[oats]

globalization, in my humble opinion, is an inevitability - not only is it already entrenched, it's only going to extend further as the rest of the world develops. Religion will always have place in society, but the convergence forces of technology are far too powerful to be undermined by it. Specifically, religion isn't going anywhere, but now people aren't as geographically destined to be a part of one religion or another as they were a hundred years ago, because information disseminates so quickly.

That being said, religion, to me, is an important moral arbiter. I got suckered into a political/economic debate on Facebook today (ugh), and it concerned me. There's a growing tide of libertarianism that proposes freedom over any and all values, and I think that's a one-dimensional view of human existence. What about compassion for the weak and vulnerable? What about stewardship over our physical planet? These are important values that most major religions express. I think religions stem from a system of ethics that are often lost in our modern political climate, but are nonetheless vital to a meaningful human experience.