Secularization is increasing. What is meant by secularization? What are three of the mechanisms that have contributed to the historical development of secularization? What is the prediction about secularization going forward?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

but should include a definition of secularization as the declining significance of religion. At the societal level, this has been the declining power of organized religion. At the individual level, it means individual experiences with religion have been less intense or important than other kinds of experiences. Some of the reasons that could be given: 1. Rise of scientific thinking as an alternative way of interpreting the world (the scientific perspective encourages skepticism and doubt, thereby challenging the certainty of religious belief); 2. The development of industrial society, particularly when it results in relative affluence and thus encourages materialism and downplays otherworldly concerns; 3. The rise of governments that do not mandate or promote an established religion; 4. The encouragement of religious tolerance, which leads to a “watering down” of religion in general and religious differences in particular; 5. The existence of competing secular moral ideologies, such as humanism. The combination of these developments has led theorists to predict that secularization will continue. However, there is some question that original predictions will hold true, and the United States continues to have a high level of religious belief, even though it is declining. The growth of Islam also counteracts this view and makes it look like secularization at the level it is seen in Europe is more the exception than the rule.