Three major religions / worldviews?

[Poltergeist]

I was inspired by this thread (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6945), but by some other discussions as well.

Frequently one may hear that in today's "Western world" there is some kind of battle between Christianity and atheism, whereby different stands are taken by various participants in discussion on the matter. Some triumphantly proclaim that "the process of secularization is marching forward" and that "Christianity is in its death throes", others deplore that situation (churchmen, etc). On the other hand, there is some whinging and cringing from certain prominent atheists, who complain that religion is on the rise again and that "rationality" is on the retreat. An interplay of triumphant and "victimistic" (posturing as victim is a fashion these days) attitudes.

But, are things as simple as that?

I think not. My contention is that in today's Western world (which culturally includes Russia as well), three religions / worlviews are battling each other. Apart from the two already mentioned, there is a third one, which I will call here "neospiritualism". During my lifetime I've come across many people (and stumbled into much written material dealing with that), who believe in God, or some kind of god(s), or "something", or providence, or some "higher principle", or supreme spirit, or whatever, without being Christians. Some of them have a certain kind of disdainful attitude towards both traditional Christianity and traditional atheism (associated with materialist scientism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism)), many are attracted towards a mixture of some pagan revivalism, Hinduism, esoterism, New Age, eclectic philospohy etc.

Of course, I am aware of the limits of this kind of discourse. First of all, atheism is not religion (though some of its varieties are tending towards strongly religious attitudes) and is not a unitary phenomenon (it has several versions). As for Christianity, taking it as some unitary "religion" is also in a way misleading because there are many varieties of it, with different theological currents, very important differences in some cases (not mere hairsplitting) and having deep influence of how people belongning to various Christian denominations see the world and God. So the term of Christianity is here to be understood broadly, as sticking to some very basic Christians principles, something most denominations agree upon. Here I don't mean to involve debate on "who are true Christians" and similar (a topic for some other discussion). Finally, the very notion of "neospiritualism" is very vaguely defined in this context.

In other words, I am aware of simplifications and crude generalising tone (Christianity vs. atheism vs. neospiritualism) inherent in this kind of discussions, but I still think it is legitimate to discuss in such terms, because these divisions seem to be socially important and relevant.

Note: I am not interested here in the issue of Islam and Muslim immigrants and in their future possible influence on spiritual development. This is about the internal divide within the Western/European civilization.

[Loki]

Good thread idea.

I understand what you're getting at. What one needs to grasp, is that most "Christians" seem to be nominally so -- whether they go to church / attend mass or not. It's only a small percentage of self-identified "Christians" who are practising their religion, or actually believing in God. Many people think of Christianity as some sort of Western/European cultural bastion -- and especially nationalists and ethnic patriots would go on about "Christian culture/civilization", even when they are only nominally involved in the religion. It is for this reason why one gets the absurd classifications of "Catholic atheist" or "Protestant atheist", or "Christian atheist". Religion in Europe seems to be first and foremost about cultural identification. It is therefore no wonder that Christians and atheists can happily post together on a forum like this, and still feel some sort of cultural bond.

[Lutiferre]

Good thread idea.

I understand what you're getting at. What one needs to grasp, is that most "Christians" seem to be nominally so -- whether they go to church / attend mass or not. It's only a small percentage of self-identified "Christians" who are practising their religion, or actually believing in God. Many people think of Christianity as some sort of Western/European cultural bastion -- and especially nationalists and ethnic patriots would go on about "Christian culture/civilization", even when they are only nominally involved in the religion. It is for this reason why one gets the absurd classifications of "Catholic atheist" or "Protestant atheist", or "Christian atheist". Religion in Europe seems to be first and foremost about cultural identification. It is therefore no wonder that Christians and atheists can happily post together on a forum like this, and still feel some sort of cultural bond.

