The challenge of secularisation

• With reference to Christianity, what might this secularisation of the legal and social aspects of life imply?

  1. Christianity is losing its authority in society, and secular organisations are taking traditional church roles - Christianity has failed to persuade people of its beliefs/moral values
  2. Christina moral values and attitudes have no become so much part of everyone’s thinking that there is no longer any need for specific religious reference
• what did the reformation enable?

  a more individualised approach to religion, by encouraging people to study the bible and interpret its meaning, rather than submitting to the church’s interpretation
• after the reformation…?

  joining the church became a matter of personal choice, rather than a routine rite of passage for everyone
• religion became…?

  more personal and less of something imposed by authority
• what did the enlightenment emphasise?

  reason, evidence and scientific thought - more individualistic approach, for the first time, people could claim to be atheists or to have no interest in religion
• what has growth in liberal attitudes (e.g. women’s rights and homosexuality) done?

  challenged the power and authority of religious institutions in uk society
• what is described as the phenomenon of secularisation?

  through 19th/20th C, people gained increasing freedom of belief and religious practice, and many chose not to follow religion at all = fewer people attending worship
• what did Feuerbach believe?

  theology is anthropology - religion is man-made and is a projection of man’s ideas, ideals and values
• Feuerbach believed that our conceptions of ‘God’ are always…?

  just projections of our own values, he fulfils our needto objectify our virtues and embodies our values
• what was Freud’s view?

  religion is an illusion, created by man to fulfil his ultimate wishes - ‘it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires‘
• what did Freud view religion as?

  a coping mechanism arising out of the need for a protective father figure, it is also used to cope with our fears e.g. about death
• What did Marx believe?

  Religion is the opium of the people, he believed that religion is a tool used by the ruling classes to keep workers in their place, with the promise of a better future in the afterlife
• Marx - opium as a drug was used to dull pain and get away from the troubles of the world so…?

  The alienated and exploited workers were ‘given’ religion in the same way - religion is a form of population control
• Basing arguments on reason alone removed the need for religion but many of the values expressed in secular terms were exactly like those that had been promised by the church (e.g. sanctity of life) so…?

  Secular morality followed on from religious traditions but with the religious elements removed, moral attitudes were accepted on a rational, rather than religious, basis
• What is individualisation?

  That people should be free in matters of religion, no matter what society they lived in
• What is modern secular humanism?

  A form of theology without God, with an ultimate belief that humankind improves through reason and evidence