RE: Decline of Religion in the west
March 25, 2019 at 6:37 am
(This post was last modified: March 25, 2019 at 6:41 am by The Grand Nudger.)
If modernization causes an irreversible secular effect, then how do we contextualize the wider presence and acceptance of atheism in classical societies than their subsequent regional civilizations?
If these questions had been asked of classical greece they'd end up getting a range of answers that entirely spoofed the results we see today. There was little, if any, religious orthodoxy..so the question "what religion do you belong to/how often do you attend church" would have yielded blank stares. The question of what portion of their society believed in the gods we can't know..but we do know that atheism was significant enough to be both acknowledged and accepted in a way that still eludes some modern nations. On the notion of it;s importance..we'd likely have gotten an answer of "not very" - as a common theme in classical paganism was that the gods were complete assholes who could rarely, if ever, be pleaded with...and on the offchance that they could be ended up more like an evil genie than a benevolent force....important only insomuch as it was important to keep from being noticed by the gods- for the most part.
This society, in which the ratio of believers to non believers was likely greater than current levels, and in which the heavens were chock full of gods, from which many of our secular notions are derived..was in important ways more secular and accepting than the US is today and was certainly more secular and accepting than the civilizations that arose in the wake of their collapse.
If these questions had been asked of classical greece they'd end up getting a range of answers that entirely spoofed the results we see today. There was little, if any, religious orthodoxy..so the question "what religion do you belong to/how often do you attend church" would have yielded blank stares. The question of what portion of their society believed in the gods we can't know..but we do know that atheism was significant enough to be both acknowledged and accepted in a way that still eludes some modern nations. On the notion of it;s importance..we'd likely have gotten an answer of "not very" - as a common theme in classical paganism was that the gods were complete assholes who could rarely, if ever, be pleaded with...and on the offchance that they could be ended up more like an evil genie than a benevolent force....important only insomuch as it was important to keep from being noticed by the gods- for the most part.
This society, in which the ratio of believers to non believers was likely greater than current levels, and in which the heavens were chock full of gods, from which many of our secular notions are derived..was in important ways more secular and accepting than the US is today and was certainly more secular and accepting than the civilizations that arose in the wake of their collapse.
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