And the Thirty Yearsâ War brought Catholicism & Protestantism into great discredit, because it was to some degree a religious war.
It may have started as a religious war (something about the Protestant King of Bohemia who was being overthrown by the Hapsburgs calling on the Protestant kings of England and other countries to assist him) but it rapidly became just a power struggle, and in the end the French fought the Hapsburgs.
Anyway, I think your digging way back into the past for the answer your seeking, although all these events like The French Revolution played a role.
I would look more to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of free market capitalism.
Capitialism and Christianity are not incompatible (as with Marxism), but I think if you analyze the history, youâll see most of the secularization really took off during that time period (from the late 18th century).
My own opinion, and you might want to read the British author Paul Johnsonâs really not so good (even offensive at times, an early work of his) book on Christianity, The History of Christianity, is that essentially, the merchant classes and business men of the 18th and 19th centuries, didnât want a strong institutionalized clergy regulating their markets or telling them what to do, and hence the rise of secularism, anti-clericalism, science, and the philosophies of Utilitarianism (espoused by men like the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham and in the New World by Benjamin Franklin (in his university, University of Pennsylvania) and the philosophy of Pragmatism.
You see that in America today. The business classes want free markets unregulated very minimally by any form of morality
If it (whatever it is) earns money or makes money, it has to be good.
So all the religion is thrown out of our cultural institutions, including the most important, the schools and universities, where the future workers and leaders come from.
From a stacked Supreme Court, we have a very broad interpretation of the First Amendment and what can be sold on TV, the internet, and, in my opinion, both major political parties, Republican and Democratic, are happy with this, so we have all this smut, pornography, and filthy language in the Media, movies, TV, Radio, because it sells.
I donât see either American political party rushing to do anything about that or even talking about it as an issue.
If you watch the political talk shows on TV, youâll even here them occassionally used the word âpragmaticâ; of course, they never explain what the term means, but it is sort of coded language meaning that politician or so and so is more interested in making things work and the bottom line, than principles of religious morality.
I think there were some German 19th century social scientists who concluded that society had to become secular, so that âprogressâ and industry could adavnce and cash in.
It may have been Max Weber.
I wouldnât get bummed out about it though.
I think the really most important think is to try and focus on your own soul and your salvation, and try to influence those around you.
By the way, people have been killing each other long before Christianity. The original pagan Romans had a religion, but they didnât try to spread it or convert the people they conquered to it.
Most of the Roman leaders were followers of secular Roman and Greek philosophies like Stoicism.
Also, industrial wars like the American Civil War and the massively destructive First World War were not wars of religion.
Great Britain lost something like 750,000 to a million men in WWI, and both WWI and WWII finished off their ability to run their Empire.
WWI was a power struggle between the industrialized Empires Germany and Great Britain to see who would have the greater place under the sun. It was the war between two great Imperial powers and their allies. Germany declared war first.
And WWII wasnât a religious war, and neither was the Cold War.
Maybe in the 1950âs, John Foster Dulles used a few religious terms during the very early Cold War, but that was it; Kennedy never put it in those terms, and Reagan used an analogy from a Hollywood movie, Star Wars, calling the USSR an âEvil Empire.â
Do you think Vietnam had anything to do about religion??
So since Christianity stopped playing a major role in society in the 18th century, human beings have continued to killing each other for other reasons than religion, and through using industrial tools to do it more efficiently and in greater numbers.
It isnât that Christianity and Capitalism cannot coexist together; I would say that up until about the end of the nineteenth century they actuall did; itâs just that a lot of the more recent Free Market advocates and a lot of the business classes do not want a strong Christianity or religion to play any role in their activities because it would affect their ability to make as much money as possible.
And governments could gain as much revenue through taxes if, for instance, contraception was regulated or all the dirty stuff on TV programming was prohibited.
**And the Thirty Yearsâ War brought Catholicism & Protestantism into great discredit, because it was to some degree a religious war. There were others in the same period, which dovetailed into it; & there had already been the Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598 in France. Result: exhaustion, & massive destruction. Massacre & slaughter & persecution are not the best ways of recommending Christianity - & if all that Christian zeal can do is cause civil war, treason, regicide, rebellion & murder (all of which were in evidence), itâs not clear that religion is good for the peace of a state