RE: Murder mystery: what killed Christianity in Europe?
April 29, 2015 at 10:16 am
(This post was last modified: April 29, 2015 at 10:19 am by Regina.)
Hitchens made a good argument that it was the world wars;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBxo4kU6cgw
I'm not entirely sure I agree with him, since I think Christianity (or at least fundamentalist Christianity) was already on the decline in Europe by that point. However, I think in terms of the horror of the World Wars, it wouldn't be surprising if it made a lot of Christians question God. It's almost similar to how the black death in Europe led to people questioning the church. After disasters, religious people sometimes think "well where was God's intervention? He did nothing" and you get a decline.
I would say it was a long term decline rather than a sudden death of Christianity though. The reformation, the enlightenment and the horrors committed in the name of religion were all contributing factors. You also have nation-specific events, like the French Revolution, which many historians claim was the beginning of France's fierce secularism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBxo4kU6cgw
I'm not entirely sure I agree with him, since I think Christianity (or at least fundamentalist Christianity) was already on the decline in Europe by that point. However, I think in terms of the horror of the World Wars, it wouldn't be surprising if it made a lot of Christians question God. It's almost similar to how the black death in Europe led to people questioning the church. After disasters, religious people sometimes think "well where was God's intervention? He did nothing" and you get a decline.
I would say it was a long term decline rather than a sudden death of Christianity though. The reformation, the enlightenment and the horrors committed in the name of religion were all contributing factors. You also have nation-specific events, like the French Revolution, which many historians claim was the beginning of France's fierce secularism.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
