Religion In Western Civilization

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Religion in Western civilization has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in shaping and developing Western society. Regardless of the form of religion, such as polytheism or monotheism, people in ancient societies believed in a God or Gods. This belief in a higher power was an important part of human progression and expansion. Religion was the backbone of Western civilization and has always been a very important foundation of culture, schooling, philosophy, art, and social interaction. Before Judaism and Christianity, philosophers such as Aristotle ponder the thought of a higher power and in his book Metaphysics wrote about eternal motion was an unmoved mover. Throughout time and from the expansion of ancient people, new religions formed from the thoughts of morality and virtue. With the help …show more content…

Looking back to the beginnings of the Bronze Age (3300-1300 BCE) to around the fall of Rome (476 A.D.), religion would take a strangle hold on society and be the reason for mass migration, enslavement, revolts, wars, and even create a harmony between different cultures . The Western society would have faltered and human expansion would be nothing like it is today, if Religion and more specifically the monotheism religions such as Judaism and the Catholic Church ceased to exist and did not play the pivotal role in shaping society as we know it.
To really understand the role the Catholic Church play on shaping Western civilization, one must look back to previous forms of religion and understand how faith in Gods or a single God intertwined with the daily life of most human beings. Early forms of religion were built around the belief of multiple Gods (polytheism). Early civilizations in the Bronze Age (3300-1300 BCE) such as the Sumerians, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians concerned their daily life pleasing the gods or