Everyone is religious. Yes, EVERYONE!

    The first book we tackled this semester was The Sacred and The Profane by Mircea Eliade. Eliade observes that most contemporary people think that their world is entirely profane, or secular. However, he proves that people find themselves connected unconsciously to the memories of something sacred or spiritual. 

    Eliade presents us with the term: Homo religiosus. This is a term to describe a person who has particular attitudes and characteristics of believing and behaving in the sacred – “the religious man”. It is a religious disposition that a person has, whether they know it or not. Homo religiosus persons are still present because we can study people and see their tendencies to form community, rituals, traditions, etc. which are desires directed to the sacred. 

    So when someone claims to not have a religion or atheist, it is almost impossible in Eliade’s world. He characterized the non-religious man as religious at their core. Although an “atheist” of the modern world may reject the sacred, their behaviors and philosophies are just camouflaged versions of the absolute reality of the sacred. The non-religious man still preserves the behaviors of religious man from what they have learned from the world; they have emptied or manipulated them to have no sacral meaning. Modern man still has their rituals and superstitions: the celebration of the New Year, a marriage, a house warming. Eliade finally is showing us that his point of view is that a man without religion cannot exist. They can still have pseudo religions and myths that they are just not wary of.

    Next time someone you know says they are atheist, agnostic, or “spiritual but not religious”, I recommend you get this book into their hands.