The Divine Supernatural stage,
The Philosophical Reasoning stage
The Scientific Positive stage.
He said that Catholicism belonged to the human being's supernatural thinking and this is not acceptable to the person of the scientific age. His invented religion however, lacked an occult root, but he accepted all the traditions and rites which existed before, and even proposed having priests in this new creed, presenting himself as its prophet, but a prophet without a god. They say about him that he got his rites from Catholicism and he was criticized for this since he disbelieved that religion but imitated and adopted its ceremonies and traditions. He was right in one thing, that the human being needs worship and devotion as well as the performance of a number of rites...
...Comte's secular and positive religion was "a complete system of belief and ritual, with liturgy and sacraments, priesthood and pontiff, all organized around the public veneration of Humanity"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity
Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity
‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?’ — Frederick Nietsche
Auguste Comte believed a scientific society and God could not co-exist. A scientific society and religion, on the other hand, absolutely. He saw God and religion as separate entities, and that God’s ‘death’ should not lead to the death of religion, for the sake of humanity.
Auguste Comte was born in 1798, France. He is often cited as one of the founding fathers of sociology. Known for his theory of positivism, he believed that just as there are ‘laws of physics’, so too are there ‘laws of society’. Essentially, Comte believed social sciences should be studied like natural sciences. Within positivism Comte put forward the ‘Law of 3 stages’ for societies, they are as follows:
- The theological stage. According to Comte, the theological stage is a state in which all phenomena are explained through the use of a ‘God’ or ‘God’s’.The God or God’s in question are concrete, clearly defined divine beings.
- The metaphysical stage. Supernatural and divine beings are no longer clearly defined. Phenomena is now explained through an abstract force or guiding power. This stage is seen as a transitory stage to the ‘positive’ stage .
- The positive stage. Comte believed this is the ultimate stage, societies ‘final form’. This is when societies rely on scientific methods to explain phenomena.
Stage 3 is where God usually ‘dies’, but Comte believed God’s ‘death’ should not be the death of religion too. He recognised the cohesive function and moral values religion provided society, and feared that total death of religion would create unwanted side effects. According to Comte, to be a true sociologist you must not study society for the sake of understanding, you must study to understand and create solutions that will better society. Based on this principle, Comte created a new religion, the religion of humanity.
The goal of this religion is to love, know and serve humanity. Just as previous religions had ‘pillars’ and sacraments so does the religion of humanity.
The pillars are as follows:
- Altruism. Individuals are expected to be generous, selfless and to care for the needs of society above their own.
- Order. Societies are expected to have some sort of order, what that ‘order’ looks like is subject to debate.
- Progress. Scientific and technological breakthroughs are achievements society should continuously strive for as this pushes all of humanity forward.
The sacraments are as follows:
- Introduction (his equivalent of baptism)
- Admission (the end of your education)
- Destination (your career)
- Marriage
- Retirement
- Separation (from society)
- Absorption (an individual dies and takes their place in history)
Similar to Catholicism, the religion of humanity has hymns, prayers and holidays. They also believe that we should honour ‘great men in history’ instead of worshipping a God. Comte created a ‘positivist calendar’ which includes 13 months all with 28 days. He named each month after a ‘great man’ and named days after great men in history too. In total the positivist calendar includes 558 names of great men. The months were named as followed:
- Moses
- Homer
- Aristotle
- Archimedes
- Caesar
- Saint Paul
- Charlemagne
- Dante
- Gutenberg
- Shakespeare
- Descartes
- Frederick
- Bichat
Fun fact — Clotilde de Vaux was a strong muse for Comte when he created the religion of humanity. He was in love with her but they could not be together. Her death caused him to ‘idealise’ her (specifically her morals) through his new religion.
The response to Comte’s new religion was harsh to say the least. People liked the concept of a secular religion but felt the implementation of Comte’s religion was poor. His religion did not take the world by storm , but it did get adopted by a few people in France and Brazil. In fact, there are still people who practice the religion of humanity today.
Although I don’t agree with certain aspects of his religion I do believe he was ahead of his time. The west is experiencing a decline in religion, but globally it is a different story. Europe’s christian population is expected to fall from 553M (2010) to 454M (2050). That said, by 2060 it is expected that 6 of the 10 world’s largest christian nations will reside in Africa, with growth rates continuing to match global population growth rates. So, what does this mean? Well, I don’t really know. One hunch is that this could serve as proof of ‘The law of 3 stages’, but it is probably too early to tell.
As societies continue to progress, they may experience the loss of God, but also his rebirth and the separation of God and religion. I believe the loss of community and a larger sense of belonging will be replaced with something that has religious like properties, we just won’t call it religion.
Yes, God may have died but is God dead? I’m not sure. Does God stay dead? I don’t believe so!
https://adaobiadibe23.medium.com/august-comte-and-the-religion-of-humanity-3269f5b3e9c0
COMTE - and "The Religion of Humanity"
The Religion of Humanity becomes in the author's intentions the true Positive religion, the only one capable of replacing Catholicism. Like the Catholic religion, Positivism will have its cult, its dogmas, its ceremonies, its "consecrations" or "social sacraments" by which to sanctify "all present phases of private life, systematically tying them to public life" (Positive Catechism). Months will take the meaningful names of Positive religion and the days of the week will be consecrated each to one of the seven sciences. Lay temples will be built (scientific institutes) and a Positive pope will exercise his authority on those who will be committed to the development of industries and to the practical use of discoveries. In Positive society woman will become the guardian and the source of the sentimental life of Humanity.
Humanity will be the Great Being, space will be the Great Environment, and the earth the Great Fetish: this is the trinity of the Positive religion. These short hints are enough to give a cue about the Positive religious legislation, which we are not going to describe in detail. We intend instead to point out the form of "spiritual despotism" that derives from this Positive religious construction, and leads to totalitarianism. In the society governed by Positivism priests will owe an absolute obedience to the Great Priest, Supreme Organ of Humanity, both in action and in thought and heart. "Faith, that is the disposition to believe spontaneously, without previous demonstration, in the dogmas proclaimed by a competent authority, is a fundamental truth, the unchangeable and necessary basis of social order" (System of Positive politics). On the basis of this sequela the Positive priests will constitute themselves as the intellectual class, in charge of thinking on behalf of all the other men: this is what De Lc defines as "spiritual despotism": the "mistrust in intelligence" of which it is permeated betrays among other things the ludicrous character of Comte's idea of science, reduced to the new dogma.
So if the atheist was succesfull would he eliminate religion or like Comte attempt not to deny or to eliminate the Catholic religion, but to empty it of its authentic content, and to reduce it to a mere social and moral fact. This reduction is carried out through the negation of Mystery that manifests Itself in reality and in the daily circumstances of human life. To replace the entire structure with Government and social functions. Is this actually the Christian fear of the board of education that they are already making a counter religion?
In this way as atheism evolves to replace religion does atheism become a religion?
http://membres.lycos.fr/clotilde/etexts/harrison/religion.htm
