> What replaces religion to fill this gap for a new generation who is not religious? (including myself)
> Something very clear, a philosophy of life of some kind that people can adopt to feel like they are part of something bigger, without that something being a fictional being.
The answer has revealed itself over the last few years: Progressive ideological activism (generally in pursuit of a long-off utopia).
The "something bigger" is the "progress" towards that utopia where all the evil -ists and -isms and -phobias will have been eradicated (along with those terrible people who believe them) and all the good humans will live in equality and diversity. It's a powerful idea, and while it has strong spiritual elements it doesn't posit an Abrahamic-like God. Yet it fills the psychosocial role that religion used to, while carrying forward the fundamental moral substrate of Christianity (the idea that the sufferer is more noble than the victor).
A minor side-religion is the climate change activist one, but that's been firmly muscled aside by idpol utopianism in the last 10 years.
You're right, I think that it's currently the most widespread form of what I'm trying to express.
However it lacks in character and clarity to be something that unites people. It's not enough of a way of life or way of thinking that can be adopted by a large part of the population.
Another reply mentioned "the diamond approach" and without even going into what that is, I also don't like the idea of anything being named.
It feels more like a boiling point where a group of people somewhere will rebel in a cultural and philosophic quiet revolution that spreads across society within a generation. It's too utopian obviously but it's a feeling of formatting the collective hard drive and starting fresh because it's just gotten too messy and cluttered and we've strayed too far down the wrong path.
> Something very clear, a philosophy of life of some kind that people can adopt to feel like they are part of something bigger, without that something being a fictional being.
The answer has revealed itself over the last few years: Progressive ideological activism (generally in pursuit of a long-off utopia).
The "something bigger" is the "progress" towards that utopia where all the evil -ists and -isms and -phobias will have been eradicated (along with those terrible people who believe them) and all the good humans will live in equality and diversity. It's a powerful idea, and while it has strong spiritual elements it doesn't posit an Abrahamic-like God. Yet it fills the psychosocial role that religion used to, while carrying forward the fundamental moral substrate of Christianity (the idea that the sufferer is more noble than the victor).
A minor side-religion is the climate change activist one, but that's been firmly muscled aside by idpol utopianism in the last 10 years.