so every once in a while I get the
question what exactly does the religion
editor at CNN do did you like pray with
Wolf Blitzer or something for the record
I would totally pray with Wolf Blitzer
he’s a really nice guy but that is not
what I do what I do instead is I ask
people impolite questions about the
kinds of things you’re not supposed to
talk about at dinner parties like why do
you believe in God what do you pray
about and where do you look for meaning
in this world in 14 years of covering
religion I don’t think I’ve ever heard
any two people give exactly the same
answers to those questions
everybody’s got a slightly different
take and that’s especially true right
now you see some people believe that
we’re living in the early stages of a
religious revolution I’ll explain Lord
Jonathan Sacks a British rabbi has a
theory that every leap in communications
technology has corresponded with equally
large leaps and religion and culture the
first writing in symbols in ancient
Egypt Mesopotamia and elsewhere was
pretty much the birth of civilization
itself the development of the alphabet
in the Sinai desert correspondent with
the rise of monotheism the idea that
there’s one God in control of everything
instead of gods for the wind and rain
and love and lust and everything else
the move from Scrolls to books bound
together in pages like the Bible gave
early Christians an edge as they sought
to spread their faith across the vast
Roman Empire and the advent of the
printing press gave Martin Luther the
power to share his ideas across Europe
with unprecedented speed and volume
culminating in the Protestant
Reformation and then there’s us we’re so
busy in our lives sometimes it seems
like we don’t even realize we’re living
through a communications revolution
that’s every bit as big as those and the
thing that’s exciting and a little bit
scary sometimes is that we don’t know
yet what that will mean for our
spiritual lives but we do have a few
hints
according to nearly every survey taken
in the last decade most religions in
this country are losing members and some
are losing members pretty dramatically
the religions that are not losing
members are not necessarily gaining a
lot of new converts they’re mainly
better at retaining the members they
already have and they’re having lots of
babies but those babies may not grow up
to be religious believers if you look at
a graph of religious observance among
American generations it looks sort of
like a ski slope
you have the Silent Generation the
oldest folks at the top who are the most
religious and Millennials the youngest
and least religious down at the bottom
one out of every three Millennials say
they’re not affiliated with any
organized religion researchers call them
nuns
that’s not nuns like Catholic nuns with
a habit and rosary beads
that’s nuns like none of the above but
what’s interesting about Millennials is
that they’re not totally done with
religion just four percent say they’re
atheists eighty-five percent say that
they search for spiritual and religious
content online multiple times a day and
what that means is that you have this
rising generation of Americans who don’t
seem to be all that interested in the
old forms of religion but are still
hungry for spiritual knowledge and
experience and that many people say is a
pretty good recipe for a spiritual
revolution now I’m not saying that we’re
gonna see new religions crop up like
tomorrow instead we may see new or
reform movements within already
established religions like Buddhism or
Christianity or Islam but there are a
few people these days who actually are
trying to start new religions
particularly in Silicon Valley the
robotics engineer behind ubers
driverless trucks for example has
started a religion to worship and
artificial intelligence that he’s
building this AI he says will see and
know everything there is to know about
the universe and so while it may not be
able to answer our prayers
he says it
at least be able to answer our questions
researchers at Johns Hopkins and other
places are experimenting with
psychedelic drugs to see if they can
create or recreate mystical and
spiritual experiences in the lab and a
group of pastors again out in Silicon
Valley has started a church in virtual
reality which they hope might attract
the kind of people who would never step
foot inside a real church either because
they’ve had bad experiences at churches
before or they’ve never been to church
and they have no idea of what to do
there there’s so much hype about
religion and technology right now that
some people are calling it the nerd
rapture what’s interesting though is
that for many people change is can be a
really scary thing particularly
religious change the Protestant
Reformation for example led to decades
of bloody battles in Europe in our time
we’ve seen a spike in hate crimes
against Muslims against six against
almost every religious minority in this
country and this is happening just as
they become a bigger and bigger part of
the American population now experts who
study hate crimes say they’re not
actually driven by hate they’re driven
by fear and ignorance it’s a lot easier
to attack another religion or a
religious person if you don’t know that
much about them but the opposite is true
as well studies show that if you have a
Muslim friend for example you’re much
more likely to have a positive view of
Muslims and of Islam itself so what that
means is that the real antidote to hate
and fear may not be higher walls or
stronger police forces its knowledge and
that brings us back to rabbi sacks and
his point about spiritual revolutions
the reason that ours hasn’t really
gotten off the ground yet he says is
that the people who are most adept at
exploiting these new technologies
are doing it for all the worst reasons
they’re using hate and fear and
misinformation to try to divide us to
Pit one religion against another and
what we haven’t learned to do at least
not yet is use social media and the
Internet to bring people together to
teach us to overcome our fears of those
who look and pray differently than we do
but like I said we may be just at the
beginning of our spiritual revolution
which means that the future is pretty
much wide open and the next Martin
Luther or the next Buddha could be right
on the horizon
if religious history has taught us
anything it’s that stranger things have
happened
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
