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Concept
Secular religion
Summary
A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly entities. Among systems that have been characterized as secular religions are liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism, communism, Juche, Nazism, fascism, Jacobinism, nationalism, civil religion, Religion of Humanity, the Cult of Reason and Cult of the Supreme Being that developed after the French Revolution. Generally, these are all movements or political parties whose ideologies and political views achieve a para-religious cult. Israeli historian Jacob Leib Talmon defined this phenomenon as "political messianism".
The term secular religion is often applied today to communal belief systems—as for example with the view of love as the postmodern secular religion. Paul Vitz applied the term to modern psychology in as much as it fosters a cult of the self, explicitly calling "the self-theory ethic ... this secular religion". Sport has also been considered as a new secular religion, particularly with respect to Olympism. For Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, belief in them as a new secular religion was explicit and lifelong. The journalist Helen Lewis has used this term to characterize social justice movement.
The theory of political religion concerns governmental ideologies whose cultural and political backing is so strong that they are said to attain power equivalent to those of a state religion, with which they often exhibit significant similarities in both theory and practice. In addition to basic forms of politics, like parliament and elections, it also holds an aspect of "sacralization" related to the institutions contained within the regime and also provides the inner measures traditionally considered to be religious territory, such as ethics, values, symbols, myths, rituals, archetypes and for example a national liturgical calendar.
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