Religion set 3

Crisis of Meaning

Fundamental crisis, led people to transformation

Holocene

a time of natural climate stability

Anthropocene

• controversial, no one knows when it started

• refers to a geological epoch in which humans begin to exert a decisive influence on our planet’s geology and ecosystems 

• transitions in the development of culture and religion

What was significant about the Industrial Revolution in terms of Modernity?

It is told to be the most consequential revolution in history 

Modernity characteristics

• fluid

• globalism

• democracy

• trade

• technological

• communication

• energy

Examples of communication throughout the years

Telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, fax machine, computers, satellites 

How are we able to change people’s minds about religion?

the way change happens is generational

We are currently in the midst of what crisis?

A meaning crisis that cannot be modified or fixed without our existing paradigm

How can we fix our current meaning crisis?

We need a whole new paradigm to replace the old one 

Scaling up of complexity taking place on a global scale include:

population boom, globalization, urbanization, social differentiation, economic prosperity, middle class, more specialization

We are moving towards a more integrated ______

global system

Scientific Revolution

• Hard to say when it emerged, between 1543 (Copernicus) and 1687 (Newton)

• dramatic shift to an objective mathematical vision

Isaac Newton

• huge contributor to the scientific revolution

• offered a reality that was unified, everything works according to the universal laws

• invented calculus and the first modern law of nature

Enlightenment period 

• the scientific revolution happens during this period 

• human reason is the tool to understand reality 

What is one way to describe the Enlightenment period?

a social and political reform

Major enlightenment thinkers

• Montesquieu 

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Adam Smith

Enlightenment key ideas

• individual freedom

• rational decision making

• separation of branches of government

Deism - the new rational religion

• believe God instills humans with rational capacity

• reach a self-evident conclusion through reason

• rejection of revelation, miracles, church institutions, dogma

• rules/laws of nature undermine everything

American Deism Thinkers

Jefferson and Franklin

Secularization

process of transferring things, such as values, property, and power from a religious sphere to the public non-religious sphere

Secularization theory

modernization leads to secularization. they are tied to each other and are almost inevitable

What did Clifford Geertz say about religion

viewed religion as a "system of symbols" that creates and sustains a culture's understanding of reality