Western Civilization Religion

Religion played a huge influence in the development of western civilization so a good place to start is the medieval times. Charles Martel, mayor of the franks stopped the Muslim invasion from much of Europe at the battle of tours so there was little Muslim influence to the western civilization. This allowed a very powerful Christian Church to emerge and religion to flourish. Religion was very important for the middle ages and in reality it became the most powerful force in Europe. The teachings and practices played a major part in reshaping the lives of the European Christians. One of the most important achievements of the Church was to Christianize the diverse people in Western Europe. Religion influenced the development of western civilization through Monks and Nuns, power, reforming to change the church, and corruption against other nations.

Rodney Stark, in the book How the West Won, attempts to tell the story of history in a fresh and new way. He believes that history has been corrupted by political correctness. He believes that western civilization is unique and has created itself. Stark believes that we need to stop credited all of the other cultures for modern culture. We credit other cultures because we are trying to seem fair, and we do not want to seem egocentric. Human freedom is one of his main points to prove his thesis. He states that western civilization is the only culture to create human freedom.

The western way of life aided the individual, and was much more than a lawless frontier. Westerns serve as romances of the great frontier, reminiscing on the progress and opportunity both the individual and nation had. Westerners were faced with a new opportunity bearing uncertainty and a vast importance placed upon individualism, and the principles of human nature affected the outcomes of western law, society, and government. Human nature guided the western way of life and served as the backbone of various aspects of the land seen in the laws and government. Human nature is revealed within the state of nature. The West was nothing more than a constant state of nature, which represented a state of perfect freedom and equality for westerners.

First, I agree that the Western civilization has a clear lineage that focuses on the majority of the following attributes: competition/innovation, science, property rights, personal freedoms, and a free-market economy. Ferguson (2014) points out that competition, property oriented government and science are some of the unique attributes that enabled the West rise to power. As a result of competition, the western people became more innovative and business-oriented, thus, making them aggressive in areas

William Cronon another new historian talked about western history and how western history lead us to today’s environmental history. He also brought up that frontier is an environment and means a free land, its a place, culture. If the West be limited to process it is impossible to talk about western history and as Cronon mentioned,” If the frontier represented only one kind of plenty, then it ought to be possible to rewrite history which in one rather Turnerian sense is actually the environmental history of North America in term of transition not from free to occupied land”( Cronon, p. 11). Donal Worster another new westerner describes the West more than just a process. The West “ begins with Dajotas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas” ( Worster , p.13). So the West it can only be defined as the West when only be along with South and North. The West is a geographical location and its a region. Its not just only a process. New historians agree on that the West is the place rather than process. Place means location which bring culture, assimilation, knowledge and civilization. The old West was a place like other regions that had rich, poor, powerful, slave, educated and uneducated

First, Mr. Stark is a Social Science Professor at Baylor University, who is well versed to tell the story of Western Civilization. Mr. Rodney Stark the Author of How The West Won, is committed to truth, with a willingness to go out on a limb for truthful historical data that may be “barbaric” to today’s society, but in fact, he wrote about a part of the true history. His story telling from a historical point of view is fantastically told. Some of the many things he writes about: the western civilization did shape the rest of the world, uniquely, through the early times of Mesopotamia, through Greek culture, Roman Empire and on to modern eras. Additionally, how the ancient Greek culture survived

Altemeyer, Bob. "The Decline of Organized Religion in Western Civilization." International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 14, no. 2, Apr. 2004, pp. 77-89. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com

This provided a platform for materialistic assumptions of the Western

In fact, while the distinctive ideologies and religious groups still exist, the clear boundaries of different civilizations characterized by Huntington have blurred. When this dichotomy to recognize the world as direct confrontations between ideology and culture groups becomes no longer valid, the theory of the inevitability of the clash of civilization, thus, are now flawed, because it is realistically unreasonable, ethically wrong, conceptually biased and historically inaccurate. These problems regarding the clash of civilizations embody a misleading western supremacy shown in Bush’s speech as well as the war on terror on a larger

The civilizations, as identified by Huntington are Sinic [Chinese or Confusious], Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox [Russian], Western [Europe, North American, Australia, New Zealand], Latin American and possibly African. And it is among these groups that share a “common interest and common values” and have a “common culture or civilization” that will lead to more interdependence on members of the same civilization and less dependent on the West. Huntington’s theory is that the West has had [at one time or another] a negative impact on every other civilization, and this has led to a decline of power and influence around the world, especially the Islam civilization. Therefore he predicts, “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Throughout history the differences between the East and West has primed modern debates worldwide. It comes down to the battle of beliefs: spiritualism vs. pragmatism, meditation vs. analysis, and virtues vs. materialism. The two ideologies have the same end in mind, but reach enlightenment in two completely different ways through the fluid dichotomy of the yin and yang. The East is the epitome of the yin beliefs because it characterizes a more integrative, intuitive and non-systematic approach to life; the West symbolizes the yang through its discriminative, scientific, and assertive will imposed upon others. Seen as the institutionalized hemisphere of the world, the West

In Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The West: Unique, Not Universal,” he addresses his audience with a very controversial question: Is Western Culture universal or unique? Huntington elaborately opens up this question with research and examples to explain and persuade readers that the West will never be a universal culture for all, but rather a unique culture that will be accepted by those who appreciate it. For decades now, historians and scholars have debated with one another to determine who is right and wrong. However, from a handful of articles from different scholars, Samuel Huntington’s statement that the West is unique rather than universal is supported and even further elaborated on by these particular sources. A common understanding between all the sources, that must be noted, is that a civilization’s culture is not comprised of material goods but rather their culmination of their religion(s), values, language(s) and traditions. While although there are scholars out their that negate the West is unique, a large amount of scholars still argue and strengthen Huntington’s argument that the West has unique and exclusive characteristics that make them distinctive and rare.

Westernization, which primarily spread in the mid to late 19th century, brought forth a profound change of ideas and cultures across the world. Both Japan and India were affected greatly as Western practices and ideologies seeped into the minds of individuals throughout various societies. Influential individuals, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay and Fukuzawa Yukichi wished to reform India and Japan by introducing Western ideas into these countries. Artists such as Honda Kinkachiro and Werner Forman showed the effects of Westernization on Japan. Through the writings and artwork of Macaulay, Yukichi, Kinkachiro, and Forman, we are able to understand that Europe’s colonizing mentality, as well as Asia’s acceptance of new ideas, were both supported by the belief that the West is superior.

Western culture and policies have shaped the modern world, especially the Middle East, in many ways. Since the sixteenth century, the nations of Western civilization have been the driving wheels of modernization. Globalization is simply the spread of modern institutions and ideas from one high power to the wider world. Technological innovation and economic growth along with such concepts as democracy, individualism, and the rule of law administered by an impartial judiciary, set Western societies above and beyond any possible rival. Other cultures looked to the West as a model, a threat, or some combination of both. One country that was most successful in their confrontations with Western states was Japan, who incorporated Western

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of religion is as follows: “the belief in a god or in a group of gods, an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods, or an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group” (Merriam-Webster.) My personal definition of religion is that it is a set of beliefs and practices that generally pertain the worship of one or more than one spiritual beings or representations of a spiritual power. Religion can be personal belief or an organization or group of people who have similar beliefs and values. There are many different types of religions in the world and have been since the