 Good evening, 840 here. So I was just thinking about how religion used to be known as a system of beliefs or a set of practices and that's just not how religion primarily functions now, and I'm not sure it's how religion has functioned for decades. Religion now is primarily an identity. So we live in an age of identity, so people are coming out as gay and it just seems mind-blowing to me that people would construct an entire identity, their whole life around being a gay. This one particular type of sexual acts that defines their identity. But we live in an age of identity, I guess, since the 1960s. So I think since the 1960s religion has not primarily been a set of beliefs. It's not primarily being a set of cultural practices. It's primarily an identity. So what Christians believe isn't really that important, right? It's an identity as opposed to being primarily gay or primarily Jewish or Muslim or an obstetrician, right? For many people they choose an identity as Christian. It's their hero system. It's the way that they belong to something that's going to outlast them. And so we all need a hero system. And so I think we should understand understanding religion much more as an in-group as an identity, right? It's not primarily about the beliefs. It's not primarily about the distinctive practices. It's not primarily about the teachings, the role models, the heroes and the gods. Christianity now is an identity. And so Christian nationalism, for example, completely makes sense when you understand that the role religion plays for most people in industrialized nations today and maybe other parts of the world. I haven't really thought about that. I'm just thinking about Australia, the United States, England, France, Germany. Religion primarily is an identity. I was talking to some friends and we grew up together. And in our circle, some of the people we knew took the beliefs of our Seventh-day Adventist religion very seriously. And they just couldn't imagine practicing Seventh-day Adventism as a healthy lifestyle as an identity, as an in-group club, right? As a nice vehicle for going through life. But that's what it is for most people. Most Seventh-day Adventists are lifestyle Adventists. They're in it for the lifestyle. Most Orthodox Jews are Orthodox Jews because it's an identity. It's a way of life. Most Christians are Christian because it's an identity. They're not primarily Jewish. They're not primarily Muslim. They're not primarily gay, right? They're Christian and the beliefs are not particularly important to 95% of people with a religious identity. And the practices may not be particularly important. The teachings and the the great prophets, right, may not be particularly important. And the sacred religious texts, right, they're important only to the extent that they buttress, support, reveal, deepen an identity, right? And today is incredibly atomized, confusing, you know, ever more economically efficient, right, ever more use of analytics, you know, ever more use of streamlining, you know, ever more making things more efficient by getting ways of getting rid of, you know, things that made the world, you know, magical and enchanted, but instead we're we're making the world ever more economically efficient. And we're streamlining and, you know, traditional practices, you know, don't hold up to, you know, modern, neoliberal economic analysis. We're frequently trashing them. So in this world, where we increasingly may feel atomized, economized, rationalized, removed from the enchanted and the magical, people are hanging on to identity. That's, that's the bulwark. It's, it's their hero system. It's a way that they can award our feeling insignificant because they belong to a community, a society that is eternal will go on after their death. Therefore, because you belong to this particular people, this particular group, right, you transcend your own personal insignificance, you have attached yourself to something that is eternal, that is least transcendent, that will go on past you. And so I think we need to start thinking about religion primarily as a source of identity. And then it makes perfect sense for Christians to become Christian nationalists and for Jews to be Jewish nationalists, and of course, Muslims to be Muslim nationalists. And it makes perfect sense for nationalism to attach itself to religion. And so just because you find certain texts in the New Testament that seem to militate against nationalism does not mean that it's irrational or stupid or a contradiction for Christians to become nationalists. Christianity today primarily functions as identity. Religion says the chat is only a part of one's identity, along with race, language, culture, right, and family tradition, diet, taste in things, people need to connect, right. And most of the bizarre behavior that we see around us, the, you know, acting out on social media, the, you know, the repellent acts that you see on the street or you see in the news, it's people's misguided, convoluted, wacky, weird, destructive attempts to connect, right, to get what religion offers, you know, which is identity, right. We are wired to connect. Religion is a powerful way for people to connect. So I'm just thinking about introverts, people who don't naturally form bonds with other people who don't naturally live in community, how bereft and lonely they become when they leave religion. So often belonging to an in group, it can mask, it can cover up, it can distract from fundamental depression, inability to connect with other people. And so you may think you've achieved, you know, intellectual revelations that your religion is false. And so you leave it. And now you feel cognitively virtuous. You are a pursuer of truth. You're no longer going to be part of the sheep, you know, led around in a herd by, by conman. But now suddenly you are bereft. You are lonely. You're not connected to other people. And so you wander alone in the world. This happens to a ton of people who leave religion. And the religion was covering up their own inability to form lasting connections