Why is Europe becoming ever more secular?
As in American academia, European secularism is a mark of identity and (supposed) reasonableness. Europeans are surrounded by Islam on one side, Russia on another, and the United States across the ocean. Reasonableness is a natural identity for their smart people to slot themselves into. Yes state churches have made European religion bureaucratic and sluggish, but that is not the main story. Competitive religious alternatives, albeit unfunded by government, could have sprung up and captured hearts and minds but they didn’t.
Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed. Most people are only casually religious, but a chunk of every society has a tendency to be enthusiastically religious. European religions will restructure and make a comeback, at least among this chunk. Unlike in times past, I doubt if this segment will have the social status to pressure many others to go along, but it would still represent a fundamental shift in the European intellectual climate. This development would probably happen immediately, if not for the European fear of becoming too much like the United States. In any case the identity of reasonableness is not a sustainable meme for so many people in the long run; it doesn’t demand enough from its adherents. Hume wrote of cycles between monotheism and polytheism, had he lived later he could have tossed secularism into that mix.
And then there is Islam.
#32 out of 50.
By the way, Happy Fiftieth Birthday to the European Union. For all its bureaucracy, it has done more for human liberty in the last ten years than any other institution. I mean "enlargement" and Eastern Europe, of course.
This, from The Grauniad:
“On the controversial cartoons depicting Muhummad, Beck invoked the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s distinction between secular and post-secular societies. “The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion. In this sense most continental European countries seem to exist as secular states, while Britain and America seem to be post-secular – they see atheism is only one of the belief systems and that religion still is an important voice of humanity.†
“…it’s important to understand that not everybody is going to be an atheist.† Was that assumption ever plausible? “It was the assumption of most social theory. All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realise that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.†
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1707439,00.html
“Europeans are surrounded by Islam on one side, Russia on another, and the United States across the ocean.”
And because of that they choose not to believe in a god? Come on now, put some more effort in to it.
I’d rather congratulate the EWG than the EU, but that’s your choice
Also, there is no “real” secularism in Europe, instead there is a multitude of believes (like the belief in an almighty state, the believe that mother nature is suffering etc.). However, it is true that the traditional religious systems have suffered for quite some time now. But is this new diversity making it worse or better?
jdsm – that seems somewhat circular. You’re saying Europe is secular because they don’t believe in God. Isn’t that just the definition of secularism?
“Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed”
hmm… nothing I’ve seen, heard or read would support that view, Tyler. Do you have anything solid to back it up?
If anyone is interested in factual, data driven analysis of secularisation, have a look at the following (I’ll summarise them below as well):
Norris & Inglehart: Sacred and Secular
Cambridge University Press 2004, 2005
and
Inglehart & Welzel: Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy
Cambridge University Press 2006 (2005?)
In short, there is now plenty of panel data from World Values Surveys, and the big picture is as follows: Growth of GDP and reduction in fertility is clearly associated with the spread of “Secular-Rational” values, in general, all over the world. The values also change from “Survival values” to “Self-Expression values”. As people become accustomed to wealth and choice, traditions and religious beliefs step back. This will mean good things for democratization, womens’ rights, etc.
United States is just a slight (but not major) outlier in it’s religiosity. That’s why things may look different from there. But it will change.
Tyler’s prediction is quite likely to be wrong. Also Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” prediction is likely to be wrong.
The world is secularising. Big time. Only a long term global economic downslide would reverse the trend.
UK Econ – Most of the conflicts in the world today are caused by religion.
‘The world is secularising’?
The population groups that are the most non-religious (East Asian & Euro), are barely reproducing themselves. The religious hotspots (Africa, the Middle East, India and Latin America) have population growth through the roof. The world is becoming more religious.
While atheism may be true in a technical sense, it is completely useless, both socially and on the individual level. I don’t see it catching on in a big way, and in my view certainly should not be encouraged.
While atheism may be true in a technical sense, it is completely useless, both socially and on the individual level. I don’t see it catching on in a big way, and in my view certainly should not be encouraged.
That is the perspective that many philosophers have held since the Enlightenment: religion was irrational, but necessary to hold societies together. Many atheistic philosophers did not challenge religion because they viewed it as necessary.
