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In the 19th century, some scholars began to perceive similarities between Buddhist and Christian practices. For example, in 1878, T.W. Rhys Davids wrote that the earliest missionaries to Tibet observed that similarities have been seen in Christianity and Buddhism since the first known contact was made between adherents of the two religions. [5]
Secularism's origins can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out throughout Christian history into the modern era. [18] "Secular" is a part of the Christian church's history, which even has secular clergy since the medieval period.
Secular theology is a term applied to theological positions influenced by humanism and secularism, rejecting supernatural metaphysical positions related to the nature of God. Secular theology can accommodate a belief in God, like many nature religions, but as residing in this world and not separately from it.
Manfred Clauss, a scholar of the Mithraic cult, speculates that the similarities between Christianity and Mithraism may have made it easier for members of the Mithraic cult to convert to Christianity without having to give up their ritual meal, sun-imagery, candles, incense, or bells, [128] a trend which might explain why, as late as the sixth ...
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. [11] 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". [12]
In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under a different name. [ 15 ] The secularization thesis expresses the idea that through the lens of the European enlightenment modernization , rationalization , combined with the ascent of science and technology, religious authority diminishes in all aspects of social life and governance.
In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. Secular priests (sometimes known as diocesan priests) are priests who commit themselves to a certain geographical area and are ordained into the service of the residents of a diocese [1] or equivalent church administrative region.
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin saeculum, ' worldly ' or ' of a generation '), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. [1] In the Middle Ages, there were even ...