Secular religion
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Political religion. (Discuss) Proposed since February 2016. |
Secular religion is a term that has been used to characterize capitalism,[1] communism, and other nontheistic communal belief systems.
Communism as a secular religion
In 1936 a Protestant priest referred explicitly to communism as a new secular religion.[2] A couple of years later, on the eve of World War II, F. A. Voigt characterised both Marxism and National Socialism as secular religions, akin at a fundamental level in their authoritarianism and messianic beliefs[3] – as well as in their eschatological view of human History.[4] Both, he considered, were waging religious war against the liberal enquiring mind of the European heritage.[5]
After the war, the social philosopher Raymond Aron would expand on the exploration of communism in terms of a secular religion;[6] while A. J. P. Taylor, for example, would characterise it as "a great secular religion....the Communist Manifesto must be counted as a holy book in the same class as the Bible".[7]
Contemporary characterizations
The term secular religion is often applied today to communal belief systems – as, for example, with the view of love as our postmodern secular religion.[8] Paul Vitz applied the term to modern psychology, in as much as it fosters a cult of the self, explicitly calling "the self-theory ethic ... this secular religion".[9] Sport has also been considered as a new secular religion, particularly with respect to Olympism.[10] For Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, belief in them as a new secular religion was explicit and lifelong.[11]
In more recent times, global warming has been referred to as a secular religion by political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Richard Lindzen.[12]
See also
- American civil religion
- Atheist church
- Daoism
- Epicureanism
- Ethical naturalism
- Evangelical atheism
- Nontheistic religions
- LaVeyan Satanism
- Postsecularism
- Religion for Atheists
- Religion of Humanity
- Secular ethics
- Secular humanism
- Separation of church and state
- Spiritual but not religious
References
- ^ Kojin Karatani, Transcritique: On Kant and Marx (MIT Press: 2003), p. 212
- ^ Gentile, p. 2
- ^ F. A. Voigt, Unto Caesar (1938) p. 37
- ^ Voigt, p. 17–20, p. 71 and p. 98–9
- ^ Voigt, p. 203
- ^ Aron, Raymond. The Opium of the Intellectuals. London: Secker & Warburg, 1957, pp. 265–294
- ^ Quoted in Chris Wrigley, A. J. P. Taylor (2006) p. 229 and 202
- ^ U. Beck/E. Beck-Gernsheim, The Normal Chaos of Love (1995) Chap. 6
- ^ Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship (1994) p. 145
- ^ H. Preuss/ K. Liese, Internationalism in the Olympic Movement (2011) p. 44
- ^ B. W. Ritchie/D. Adair, Sport Tourism (2004) p. 1988
- ^ http://www.jpands.org/vol18no3/lindzen.pdf Global Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents, Richard Siegmund Lindzen Ph. D., Fall 2013.
Further reading
- A. Bergesen, The Sacred and the Subversive (1984)
- E. B. Koenker, Secular Salvations (1965)
- H. Kelsen, Secular Religion (1964)