One of the reasons cited by Charles Taylor (A Secular Age, p. 25) for the transition in people's belief system, from being almost impossible not to believe in God in 1500 to easily not believing in God in the year 2000, is
Taylor is right in this diagnosis. Today we are far less struck by wonder and amazement than the olden days. Honestly speaking it is not because we know more or better but we think we know better. It is not knowledge that throttles a sense of wonder but the pride or false self-esteem of 'owning' knowledge that stifles wonder.
Just yesterday night did I learn that in Europe the use of wooden or porcelain plates for meals is a little more than a century old. Prior to that people used bread as the base. And rich households would then throw this 'plate' to the poor or slaves!
The more one learns, the more one realises how little one knows!
People lived in an "enchanted" world.Rather than explain the term, he then clarifies the meaning of the opposite of it, 'disenchantment'. And he says, the modern era lives in a disenchanted mode. Hence in comparison to this, he uses the term 'enchanted' to describe the bygone era.
Taylor is right in this diagnosis. Today we are far less struck by wonder and amazement than the olden days. Honestly speaking it is not because we know more or better but we think we know better. It is not knowledge that throttles a sense of wonder but the pride or false self-esteem of 'owning' knowledge that stifles wonder.
Just yesterday night did I learn that in Europe the use of wooden or porcelain plates for meals is a little more than a century old. Prior to that people used bread as the base. And rich households would then throw this 'plate' to the poor or slaves!
The more one learns, the more one realises how little one knows!
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