Because religion lies at the foundation for the social, cultural and moral order of any ethnic people or society. Therefore, if a society really has a religious attitude, that religion means more than just belief or nominality, but means the very rock and foundations of social and cultural adhesion. If someone "breaks out" and rebels against the predominant religious attitude, he on the same time rebels against the entire social, cultural and moral order of his ethnic people, and subsequently against his ethnic people (for the time being). Such a rebellion can of course be driven by patriotism if one believes in enlightening ones own ethnic people with the truth, even if it means temporarily being a black sheep.

It's worth noting that the same is the case for the "secular" ideal of atheistic societies.

[Liffrea]

It is, perhaps, difficult to pick out any overall pattern here, but some points are worth bearing in mind.

Firstly the current plurality of religious thought in Europe (particularly Western Europe) isn’t unique in European history. Before the imposition of one code of Christian dogmatism in the Roman Empire, the Greek, and later to an extent, Roman world enjoyed relative freedom in religious and philosophical thought, religious toleration itself wasn’t uncommon, the “despotic Orientalism” of the Persians allowed for religious toleration as well, but it’s questionable if the centralisation of Persia would ever have allowed the diversity of thought one found in Greece, could the relative atheism of Epicurus have arisen any where outside of Greece?

Second the diversity of religious opinion isn’t unique to Europe, Islam is far from a monolithic religion, Buddhism has many nuances of thought, Japan has achieved a religious blend in Shintoism-Buddhism that has some resemblance to how Christian theology layered onto indigenous European traditions.

Perhaps what we are seeing isn’t so much a decline in spiritualism as such but more a decline in unthinking adherence to dogma and authority?

[Poltergeist]

It is, perhaps, difficult to pick out any overall pattern here, but some points are worth bearing in mind.

Firstly the current plurality of religious thought in Europe (particularly Western Europe) isn’t unique in European history. Before the imposition of one code of Christian dogmatism in the Roman Empire, the Greek, and later to an extent, Roman world enjoyed relative freedom in religious and philosophical thought, religious toleration itself wasn’t uncommon, the “despotic Orientalism” of the Persians allowed for religious toleration as well, but it’s questionable if the centralisation of Persia would ever have allowed the diversity of thought one found in Greece, could the relative atheism of Epicurus have arisen any where outside of Greece?

Second the diversity of religious opinion isn’t unique to Europe, Islam is far from a monolithic religion, Buddhism has many nuances of thought, Japan has achieved a religious blend in Shintoism-Buddhism that has some resemblance to how Christian theology layered onto indigenous European traditions.

Perhaps what we are seeing isn’t so much a decline in spiritualism as such but more a decline in unthinking adherence to dogma and authority?

Well, that is exactly my point. I didn't say spirituality was on the wane, but that, on the contrary, it is alive and well in various non-Christian forms which I assembled under an umbrella term of "neospiritualism".

No, it is not unique to Europe, far from that.

I was just drawing attention to this "third religion" of the western world, which is usually overlooked in all kinds of official or semi-official surveys.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Lajos Kossuth
I was just drawing attention to this "third religion" of the western world, which is usually overlooked in all kinds of official or semi-official surveys.

I don’t believe it’s overlooked, I believe it’s very much acknowledged, but with the continual erosion of Christian authority alternative beliefs are often lumped within the same, so that what we have is a simpleton “God vs Science” argument, which in my view is ignorant in the extreme and personally I’m amazed by seemingly intelligent people becoming bogged down in such emotive nonsense, certainly reason seemingly is lost with such blinkered views.

[Poltergeist]

I don’t believe it’s overlooked, I believe it’s very much acknowledged, but with the continual erosion of Christian authority alternative beliefs are often lumped within the same, so that what we have is a simpleton “God vs Science” argument, which in my view is ignorant in the extreme and personally I’m amazed by seemingly intelligent people becoming bogged down in such emotive nonsense, certainly reason seemingly is lost with such blinkered views.

In that case they can hardly be called even "seemingly intelligent", let alone "intelligent".