Opening event
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US church attendance has halved since the 1970s; UK Christians are now a minority. Research ties religious life to longer lifespans and lower depression. Is secularization liberation — or the loss of something irreplaceable? Two debaters, opposing sides — you score who makes the stronger case.
Monday, October 5, 2026 · 7:00 PM EDT
What's at stake
Whether declining religious observance is a net gain in reason and autonomy — or whether it hollows out the community structures that secular institutions haven't replaced.
The Matchup
Debater: To be announced
Debater: To be announced
Join the debate
Record a 60-second video on either side, or make it in writing. The strongest cases get featured before the live debate.
“The data on religious participation is consistently positive: regular attendance predicts lower depression, stronger community ties, more generous charitable giving, and higher life satisfaction. These effects hold across controls for income, education, and social connections. Secular substitutes have not replicated this package of benefits.”
“Religion answers questions science cannot: why am I here, why does suffering matter, what do I owe others. A culture that strips these questions of transcendent weight is left with nihilism dressed as liberation. The evidence of the meaning crisis in post-religious societies — rising loneliness, declining social trust, surging deaths of despair — is not incidental.”
“The most secular countries — Scandinavia, Japan, New Zealand — have the highest wellbeing, lowest violence, best gender equality, and strongest social institutions. Secularism combined with strong social policy demonstrably produces flourishing without requiring supernatural belief. The correlation between religiosity and wellbeing reverses at the national level.”
“Religion's community benefits are real but inseparable from its costs: it draws hard lines between believers and apostates, enforces conformity on sexuality and gender, and has historically been the primary institutional mechanism through which power controls populations. The community is available to those who conform; it is precisely not available to those who cannot.”
The Format
Standard SuperDebate: two people, cross-examination, moderated from start to finish.
4 min · PRO · opening case
4 min · CON questions PRO
4 min · CON · opening case
4 min · PRO questions CON
3 min · PRO
3 min · CON
3 min · PRO · final case
3 min · CON · final case
— · You pick the winner
Don't miss it
The debate happens live with real-time audience voting. Get one email right before we go live, with the watch link.
Premieres
Monday, October 5, 2026 · 7:00 PM EDT
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