All mankind is incurably religious. Man is a worshipping creature. The distinction is not whether mankind, cultures, or nations worship, but whom they worship. A second proposition is this: either individual human beings will worship the one, true Living God, or they will worship an idol--a god manufactured by men.
Some religions claim to believe in no god. Buddhism--at least in its Theravada form--is an atheistic religion, for example, believing in no god, but in the eventual annihilation of the human soul. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the West, professing belief in no deity, would end up manufacturing a veritable workshop of idols.
One of these is economics. Filthy lucre has been cast in the light of a pure god, able to bestow upon mankind a millennium of prosperity. Now to those who have missed it, these doctrines of the religion of economics have been seriously proposed. It has not been intended as a metaphor. Nor is it offered as hyperbole to make a point. It has been (and continues to be) argued as a literal proposition. Money is the god of Western man.
William T. Cavanaugh, in The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) cites Robert H. Nelson's 2001 book, entitled Economics as Religion in which the author argues:
. . . the replacement of Christianity and other religions by the religion of economics has ushered in an age of freedom and prosperity. Nelson shows how market economics exactly parallels the earlier role of Christianity in Western society, with its own providential god (the invisible hand of the market), sacred texts, priesthood, and plan of salvation for the recurrent problems of human history: "The Jewish and Christian bibles foretell one outcome of history. If economics foresees another, it is in effect offering a competing religious vision." [Op cit., p. 108f.]Thus, one example of a modern atheistic Western religion is economics. There are others. Socialism is another. Fascism is a third. All three exalt Man to the status of a god, to the same extent as other religions exalt their deities.
