news-record.com

A combination of our consumer-related culture and a shift from doctrine to experience as the tie that binds people to their faith has led to this phenomenon. I am not surprised. I have changed my religion about every ten years or so, and am now exploring the prospect of doing without one. However, I am unusual in that my changes came about for philosophical reasons, not for any reasons cited in the article. I never could browbeat my mind into shutting up for long, so I had to give up my various fundamentalisms (Catholic and Protestant).

Is this a matter of "consumer culture" seeping into the religious life of America? Or is it an actualization of the core American principle of "freedom of religion"? Or perhaps it's simply a matter of America slowly joining the rest of Western civilization in the process or relaxing its attitude regarding the personal nature of religious beliefs? Or a mixture of them all...?

Regardless, I have lived with fluctuations in my religious life for several decades. It's nowhere near as bad or scary as some folks seem to fear. And it really doesn't change your basic nature, as some might claim. All such changes do is change the terms in which you make moral decisions.