>
> --- 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.
> >
> > Doug
> >
>
> Well, that's what the may say in surveys, but I have
> my doubts as to whether it's actually true. I believe
> that huge majorities of Europeans are secular the way
> I believe huge majorities of Americans are deeply
> religious; not really, they're saying what society
> says they would say. And discarding traditional
> religions does not mean you have necessarily become
> areligious -- you have likely shifted your
> irrationality elsewhere. Maybe -- this is all yanked
> from my nether regions, but it makes sense to me.
>
>
Secularism and religious belief can coincide. The rise of secularism in
Europe is mainly a function of the distance people have stepped away from
organized religion. But I have met Italians and Greeks who don't believe in
the Church (Catholic or Orthodox) but believe in the "evil eye." So it is
good to remember that Homo Sapiens as a species lived with various religious
experiences and belief, but without organized religion, for most of the time
since its emergence. The fact that a large portion of Italians (for
example) no longer believe in the organized religion of their country does
not mean that they don't have belief systems. It was my impression that
belief in "god" is still high in Italy even if belief in Catholicism has
dropped off.
But there is a confusion here. Just because people break away from traditional religious belief systems doesn't mean that they have broken away from all belief-systems with religion-like resonance of transcendence, symbolism and superstition. Nationalism is often a belief-system with religious-like qualities. (Bertrand Russell in his "Sceptical Essays" recognized this and made arguments against nationalism part of his arguments against religion. Compare this to people such as Dawkins, Dennet and Hitchens, who do not include arguments against nationalism in their essays into this subject. Nationalism in my judgment is a far more dangerous superstition than old-fashion religion.)
I am not aware of any study that traces the rise or fall of these other religion-like belief systems in Europe along with the decline of traditional organized religion. And how would such belief-systems be tracked in the first place?. We can ask people questions about their various superstitious beliefs.... astrology, the Virgin Mary, the great mother, the evil eye, etc. But including nationalism, post-modernism, certain forms of beliefs in the existence of "free markets", as forms of superstition as I would is certainly an ideological choice. (The quote from Judith Butler in the other thread strikes me as superstitious mumbo-jumbo equivalent to the kind of Catholic Theology that the Jesuits attempted to indoctrinate me with in my youth. And such a determination, as mine, is certainly an ideological choice along with including nationalism or "free markets" as a form of superstition. But it doesn't mean that these belief systems are any less religious-like in their function.) So how are we to know whether the rise of secularism in Western Europe actually tracks a decline in religious like belief-systems and superstitious narratives? It's possible that such declines are taking place but I doubt it at the moment.
It is my hunch that in order to get along in life practically all of us most of the time do need a comprehensive belief system of some sort and it is the "belief--system" that is fundamental and universal and that we don't shed, and not any particular kind of religious experience or practice.
Jerry