by Alexandre Lefebvre in Aeon
People who tick the ‘no religion’ box on the census are the fastest-growing population of religious affiliation, or in this case, of non-affiliation. Surveys of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand show that 30, 53, 32, 40 and 49 per cent, respectively, of citizens in these countries claim no religion.
If you, like me, are unchurched and don’t draw your values from a religion, then where do you get them from? From what broad tradition do you acquire your sense of what is good, normal and worthwhile in life, and – if I can put it this way – your general vibe too? I’m talking about the kind of thing that, were you Christian, you’d just say: “Ah, the Bible,” or “Oh, my Church.’’’
In my book Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024), I argue that the unchurched in the Western world should point to liberalism as the source of who they are through and through. Liberalism – with its core values of personal freedom, fairness, reciprocity, tolerance and irony – is that society-or-civilisation-sized thing that may well underlie who we are, not just in our political opinions but in all walks of life, from the family to the workplace, from friendship to enmity, from humour to outrage, and everything in between.
https://aeon.co/essays/john-rawls-liberalism-and-what-it-means-to-live-a-good-life
Know Thyself 