with other people. Now you don't have friends. You don't have community. And you don't have the ability to form these things. And you are so lonely without religion. So you may turn to social media or religious extremism or, you know, conspiracy theories to try to connect. But instead of like being or exercised about the stupidity of religious beliefs and the stupidity of religious practices, you know, understand religion as identity. It's a, you know, a way of saying, hey, I'm not gay. You know, I'm not Jewish. You know, I'm not, I'm not just an atomized individual, you know, seeking to maximize my economic opportunities. But I belong to something that will go on past my life because you can be socially awkward. And as long as you show up to synagogue every morning for Minion and show up to synagogue in the evening for afternoon evening prayers and maybe attend a Torah study and go to a Jewish bowling league, right? You're going to be connected with other people. You'd have to be like totally socially inept, not to make friends in those kind of contexts. You can be a bachelor like me and you can show up to a synagogue in a foreign country and you'll very likely get invited home by the rabbi and you'll get to know the rabbi. You might get to know the cancer. You might get to know the family. You might get to know, you know, other people who, you know, joining the group for a Sabbath meal. And it's very hard in those situations not to feel connected. You then, you know, might go on a long walk together. You might decide to go to the cricket together. You might make plans to go to the beach together, to have coffee together, to check out a new restaurant together. So religion is a wonderful way for people to build an identity and have a sense of being connected to something greater than themselves. You know, some added meaning and purpose in their life, you know, more textures, you know, more layers to your life, more human connection. From that, you derive energy and inspiration. And from that human connection, you then form a bond, an ethic, right? But the ethics that drive you are not the ethics from your religious texts. The ethics that drive you are the power that comes from human connection, right? When you bond with people, you then form a morality around it. You then form a system of ethics around it, right? People fight, you know, in wars, you know, not primarily for propaganda reasons or ideological or philosophical reasons. They fight on behalf of their friends in their unit, right? They bond under extreme conditions with people in their military unit, and then they fight for each other. They fight for those personal connections. So you can say cultural Christianity and cultural Judaism is fake, but it is, you know, a key part of identity. And it's what drives people. Most people are not theological. Most people are not philosophical. Most people are not oriented to think about an invisible, you know, or knowing eternal or powerful God, right? Most people are going to have a very difficult time forming a meaningful relationship with an invisible or powerful eternal God. But they can form relationships with other people simply by showing up, you know, practicing their religion, you know, showing up to softball games for their religion, showing up to book clubs in their religion, you know, showing up for meals in their religion, showing up for walks with your religion. And then through those connections with other people, then that may open up paths to God that you would otherwise not have. You need, most people need God with skin on it, right? They need, they need human connection is going to be the most likely way that ordinary people will find a way to connect to God, to connect to, you know, eternal truths, you know, to the eternal verities, to the more substantial teachings of your religion, right? If they have good experience, if they're powerful experiences with, you know, people in their religion, they may then get inspired to go deeper in their religion. But what's going to inspire people, what's going to connect people, what's going to bring people back is friendship, right? Without friendship, without those connections, people are going to come back to church, synagogue or mosque, right? You're not connected to anyone, you're going to drop out, particularly during COVID. So many people stopped, you know, practicing, you know, reduce their religious observance during COVID and then haven't picked the habit back up. And they're just a little lonelier. They've dropped out of community or they've reduced their participation in community. And without that, their life is much more empty. And they have to kind of confront, you know, their own inability to connect. And they have lost much of their identity and strength and power that comes from connection that comes from, you know, having a clear, distinct identity as, you know, Christian, Jew, Muslim, something, Adventist, you know, whatever it is, when people don't have an identity, it can be knock them off their equilibrium. It can be quite disturbing. It can, you know, leave them wide open. And sometimes they can be wide open to great things. They can also be wide open to bad and destructive things. I agree it is healthy, but I can't lie to myself. And that's great for you, but we're not just talking about you. We're talking about the way religion works in practice for tens of millions of people, right? You may have a different experience of religion, but you have an incentive for understanding how things work for other people around you, not just religion in theory, but religion in practice. And religion in practice is primarily about identity. It's not primarily about God. It's not primarily about theology. It's not primarily about sacred text. It's not primarily about holy books. It's about giving people an identity and a way to connect with other people and an in-group and out of forming bonds with the in-group. Then comes an ethic. The ethics and morals primarily come from those bonds with other people and then come from the sacred texts.