Why does France reject religion?

[Archaea]

SU started an interesting topic, why the French reject religion, especially Mormonism.

He also belittled Noah, who resides in Paris, but as SU is wont to say, just residing doesn't mean someone can be ignorant.

It is interesting because of the strong Catholic tradition, which except for the great structures are all but dead in France today.

It is SU's position which he will surely clarify that France's intellectual traditions seeped through all segments of society so that France recognized the fraud of religion and pursues the enlightenment of culture.

There may be some merit to SU's position, but it is overly simplistic. Or at least my rendition of it.

The elimination of religion from the average Romanesque Frenchman seemed to result, not necessarily from intelletual traditions, but rather from a series of Hegelian clashes of monumental proportions.

Hugo who wrote one great novel and several lesser novles, makes the Church a centerpiece of his novels. Yet resentment to the religious corruption is evident therein.

At the time of WWII, Vichy France acted complicitly in the elimination of Jews together with the Nazis. This complicity worked on the French consciousness.

Along comes a nationalist who is also a socialist, DeGaul and the transformation starts rising from the dust.

It is my proposition that these strings coming together force France to reject religion, more out of social clashes, coupled with economic success, rather than a conscious rejection of religion. The French are now comfortable and religion's job is to comfort those in need of comfort and to disquiet the comfortable. The French do not want to be disquieted.

Now the part of the calculus which I do not understand, is how educational policy is set. I have a professor of anthropology and will ask her about that.

Thoughts about an incomplete obeservation? Tooblue, EQ, AA, Noah, Filsdepac, Tim or others?

[All-American]

I don't know all of the reasons, of course, but I don't believe they are particular to France. Religion all over Europe seems to be on the decline. I served my mission in Spain and saw much of the same. It was especially interesting because of the area that I served in-- being situated in between America, Africa, and Europe, the Canary Islands had healthy populations from all three regions. People from South America tended to be looking for religion, while people from Africa (typically Muslim) tended to be perfectly content.

Europeans, on the other hand, seem to be frankly tired of religion. It is as though they have had it for so long and seen so few positive results (and so many negative results) that they've given up on God. He didn't seem to care enough to help them avoid two world wars and a fall from world promincence, after all.

You're discussing particularly French reasons for the wave of agnosticism that is sweeping Europe. I believe the root of the issue lies much deeper than just France. In the war against theology, France has already surrendered.

Though, quite frankly, that shouldn't surprise us either.

[SeattleUte]

Archea,

I just don't see this as complicated as you do. France's intellectual traditions embody a part of our own intellectual traditions; they are in fact near the root of them. In the West we now worship at the alter of Reason; yes, we have many other gods, but Reason, like Jupiter of old, stands above the rest. In this respect, France is a more concentrated, unalloyed distillate than the United States even. In the United States the bluer the state the more prominent is Reason. In France and many bluest parts of the blue states, the people are monotheists--Reason being their only deity. Indeed, France to Reason is roughly analogous to Jesus to Judea.

Lamentably, I'm not a philospher; EQ could eat my lunch in an academic philosphical debate. But as I see it, the great philosphers of the Nineteenth Century were primarily concerned with one overarching issue--Jesus' or Jaweh's role in a cosmology where Reason now reigned supreme (EQ: Your view of this?). There's a wonderful essay floating around on the Internet by Matthew Arnold that spoke to me in which he discusses the age-old tension between Hellenism (Reason) and Hebreism (Judeo-Christianity), which many, myself included, believe has well served our culture. There are no more great philosphers for all intents and purposes (EQ: agree?) because this great philosophical debate ran out of steam, in effect the great question was settled. In France and the bluest places they believe in Reason, seeing things as they are, and little else, subject to the movement discussed in the next paragraph.

The thing that I and many Mormon apostates and many Mormon radicals like about the current prevailing philosophical fashion, postmodernism, is that it permits each individual his own space in which to erect his own little alter to his personal gods conjured in his subjective consciousness, such gods deserving as much respect by all as Reason. But, needless to say, this approach is as incompatible with LDS theology as sole belief in Reason. The French just have rejected the Hebreic model; they really were the first to do it.

[Archaea]

An interesting outline, given the current debate.

http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c03400.htm