question what exactly does the religion
editor at CNN do did you like pray with
Wolf Blitzer or something for the record
I would totally pray with Wolf Blitzer
he’s a really nice guy but that is not
what I do what I do instead is I ask
people impolite questions about the
kinds of things you’re not supposed to
talk about at dinner parties like why do
you believe in God what do you pray
about and where do you look for meaning
in this world in 14 years of covering
religion I don’t think I’ve ever heard
any two people give exactly the same
answers to those questions
everybody’s got a slightly different
take and that’s especially true right
now you see some people believe that
we’re living in the early stages of a
religious revolution I’ll explain Lord
Jonathan Sacks a British rabbi has a
theory that every leap in communications
technology has corresponded with equally
large leaps and religion and culture the
first writing in symbols in ancient
Egypt Mesopotamia and elsewhere was
pretty much the birth of civilization
itself the development of the alphabet
in the Sinai desert correspondent with
the rise of monotheism the idea that
there’s one God in control of everything
instead of gods for the wind and rain
and love and lust and everything else
the move from Scrolls to books bound
together in pages like the Bible gave
early Christians an edge as they sought
to spread their faith across the vast
Roman Empire and the advent of the
printing press gave Martin Luther the
power to share his ideas across Europe
with unprecedented speed and volume
culminating in the Protestant
Reformation and then there’s us we’re so
busy in our lives sometimes it seems
like we don’t even realize we’re living
through a communications revolution
that’s every bit as big as those and the
thing that’s exciting and a little bit
scary sometimes is that we don’t know
yet what that will mean for our
spiritual lives but we do have a few
hints
according to nearly every survey taken
in the last decade most religions in
this country are losing members and some
are losing members pretty dramatically
the religions that are not losing
members are not necessarily gaining a
lot of new converts they’re mainly
better at retaining the members they
already have and they’re having lots of
babies but those babies may not grow up
to be religious believers if you look at
a graph of religious observance among
American generations it looks sort of
like a ski slope
you have the Silent Generation the
oldest folks at the top who are the most
religious and Millennials the youngest
and least religious down at the bottom
one out of every three Millennials say
they’re not affiliated with any
organized religion researchers call them
nuns
that’s not nuns like Catholic nuns with
a habit and rosary beads
that’s nuns like none of the above but
what’s interesting about Millennials is
that they’re not totally done with
religion just four percent say they’re
atheists eighty-five percent say that
they search for spiritual and religious
content online multiple times a day and
what that means is that you have this
rising generation of Americans who don’t
seem to be all that interested in the
old forms of religion but are still
hungry for spiritual knowledge and
experience and that many people say is a
pretty good recipe for a spiritual
revolution now I’m not saying that we’re
gonna see new religions crop up like
tomorrow instead we may see new or
reform movements within already
established religions like Buddhism or
Christianity or Islam but there are a
few people these days who actually are
trying to start new religions
particularly in Silicon Valley the
robotics engineer behind ubers
driverless trucks for example has
started a religion to worship and
artificial intelligence that he’s
building this AI he says will see and
know everything there is to know about
the universe and so while it may not be
able to answer our prayers
he says it
at least be able to answer our questions
researchers at Johns Hopkins and other
places are experimenting with
psychedelic drugs to see if they can
create or recreate mystical and
spiritual experiences in the lab and a
group of pastors again out in Silicon
Valley has started a church in virtual
reality which they hope might attract
the kind of people who would never step
foot inside a real church either because
they’ve had bad experiences at churches
before or they’ve never been to church
and they have no idea of what to do
there there’s so much hype about
religion and technology right now that
some people are calling it the nerd
rapture what’s interesting though is
that for many people change is can be a
really scary thing particularly
religious change the Protestant
Reformation for example led to decades
of bloody battles in Europe in our time
we’ve seen a spike in hate crimes
against Muslims against six against
almost every religious minority in this
country and this is happening just as
they become a bigger and bigger part of
the American population now experts who
study hate crimes say they’re not
actually driven by hate they’re driven
by fear and ignorance it’s a lot easier
to attack another religion or a
religious person if you don’t know that
much about them but the opposite is true
as well studies show that if you have a
Muslim friend for example you’re much
more likely to have a positive view of
Muslims and of Islam itself so what that
means is that the real antidote to hate
and fear may not be higher walls or
stronger police forces its knowledge and
that brings us back to rabbi sacks and
his point about spiritual revolutions
the reason that ours hasn’t really
gotten off the ground yet he says is
that the people who are most adept at
exploiting these new technologies
are doing it for all the worst reasons
they’re using hate and fear and
misinformation to try to divide us to
Pit one religion against another and
what we haven’t learned to do at least
not yet is use social media and the
Internet to bring people together to
teach us to overcome our fears of those
who look and pray differently than we do
but like I said we may be just at the
beginning of our spiritual revolution
which means that the future is pretty
much wide open and the next Martin
Luther or the next Buddha could be right
on the horizon
if religious history has taught us
anything it’s that stranger things have
happened
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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