Across the Western World there has been, over the last 50 years or so, a decline in perceived spirituality. Church congregations are generally falling, people who describe themselves as spiritual are generally older, with a shift away from faith by the younger generations. This is not a global phenomenon. The Catholic church is seeing global adherants rising, as is Islam, but despite repeated efforts from the mainstream religions, the decline is ongoing. There can be little dounbt that the Uk can now be considered a secular society, as can areas of America and Europe. However there is a note which must be added to this. Whilst mainstream religions seem to be on the wane there is a growing undercurrent of non-mainstream faith paths based losely around the "new-age" pseudo-philosophies that came out of the 1960's and '70's and the revival of Western mystery faiths grouped together under paganism.
There have been numerous proposals for both the decline in religion and the upsurge in alternative faiths, from a greater understanding of science, through the work of academics such as Richard Dawkins, through to the failure of the mainstream faiths to address relevant issues in a changing World, but there are flaws with all of these arguments. As is so often the case the real reasons will almost certainly be a conflation of a number of different reasons, each given different importance by each individual affected. The complexity of the interactions between conflicting though processes and the way those processes and causal positions are interpreted by individual minds is beyond our current capabilities to map in any but the most surface level.
What is interesting is that even as we approach an understanding of our World and its' processes, we still feel draw to something beyond, something more, something beyond the scope and remit of science. It seems to be built in, coded into our very DNA, fundamental to who we are as a species. I wonder why?
There have been numerous proposals for both the decline in religion and the upsurge in alternative faiths, from a greater understanding of science, through the work of academics such as Richard Dawkins, through to the failure of the mainstream faiths to address relevant issues in a changing World, but there are flaws with all of these arguments. As is so often the case the real reasons will almost certainly be a conflation of a number of different reasons, each given different importance by each individual affected. The complexity of the interactions between conflicting though processes and the way those processes and causal positions are interpreted by individual minds is beyond our current capabilities to map in any but the most surface level.
What is interesting is that even as we approach an understanding of our World and its' processes, we still feel draw to something beyond, something more, something beyond the scope and remit of science. It seems to be built in, coded into our very DNA, fundamental to who we are as a species. I wonder why?
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