“A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull’s blood, as did Julian the Apostate.”

I know what you mean, of course, but I sometimes wonder if, upon closer analysis, our culture is still religious in its own way. As you say, few cultures do not display some religious aspects. Therefore it’s not clear that cultures can really be not religious. There seems to be some tension in your thinking here between attempting to argue both that (a) all cultures are religious and (b) ours is not religious.

Someone who is almost never mentioned in discussions of modern religion, but who I think offers some really valuable insight, is Mircea Eliade. He defines religion as simply the distinction between sacred and profane. Of course, our culture still has many things it holds sacred, such as freedom, self-definition, identity, and so forth. That is our religion. I think it is more productive to speak in these terms, for a couple reasons.

One, it is simply more precise and correct. Two, Christians can avoid being lumped into the same group with, say, witch-burners and cow-worshippers as “religious.” I enjoyed Hart’s article, too, but it is also good to keep in mind that the God of Abraham is totally different in kind from any pagan god. It also forces “anti-religion” types to deal more honestly with the particular claims of each religion.

The issue of the supernatural is another thing. Certainly elaborate metaphysical theories are not popular today. But I think few people are really hardened materialists, either.