Dear World: Let us face reality, the whole World is gradually joining Western civilisation.
And no, Western civilisation is not Christian, Christianity is the majority religion, Western civilisation is the continuation of Greek civilisation, the civilisation that continued the process of civilizing the rest of Europe when in the Middle Ages, some Italians came across Greek Thought and clicked.
The result was Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Servet and others who directly and indirectly challenge the Theo-centric and Earth-centric beliefs of the Chistians, the Jews and Moslem and Hindus and every other religion.
The hard truth is that while Christian thought dominated Europe, Europe remained backward.
It could not be otherwise because religion put god and his “absolute truths” about everything in control of human life and thus fixed and backward.
It can not be otherwise. For example, if disease, or the birth of a deformed baby is punishment from god, why think about rational causes?
Unfortunately, when the Greeks were conquered by the totalitarian Macedonians 2400 years ago ( yes, those of Alexander the Great) democracy, which is freedom of thought, died and no other people, including the Macedonian conquerors, the Jews, the Persians, the Egyptians were willing or able to assimilate the concept of a human-centered World, they all found more comforting a god- centered World. Then came the Christians whose ideas were found by the people of the Roman Empire far more comforting than Grerk Reason.
The Romans were heavily influenced by Greek thought but never assimilated freedom of thought, the immense curiosity of the Greeks about everything or the anility of Greek Reason to observe and understand through logic, not through god everything wirhin humans, nature, animals, plants and the whole universe.
Fortunately the Italians of the Middle Ages resurrected Greek Reason and the rest is history.
European religious authorities, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish started to lose ground to Reason. Today in the countries of Europe where Reason and its result, science, have advanced the most, most people have set god aside.
Some, like the Socialists and Communists are actively against god which makes as little sense as relying on god to rule our lives and explain the Universe.
Anyway, with the Renaissance of Galileo, Copernicus and others reached the same conclusion that Aristarcus of Samos reached 2400 years ago, that the Earth rotated around tge Sun, not the other way around. Europeans started to think for themselves again. Observation and Reason started to push god, faith, religion, to the sidelines.
Then came the European Enlightenment and the partial return of Greek democracy.
I say partial because even today, the only country that comes close, not fully, to ancient Greek democracies is Switzerland. Switzerland is the only country where you can say that in spite of the elected politicians (which real democracy does not have), one could say that Switzerland is a real democracy because the people are the final executive and legislative authority over any law or decision made by the elected politicians.
To the Greeks, and to the Swiss, what they have in France, Canada, US, UK, Sweden, Japan, etc., would not be considered democracies but elected aristocracies (often controlled by the money oligarchs who control political campaigns).
The science and rechnology of the West, which the direct result of belief in humans, in our ability to observe and reason, along with the political, social, economic, legal ad administrative ideas of the West have spread to the World and caused the most capable societies to catch up with the West.
In the process they had to ditch, like the Europeans did earlier, the life centered in religion, divine kings and emperors, etc.
Yes, some Europeans and others could not resist embracing Marxism and derivatives, psychologically, religions without god.
Today, Japanese, Chinese, and other advanced countries are part of Western civilisation, they live like people in the West; same science, same tools and appliances, same school education. They keep their languages, foods and folk traditions, and that is good, their daily lives are Western.
