. Many of them actually do believe in things larger than themselves, at least the ones who have sincere beliefs and aren't just doing the trendy flavor-of-the-month religion or wanting to believe in fairies.

I think a lot of the rot at the soul is through equating happiness with material things. If you have your heart set on Really Cool Toy, and you get it, and somehow it doesn't make you happy, you begin to wonder if there is anything worth having. Naturally enough, people who get stuck in that mindset haven't been offered a good alternative.

Happiness isn't a new car, or an iPod, or a 60" plasma screen, and people who think that way have been spending themselves into debt... uh... that's another rant. But it isn't money that is the root of evil, it's "the love of money", which could be seen as the love of material things. Just hollow.

I find the "root causes of nihlism" discussion fascinating because I'm not really sure where I come down on it. As reasonable as the "material wealth causes comfort and complacency" argument is, I simply don't think that its the whole story. (It has always struck me that greater affluence makes raising children less "burdensome" and all things being equal we should be having more of them.)

My own view is that at the heart of bad policy is bad philosophy. Philosophy matters (a great deal) and the dominate philosophy for at least the past 50 years has been Postmodern and Existential. I also have the elitist view that ideas flow from the top down. Intelectuals come up with them, university professors disseminate them, and the "successful" ones wind up in editorial pages and eventually become conventional wisdom.

The quote form O'Connor that nihlism is in the very air we breathe is spot on and I believe it is because virtually all institutions in the West have effectively bought into Postmodernist/Existentialist thinking (even if they don't even realize they have done so). A simple google search of Existentialism leads to a Wickipedia definition of "a philosophy that negates the premise the life has an inherent, or a priori meaning, and hence requires each existing individual to posit his own subjective values."

Whether we like it or not, THAT has become conventional wisdom in the West. The regions where such thinking is the strongest are also the regions where the birth rates are the lowest. I do not believe the is an accident.

Sorry for the typos in the post above. Was in a hurry when I wrote it.

Good thoughts—better to get them down typos and all. I'd respond to them, but I'm in a hurry myself...