CIVILIZATION AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Are Western Religions Part of Western Materialist Culture?

In a broader sense yes. Western religions, including Islam, generally have the same basic outward view of life as Western science. This is evidenced by their emphasis on conversion and the formation of institutions, and their frequent hostility towards spiritual traditions, which is why orthodox Islam has oppressed the Sufis, just as orthodox Christianity oppressed its mystics, and why modern science dismisses mysticism itself as a delusion.

Western religion - with some notable exceptions - has generally presented itself as a worldly institution seeking to grow in numbers, force, wealth and territory, not as a spiritual path requiring going beyond worldly seeking. Its discipline has been an outer one of loyalty to the faith, the church or the book, not an inner discipline of seeking liberation and Self-realization. For this reason the spiritual dimension that is found in meditational traditions is largely lacking in Western religions.

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