Does Religion Face a Challenge Now that is Unique in the history of the world?

[Dimmesdale]

Does religion (and I'm sure Christianity can be singled out quite prominently, but this isn't limited to one religion, I think) face an "unprecedented" challenge hitherto unknown in the history of the world? Such that the enterprise of religion cannot be maintained; that it sinks under the weight of too many challenges which deaden and vitiate it, to the point that religion is virtually impotent. And that this is something which cannot be compared to similar challenges that religion has faced.

I have heard it said that we do not live in such times. That we lack any frame of reference for saying that our situation is unique. Religion has always faced opposition. Human nature, such that it is, is very often averse to religiosity, can't handle it, or actively opposes it. Human nature is finite, fallen, etc, and this same fallenness simply manifests itself in different ways, at different times and places, but human nature itself is a constant. So why think, again, that our time is special in anyway?

Personally, I think this is a bit of a rose-tinted view. This is because this response blithely passes over the bulk of reality that we have witnessed already in the 20th century, to our time, and the whole confluence of factors which have accumulated and aggregated themselves over and beyond single issues, to the point that we are dealing with an entire worldview which runs counter to the selfless ethic espoused in religions, and perhaps Christianity particularly..... The phrase "God is dead", if it has content, must be applied to our time now, if it was applicable 150 years ago. Is God Dead? In some sectors, I would say, yes. But hardly anyone wishes to explore at length what this means, or say that it impacts their religion of choice. I am wondering what people think.

Is the Religious Crisis, over the past 10 to 15 years, unique?

[RugMatic]

Does religion (and I'm sure Christianity can be singled out quite prominently, but this isn't limited to one religion, I think) face an "unprecedented" challenge hitherto unknown in the history of the world? Such that the enterprise of religion cannot be maintained; that it sinks under the weight of too many challenges which deaden and vitiate it, to the point that religion is virtually impotent. And that this is something which cannot be compared to similar challenges that religion has faced.

As thou art in church or cell, that same frame of mind carry out into the world, into its turmoil and fitfulness___ Meister Eckhart.
As long as the world has turmoil and fitfulness religion will thrive. The only challenge that would "vitiate' religion is the riddance of suffering.

[Dimmesdale]

As thou art in church or cell, that same frame of mind carry out into the world, into its turmoil and fitfulness___ Meister Eckhart.
As long as the world has turmoil and fitfulness religion will thrive. The only challenge that would "vitiate' religion is the riddance of suffering.

Yes... I would agree that religion itself will survive, so long as human beings feel CHALLENGED by suffering.... I hope we never get to the point of Huxley's Brave New World. In fact, I am sure we never will. That is my personal view.

That said, I still think religion can be greatly eroded or reduced in vigor depending on the time and place.

[A Freeman]

All organized religion will soon be destroyed. So yes, the corporate fictional business model known as organized religion is facing a unique and insurmountable challenge, the likes of which it has never faced.

The Coming Destruction of ALL Organized Religion

[William]

[Replying to Dimmesdale in post #1]

The phrase "God is dead", if it has content, must be applied to our time now, if it was applicable 150 years ago. Is God Dead? In some sectors, I would say, yes. But hardly anyone wishes to explore at length what this means, or say that it impacts their religion of choice. I am wondering what people think.

What exactly does the phrase mean? Perhaps it can be sourced and in doing so help us to understand...

A good way to begin unpacking this is to return to its origin in Friedrich Nietzsche’s writing, specifically in The Gay Science (Section 125, “The Madman”) and later echoed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. When Nietzsche says “God is dead,” he is not claiming that a literal deity has perished. Rather, he is diagnosing a profound cultural shift:

The phrase means that belief in the traditional, metaphysical God, particularly the Christian God of the West — has lost its power to shape moral, social, and existential frameworks. In Nietzsche’s view, this “death” was not caused by atheists, but by the very progress of reason, science, and secular morality which made God redundant.

Here’s a bit of the original context:

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?"

So when Nietzsche says “we have killed him,” he’s pointing to how modern humanity, by relying on Enlightenment rationalism, science, and individualism, has undermined the foundations that once supported the idea of an absolute moral order anchored in a particular understanding of "God".

To understand if “God is dead” still applies today, we must ask:

What kind of God was “killed”?

What has replaced that, in shaping moral authority or existential meaning?

Has the shadow Nietzsche spoke of — residual belief, ritual, or yearning — disappeared?

The question isn't just whether people still believe in a particular idea of God, but whether that belief matters structurally in the way it once did. If belief is now optional, aesthetic, or therapeutic — instead of absolute, collective, and foundational — then Nietzsche’s statement may be truer now than ever, even if more people say they “believe.”

If the so-called "death" of God refers not to the end of a real divine presence but the collapse of belief in a construct that always served human social, moral, and psychological needs, then one could argue:

God was never alive in the way people thought but only functionally alive as a projection, a structure, a mirror of our desires and fears, institutionalized as sacred truth.

This suggests that the “living God” was always an ideological centerpiece used to organize culture.

What “died” wasn’t a being, but the illusion that this being was metaphysically real and not structurally constructed.

Belief, rituals, and scriptures were human meaning systems, not divine broadcasts and what’s changing now is only our awareness of that fact.

In this light, Nietzsche’s “God is dead” becomes a kind of belated realization as the mask slips, and what we see is ourselves behind it.

So yes, if religion has always been a reflexive myth-system, then the death is not of a deity but of our naïve relationship to myth. The “old God” was “dead” from the start — only animated by belief.

What is discovered in this is that whatever the "god" was, it is still not dead - it has simply - through humans taking the costume off standing fully alive in their unhidden actions, even on the current world stage...