Page 383 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1684 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of
ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail
themselves for their own purposes. • Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

the advent of scientific research, which discredited pre- people in affluent western countries, especially in North
existing curricula and gradually compromised the influ- America, are God-believing and God-fearing, some-
ence of religious authorities. Concomitantly, however, times involved as evangelical, born-again Christians.
oppressive bodies, such as the Spanish Inquisition, tar- Residents of poor countries in the developing world,
geted any “deviant” private conduct or public expression often illiterate, also tend to be religious or subordinate
of thoughts critical of sacrosanct doctrines. to perceived wisdoms. Some disenfranchised people,
In the eighteenth century, Protestant discourse had a lacking the basic necessities for existence, renounce
considerable secular component. Virtues, expressed by earthly hope and seek solace in the afterlife. A lack of
God-fearing elites, substituted for clerical prescriptions. basic access to education deprives a huge proportion of
Virtues consisted of civic commitment, productivity, humanity from deliberating a more secular framework
thriftiness, and frugality aimed at personal benefit and for their societies, causing them to embrace intolerant
communal activism. Perceptions of what norms should fundamentalism.
guide common behavior were transformed. Virtue was
increasingly applied to the private sphere of ethical char- The Future
acter, thus largely replacing the sense of public duty, yet The personal, collective, philosophical, scientific, and
celebrating the accumulation of wealth. Morality and political quest to know the origins of life, the essentials
virtue were reduced at least to a degree, to a catalyst for of humanity, and the meaning of existence is permanent.
economic activity. This transition from spirituality to Similarly, the desire to find whether a deity exists, and, if
practicality was encouraged by the self-serving imperial so, what is the nature of its divinity, will continue in per-
systems of mercantilism. In part, this perceived cheapen- petuity. Such deep issues are seemingly insoluble.
ing of convictions and rituals by the British led Thomas
Itai Nartzizenfield Sneh
Jefferson (1743–1826) to support American independ-
ence and to espouse a separation of private practices of See also Enlightenment,The; Modernity
faith from public state affairs.

Marxism Further Reading
Karl Marx (1818–1883), a secular political and social Armstrong, K. (1993). A history of God: The 4,000 years quest of
maverick, lamented the destructive role of religion on rev- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: William Heinemann.
Asad, T. (2003). Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, and
olutionary political activism and rational ideological dis- modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
course. Subsequent totalitarian Communist regimes Beck, L. W. (1997). Six secular philosophers: Religious themes in the
thought of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, William James, and San-
celebrated atheism.The Soviet Union, for example, while
tayana. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes.
paying homage to fostering intellectual productivity and Bruce, S. (2002). God is dead: Secularization in the west. Oxford, UK:
promoting human dignity, mobilized their resources to Blackwell.
Motzkin, G., & Gideon, H. (1992). Time and transcendence: Secular his-
eradicate institutionalized religions and any semblance of tory, the Catholic reaction, and the rediscovery of the future. Dordrecht,
independent or critical thinking. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Ostwalt, C. (2003). Secular steeples: Popular culture and the religious
imagination. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.
Twentieth Century Pocock, J. G. A. (1985). Virtue, commerce, and history: Essays on politi-
Even with the increasing impact of globalization, a cal thought and history, chiefly in the eighteenth century. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
divergence of class orientations, regional practices, and Rajaram, N. S. (1995). Secularism:The new mask of fundamentalism: Reli-
national patterns is evident. Cultural freedoms foster gious subversion of secular affairs. New Delhi, India: Voice of India.
Silver, M. (1998). Respecting the wicked child:A philosophy of secular Jew-
permissive secular conduct and meaningful inquiries in
ish identity and education. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
urbane intellectual elites. Nevertheless, many ordinary Press.