There has been a History of Christianity on the BBC over the past few weeks and it’s been fascinating, well produced, not as weird and repetitive as American non-fictional TV and educational to me as a secular Apatheist. This blog entry may offend you if your a traditional religious person and I don’t mean to offend, just to offer my thoughts on the history and present day observation.
When I was growing up in England, there was always the Church of England (C-of-E) and everyone would proclaim that they were a member, but the majority would utterly fail to show up on Sundays for worship. They would never read a single passage in the bible and only know it by the vague stories passed down through cultural relationships.
My family never even suggested that it was a member of any church authority and we were heavily encouraged to seek our own path to what ever kind of spiritual enlightenment, through which ever gods we wanted. But mostly religion wasn’t needed or wanted int he day to day struggles.
Going through the history of Christianity though I’m starting to think that the Protestant rebellion that started with Lutheranism is turning in Europe into a strong apathetic secularism. Perhaps it’s the nature of the scientific mindset and the objective view on the world that we’ve tried to take a firm grasp of the inner workings of the world and apart from the deeply spiritual and emotional Evangelical Christianity and the authoritarian Catholic church.
Others are turning into a sort of weak Christian apathy where the nature of god wasn’t really up for question. There he is up there somewhere, unreachable and probably willing to lend a hand when you need him most (not when you ask for it the most). But the day to day working of the world is mainly a purely human pursuit, controlled by man with the problems of religion turning from spiritual philosophy into social issues where the nature of conflicts unravel from their supposedly religious origins.
On the other hand there has been a worrying revival of irrational thinking which is a counter to the original secular philosophies of the renascence. These seemingly bolster all manner of spiritual and non-spiritual believes, ranging from the super natural to the conspiratorial.
Your thoughts?