Comedian Louis C.K. recently told the world why he doesn’t let his daughters use a smartphone—essentially believing the devices diminish interpersonal skills and lead to a discomfort with silence and inactivity. The YouTube clip of his 5-minute mini-rant has received more than 5 million hits since it was posted, and it’s been forwarded, tweeted and “liked” with an almost evangelical fervor.

Indeed, the Los Angeles Times‘ Meghan Daum believes clips such as C.K.’s are sating a hunger that religion used to fill.

“With some estimates showing that [fewer] than half of Americans attend religious services regularly, it’s to be expected that people are looking to other sources for inspiration, moral guidance and, as C.K. supplied so graciously, a reminder that angst is a universal condition,” she writes. “Increasingly, those sources seem to come in the form of video clips of comedians talking about texting and scientists talking about nirvana and commencement addresses delivered to graduating classes we’re not members of by authors we haven’t read. In other words, wisdom links are a form of secular churchgoing.” (Los Angeles Times)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.