Whilst Humanism is the only universal fact in the world, even in its different interpretations of how to live it, and religions with their hundreds of gods and claimed divine connected leaders, stating to be the only truth and rule on earth, superstition and imagination still guides the minds of many leaders and countries. Non-Religion, Non-Belief and Secularism is yet a rising force, but it is still not seen and recognized by the average population, because the more Humanism and Atheism is rising, the more the religious groups feel the need to promote their mind sets. The most simple, yet most illogical approach, is to stigmatize the Non-Religious as evil, satanistic or demonic. On daily basis we read and hear about the terror, be it in a small family scale, a medium community level or on a global approach, religion does to peoples. Religions fighting each other, suppressing and punishing peoples, just for what they are, and although all religions with their gods claim to be the right and true religion, with a caring and loving goddess, never ever has that divine come down to our earth to intervene and put an end to the twisted minds executing the torture, discrimination and killing of peoples who just don't belong to their mind sets. Religions are constantly at war, and if it is not with other religions, it is with a devil, a demon or evil spirits. It seems humans are in need of an enemy, someone or something to blame. And again, although the gods are portrayed as supernatural, all knowing, equipped with all powers one could desire, they have not managed to eliminate the evils they mention in their books. And of course they can't, as what is non-existent cannot be removed. Not too long ago, the Fascist government of Germany declared the Jews and the Homosexuals as the enemy, giving them the right to follow and kill millions. Later, and ha;f way through the 20th century, the Communist World Power Russia was the enemy, and vice versa, the Capitalist West, with its leading nation, the USA. Yet since the fall of the iron curtain, and the fall of Communism in the East, the new enemy is Terrorism, specially Islamic Terrorism. The same way the enemies by regime are no longer opposed when dismantled, the same way religion would break, if its enemy is no longer valid. Religion in many parts of Europe is declining, because it has gone through several steps.
Secularism, the separation of church and state was the first, spearheaded by Napoleon Bonaparte in the 18th century in France. Then later the bible was slowly changed in its views, from literal to symbolic. Declaring a hell as symbolic, a devil and many so called miracles, took power from the so called holy book, supplying it with less power than in former times. Finally the development of science, being able to explain more of the natural phenomena, the proof that we don't depend on miracles, but on human actions, and the physical and biological explanation of our world, reduced power again. We are now at a crossroad, and our world is dividing into two. On one hand, the group of Non-Religious peoples have climbed to rank three in the world, after Christianity and Islam, and the countries with a religious dominated government are now more visible defending their rules. When a rat, that is normally peaceful, as forced into a corner, it gets aggressive. Religion still benefits from a huge uneducated world population, but with the Internet, self education and enlightenment has become borderless.
Europe is in an unstoppable trend of reaching religiousness, and next the all of the mentioned in the latter, general wealth and stable social security supports this trend. Nobody needs to pray, if medical services are available for all, if food is available and education is free and with unlimited access. Prayers are cheap gap fillers religions offer, to connote a reward and a hope without having to do anything but put trust and faith into a divine presented by the religion of one geographical location.
A good example is the catholic church in Spain, the country that forced their religion to The Philippines, destroying a lot of the real Filipino tradition and culture. Too many Filipinos believe that catholicism is a Filipino tradition, which it of course not is.
In the Spanish catholic religions to the younger generation is rejecting their religion more than in any country studied in Europe. The over 45 year old catholics are now just 80 percent mildly religious. But Spaniards between 30 and 45 years are religious only by 65 percent, and among the 29 year olds only 57 percent claim to be religious within the catholic labled peoples.
More than 80 percent of all surveyed Spaniards say they had been brought up religiously. But despite these childish impressions many young Spaniards are losing faith. But this could be explained by the fact that Spain has modernized tremendously over the last 30 years. Maybe there intervenes mechanism in which, according to the Religion Monitor "socio-economic modernization of societies have rather negative impact on the importance of religion" and therefore probably contrary to some speculation "in Europe there is no religious revival."
Accordingly, the faith is only strong worldwide in those countries that remain, in terms of prosperity and modernity, far behind the Europeans. In India or Turkey, where the proportion of non-believers in comparison to Europe is negligible.
If a non-European country is very wealthy and modernization is on a positive flow, like in South Korea, belief on the retreat. South Korea has in the infidels (non-or less religious or spiritual) with shares around 70 per cent of the value of East German level.
In Turkey, only 20 percent of citizens believe that "only politicians who believe in God are suitable for public office" or that "religious leaders should influence the decisions of government."
Conceivable, therefore, that the try to Islamise Turkey by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the local population has less support than the Prime Minister is currently trying to suggest.
Yet all efforts to radicalise are only leading to more protection of secular states. For example passengers from abroad should log in their personal data ahead of the future visit to the European Union through the Internet. This is according to "Welt am Sonntag", in conversation with a fee of ten Euros. Goal is to prevent the entry of terrorists and potential attackers into the EU.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) argued in an interview with the newspaper "Welt am Sonntag", this security check is relating to the American program "Electronic System for Travel Authorization" (ESTA). " The system is simple to operate. Anyone who has filled out the online form before the entry into the United States is then known. For America, it costs 14 dollars. A similar fee I can envisage for Europe," he said.
As we observe the struggle of religious actions and the defence against it, a more effective and even less beauraucratic way is through Humanuism. And we have another advantage nowadays. The english language has spread to an international level, covering most countries and making it easy for peoples if many nations to exchange. Where religion builds on isolation and invented absolutism, Humanism moves forward with a foundation of the Internet as a world wide platform, holding freedom of speech and expression, the english language as a universial communication basis, and non-religion as the human foundation of non-discrimination and Human Rights, covering Womens Rights, Child Rights, LGBT Rights, the rights of the disabled and sick, and the rights of Freedom of expression, speech and identity. It is claimed that belief can move mountains, a bit over expressed, based on a fact of being impossible. It is proven that humans can break walls, such as happened in Berlin 1989. Tearing down a wall is maybe less impressive by verbalisation or scripture, but most impressive in it's action, as it represents the reality of the will for freedom, breaking real barriers, uniting peoples, who have more benefit of a united world than from a devided globe.
By Thomas Fleckner
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