Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
But if it's so fundamental, why have so many of us shed it? Most
of Western Europe and Japan, and even some 14% of Americans are more
or less secular.
I didnt say it was. It's one of those undecidable things. The atheism of our age, for people like us, is primarily directed against Judeo-Christianity. I dont think any of us care that much whether there is or isn't a universal life force, or some other kind of spiritual entity. We just don't like the organized forms of religion.
At the same time, the religious need, if there is such a thing, could take other forms in a secular culture -- like "self-improvement", vegetarianism, punk, or other forms of drop-out living. Remember Woodstock? And Gray makes the valid point that totalitarianism is partly a kind of debased religion.
Bob
On Jun 3, 2008, at 9:44 AM, Robert Wrubel wrote:
> Didn't Freud say that religion arose out early childhood experience
> -- most generally, out of an inability to give up the comforting
> sense of a world centered on "me" and managed by protective (or
> punishing) dieties?
>
> This is a broad enough description to apply to primitive
> societies, and it's hard to say whether it's a cultural formation
> or a private need.
But if it's so fundamental, why have so many of us shed it? Most of Western Europe and Japan, and even some 14% of Americans are more or less secular.
Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk