The religious instinct hasn't gone from the secular western world, it's just been re-expressed in different more modern ways, variously consumerism, string theory, celebrity, and so on.
I'm pretty sure personally that it's built into our biology. In the words of Charlie Brooker:
"Imagine! Nothing to kill or die for! And no religion too! It's amazing, literally no one's ever had that thought before.
Okay, so there's always the possibility that the same part of the brain that handles fuzzy spiritual feelings is the same part that handles love and sorrow and pity and joy; the same part that makes us create songs and jokes and books and art and brightly coloured computer games in which an animated weasel collects starfish in a fountain; so once we wipe it out we might all be left scampering around the planet like thick, bipedal, cultureless mice - rutting, foraging, scratching behind our ears and doing very little else. But look on the bright side. No more religious conflict AND no more novelty ringtones. Two almighty evils erased for the price of one. Bargain."
I'd like to point out that Far East cultures (China and Japan) do not have the same religious instincts. For them an almighty human-like God who wrote a sacred book is not conceivable. I don't think they can understand what religion and faith represent in the lives of Christian, Jews and Muslims. And unsurprisingly, religious wars have been quite marginal in this part of the world. One could also trace this important cultural difference to the figure of Confucius, who was not atheist, but refused to speak about what he called the Sky.
I think that the situation is a bit more complicated than you depict. Perhaps monotheism was difficult for Japanese to conceive of, but Shinto and Buddhism have played a large role in Japanese history, including that of violence.
As to where these religious tendencies go in modern Japan, there are a number of things to think about (consider their celebrities are literally called "idols").
Confucius might not have said much about the Sky, but he constantly emphasized the importance of the Rites.
A very good point. I would argue that these cultures are simply expressing these religious instincts in ways that don't look like abrahamic religions, in the same way that football or rock music don't look like abrahamic religions either.
Also, once you blur out the technical theological details, is Confucius not effectively treated as a prophet? (This is a genuine question.)
Well, for me there is a discontinuity between religion in abrahamic sense and football, rock music, and even buddhism. While the former obviously covers what might be a kind of universal religious instinct, it does much much more. For instance, I don't think believing in God is the same as believing in the existence of ghosts, or in immaterial spirits. It should even be the same verb. A man of faith is not only believing in the existence of God, and that His words are in a Book, he is also his whole life a consequence of this belief. If you really believe in God, you should be working very hard to be a Saint. Every second of your life you are not climbing this path is a misstep.
In the Far East religions, you have most pieces of the jigsaw present: mysticism, the Sacred, priests, monks, prayers, meditation, afterlife, etc. But I think the central piece of a unique almighty exclusive God is missing, and then the result is completely different.
There is also this theory that the Far East did not have a powerful scientific revolution because of this missing piece: Without a God who created everything, there is less incentive to believe in a unique ordering of things (the Law of physics) and to try to discover it.
And no, Confucius is not a prophet, he made no miracles, he did not announce anything. He was just a failed political advisor who became the teacher of a few disciples. However, he proposed a very rational and revolutionary way of life, under the disguise of restoring the ancient Way. He also happen to be (along with Jesus and maybe Mohammad) the man who influenced the most the lives of most other humans.
Confucianism is a religion. No blurring out of technical theological details is required. Confucianism has a holy city, temples where people pray to him, miracles attributed to him, unquestionable holy books and an organization to promote itself. It doesn't lack anything that other religions have so it makes sense to call it a religion.
They had deification of leaders and ancestor worship.
The Japanese did some horrific things in the name of their Emperor, so I don't buy your assertion.
You could argue that the Far East are simply religiously backwards, using polytheism instead of monotheism, so your argument actually makes no sense, they simply haven't caught the monotheistic religious bug (yet).
Nothing wrong with "spiritual feelings". Atheists have them too. Clearly a mostly secular society is possible even with our biology/instincts, just look at Sweden or Denmark. No need to erase love, sorrow, pity, jokes or art to largely erase religious conflict. It's culture, and we can evolve culturally beyond our current primitivism. I'm with neals; I used to think we'd leave religion behind. Maybe some day "believers" will be a small minority. I hope so. I'm sad to say most of us will not see that day.
This is basically the argument that Raymond Tallis[1] makes in his books. Whilst starting from an atheist/humanist origin, he posits that whilst science (in particular neuroscience) has brought humanity so far, the stockpile of knowledge gathered thus far is not enough to satisfactorily describe and understand the human experience, conciousness etc, and certainly not enough to justify the smug, dismissive and combative sects of atheism practised by Dawkins, Hitchens et al.
He's also has a wonderful playful style of writing, well worth a read.
“Tallis indulges in refutation by caricature,” says Dennett, a professor of philosophy and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. “He’s not taking his opponents seriously. He’s sneering instead of arguing. He’s ignoring the complexities of the arguments. So he’s not really doing philosophy. He’s doing propaganda.”
I'm pretty sure personally that it's built into our biology. In the words of Charlie Brooker:
"Imagine! Nothing to kill or die for! And no religion too! It's amazing, literally no one's ever had that thought before.
Okay, so there's always the possibility that the same part of the brain that handles fuzzy spiritual feelings is the same part that handles love and sorrow and pity and joy; the same part that makes us create songs and jokes and books and art and brightly coloured computer games in which an animated weasel collects starfish in a fountain; so once we wipe it out we might all be left scampering around the planet like thick, bipedal, cultureless mice - rutting, foraging, scratching behind our ears and doing very little else. But look on the bright side. No more religious conflict AND no more novelty ringtones. Two almighty evils erased for the price of one. Bargain."