Meditations: Religion and the Lack of It

I wrote earlier about how Stalinist the city is, and part and parcel of that feeling is atheism. Mongolia, or at least Ulaanbaatar, appears to be pretty irreligious. This isn’t entirely recent; the most prominent faith in Mongolia was generally Buddhism, which is pretty different from a “religion” as Westerners see it, and even when the great Khans were in power and had access to three major religions (Nestorian Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism), there was never a national dedication to any of them. 

So when Stalin came in, destroyed the monasteries, and attempted to eliminate religious practice, it was pretty effective, and much of the population of Ulaanbaatar today is practically atheist/agnostic. This isn’t noteworthy, I guess, but what is noteworthy is that it shows. My first couple days here, it struck me that the city was missing something, and I couldn’t quite figure out what. But then I realized: No church bells or calls to prayer, no cathedrals standing as a testament to a formerly religious world , no mosques. It might only be noticeable because of the other places I’ve been in the past year. Oxford is in some ways a collection of churches, with bells ringing most of the time (especially when you’re trying to study); Istanbul is defined as a meeting-point of different religions; and in Egypt, when the muezzin called, people made a point either to find a mosque or they got down and prayed where they were.

So this sudden lack of religious institutions—I’m feeling it. Of course, many parts of the US are irreligious, but New England still has its charming churches, Chick Fil-A is still closed on Sundays, and crosses dot the Midwest. Even New York and LA are marked by different types of worship; the skyscrapers of New York are a testament to commerce, and LA’s billboards (Lose one million pounds with Lap-Band!) and malls (from Armani to Abercrombie & Fitch outlets) display its worship of materialism and other superficial stuff. So it may not be religion exactly, but there’s an argument to be made that it is. (In 1989, Jill Dubisch wrote an article saying that the health food craze had all the necessary aspects of a religion; I’d like to see the same for NYC’s commerce or LA’s… LA-ness.)

Ulaanbaatar, then, is the first place I’ve been where I really felt the lack of religion. Where it really felt that they were missing something. So forget all the arguments you usually hear about religion and its benefits/downsides, about moral repercussions, inevitable conflict, self-righteousness, charity, etc. etc. This question is all about culture (as poorly defined a term as that is): What benefits does religion give to a society’s culture, its institutions and architecture and rhythm, and can those benefits be gained by a substitute instead? In today’s world, should those benefits be gained by a substitute instead?

 Not pictured: Churches, temples, or mosques.