You might be surprised to find that this is not necessarily the case. here is a debate between a leading Christian philosopher and a leading atheist philosopher and even the atheists conceded that the Christian easily won. Of course, even the Christians conceded that the atheist did not try to directly engage the current issues (think of Republicans who keep repeating ‘free markets work’ rather than engaging DeLong or Quiggon).
here is an article about modern arguments for the existence of God, for the curious.
Justin – thanks for the links. I see Peter Kreeft writes at the end of that book. I’ve read and listened to some of his stuff on Tolkien before, very illuminating. But his theology didn’t convince me. Anyway I’m sure Tyler doesn’t want this getting too off topic, so lets leave it at that.
France, I recall, is most atheist, maybe cos they teach philosophy in high school.
In one sense of the term, at least, France is not the most atheist country; Sweden is. 57% of the French population believes in God. Only 15% of the Swedish population does.*
I don’t know whether Swedes are taugh philosophy in high school, though I do know that many of the best philosophers here at Oxford come from that great Scandinavian country.
* Source: Grace Davie, ‘Europe: The Exception that Proves the Rule?’, in Peter L. Berger (ed.), The Desecularization of the World (Washington, D.C. 1999), p. 70.
I agree that ‘Tyler nods’ a bit here.
Population growth is much less important than it used to be, since a rapidly-increasing proportion of societal communications are technological (eg computers) rather than human. That said, the differentially lower reproduction of the most successfully-adapted people can’t go on forever without self-destruction.
The solution could be a resurgence of more traditional, pro-children, pro-family ideals (like the US evangelical Christians) – or technologically-enhanced methods of reproduction and child-rearing which are compatible with a successful modern lifestyle.
OK, explain to me this: How does an economist know anything more about the religious future of Europe than any bum off the street?
As far as I know, there is no commonly accepted economic model for predicting the future religious behavior of a nation or continent. In fact, I doubt Mr. Cowen knows of ANY such model.
So where do these confident predictions come from? “Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed,” Tyler declares. How can he be so certain? Some societies experience periodic waves of religious revival (America) while others are secular for many centuries (Japan). There’s no mean to revert to here.
So, back to my original question: Why is an economist qualified to talk about this at all?
“The Wall between the Church and the State is stronger in the USA than in Europe”
icm, you wouldn’t be identifying the umm… those people in Bavaria with the rest of Europe, would you?
Just thumbing through some Nietzsche (Sunday is philosophy day) and stumbled on this. Is there anything he DIDN’T get around to analyzing before everybody else?
Gay Science 347 – “Christianity, it seems to me, is still needed by most people in old Europe even today: therefore it still finds believers. For this is how man is: an article of faith could be refuted before him a thousand times,—if he needed it, he would consider it “true” again and again,—in accordance with that famous “proof of strength” of which the Bible speaks.”
In Spain, there is a educative reform in act, in the public school religious education, is paid by the State.Spain is part of Europe.
http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/73065/0/Congreso/ley/LOE/
In Italy the Courts have rejected suits like the Bavarian one.Italy is in Europe.
Poland wanted a reference to God in the Constituion.Poland is part of Europe
Teh most liberal abortion law in the war is the american law.In the non secularist country.While the secularist Germany Constitutional Court declared void a law based in Roe vs Wade
@UK_Econ:
[quote]1975 2005 Region
2.6 1.8 OECD
6.7 3.7 Arab states
5.0 1.9 East Asia
5.1 2.5 Latin America
5.6 3.2 South Asia
6.8 5.5 Sub Saharan Africa
4.5 2.6 World total
Q: Where are the biggest drops in Fertility rates taking place?
A: East Asia (-3.1),Arab States(-3.0), Latinos (-2.6), South Asia, mostly India that is (-2.4)
How will these stats look 30 years from now?[/quote]
Silly, silly argument. You’re exactly confirming what adrain said: atheist populations are shrinking (1.8 and 1.9 is below the steady state population growth level of 2.1), and religious populations are growing. The drop of the fertility rate doesn’t say that much about the population growth rate and even less about the composition of the world population. Again: women in religious regions are still driving net population [b]growth[/b]… given a average third world life expectancy of 55 yrs, we’ll see a far more religious world population until 2050. You can of course extrapolate the ‘trend’ of decreasing fertility rates in the third world but that doesn’t impress: at the current rate fertility there will drop below the replacement rate after 2050, meaning a more atheist world around 2100: I don’t expect to be alive by then.
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