DU religion survey

[Odin2005]

83. A lot of the spiritual movements that emerged in the Axial Age were "Humanist" or "Atheistic".

The Axial Age being the period from about 800 BC to 200 BC. It was a period of rapid social change and economic development, a lot like the modern world. It was only after the Axial Age ended and the great empires of the later Ancient World established themselves (Rome, Han China, and Gupta India) that people, in reaction to the increasingly stultified and repressed atmosphere, retreated to otherworldly religiousness. The Greek philosophical tradition decayed into Neo-Platonist esotericism, which was then absorbed by Christianity. The various philosophical movements of Ancient India decayed as the Brahmins took back their power and promoted the Salvationist god cults still common in India today. The Humanism of Confucius was turned into a tool of state ideology. The sublime mysticism of Taoism degenerated into superstition and even quackery.