Whatever and ever, amen

British logician Bertrand Russell was imprisoned for pacifism during the First World War. When his jailer asked Russell what religion he followed, Russell replied, "I am an agnostic." The jailer had never heard of that before, but shrugged it off and said, "Ah, well we all worship the same God anyhow, right?"\nAt least Russell and his jailer agreed on what a religion is, even if the turnkey couldn't conceive of someone harboring doubts about the existence of a god. \nThat assumption can no longer be taken for granted. One of the less-remarked trends of the past few decades has been the decrease in number of Americans who take religion seriously. According to the Pew Forum, young people think it's less important for the president to have strong religious views than do those aged 65 and over. Even many theists dislike religious intrusions into the public square: Large numbers of all age groups agreed they were uncomfortable when politicians talked about religion, the poll found.\nAs religion weakens, the number of people claiming an intermediate status for themselves grows. Calling themselves "spiritual," they associate themselves with a kind of squishy quasi-theology that irks both the fundamentalist and the unbeliever.\nWhat do these spiritual hipsters believe? It's hard to pin them down, as you know if you've ever tried to talk to them, but many claim to enjoy the "Dao De Jing" ("The Classic of the Way and Virtue"), supposedly written by the sage Lao Zi (who never existed, but no matter). But it's fair to question whether they've ever read this uber-indie holy book.\nThe famous opening lines of Lao Zi's work are profound and mysterious almost to the point of incomprehensibility -- they are, in short, cool.\n"The Dao that can be followed is not the eternal Dao.\nThe name that can be named is not the eternal name.\nThe nameless is the origin of heaven and earth.\nWhile naming is the origin of the myriad things."\nOther sections are as hard-edged as anything Machiavelli ever wrote. Consider Book 5:\n"Heaven and Earth are not humane,\nAnd regard the people as straw dogs.\nThe sage is not humane,\nAnd regards all things as straw dogs."\n"Straw dogs," in this context, refer to props in classical Chinese temple rituals which, after the ritual, were destroyed. Hardly a comfortable thought.\nBook 80 is also troublesome. In it, Lao Zi lays out his vision of a "small country with few people, who, even having much machinery, don't use it ... The people will grow old and die without visiting each other's land."\nFew Americans could long live in a village without machinery or freedom to travel. Many young Americans around here can hardly stand to live in Bloomington, or even Indianapolis, after all. Sticking them in a pastoral paradise for a week would probably kill them (if the infectious diseases didn't).\nIt's very American to experiment with faiths. Freedom of religion is the first liberty the Constitution guarantees. But traipsing about from theology to theology cheapens that freedom and denies people a settled, mature view of the world.\nThose people who don't traipse and who stay in the religion their parents chose without critically examining it though, are just as misguided. The "Dao De Jing" might be a better spiritual fit for you than your parents' scriptures (although I would enter a plea for the "Lun Yu" of Confucius).\nIt is never enjoyable to examine one's own views critically; it is even less agreeable to have someone else examine one's views (which is why Athens put Socrates to death).\nBut it is essential, nonetheless.