Changes in Morality – How can society replace religious morality as religious influence wanes?
First, let’s look at a little history. When most people talk of the Christian Church, they assume that its influence on the Western world has been firmly established for two thousand or so years. In fact, that influence has only been firm for perhaps seven hundred of those years. No matter which history you accept – official church history or that of current critical biblical scholars – the church didn’t cement its control over Western Europe until the 7th century. Its first four centuries were spent in defining itself and just maintaining its existence until Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire in 312 CE. It took another three centuries, at least, until one could really say that it had established firm moral and political control over the population of Europe. In fact, there were still outposts of old way religions as recent as the 16th century in the British Isles. But the majority of Europe was subdued by the 12th century, once Russia was converted. That con
