are civilizations built or destroyed by religion?

Unlike later civilizations, such as the Orthodox Christian and the Islamic civilizations which were built upon exclusive religions - as indeed was Western civilization - the earliest civilizations appear to have had no religion upon which they were built. On the contrary, organized religion - or a particular belief system - appeared to develop from the process of civilization.

Religion, however, played a devastating part in destroying thriving civilizations. The Eskimo, Polynesian and Andean civilizations were totally destroyed by Christian invaders not very long ago during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Very few past civilizations died out 'naturally' by an environmental disaster or an epidemic that was not caused or introduced by outsiders. Most were destroyed by military force or by ideological brainwashing - supplanting a new religion upon an old one - and sometimes great expanses of time passed by before a new civilization emerges from the ashes of the old.

For instance, between the fall of the Hellenic Roman Empire in 378AD and the rise of a Christian Western Civilization in 675AD, the European tribes spent almost 300 years in transition - between Paganism and Christianity.

At the time, of course, nobody realized that they were in transition! Life went on as usual. Historians in the year 2200, living in a totally new type of civilization, may look back and agree that 1914 marked the end of Western civilization, and Christianity, meaning that at present we are in transition and have been since the end of WWI.

Very few people living in today's Western civilization have first hand experience of the type of security, certainty, racial superiority and purpose that existed prior to the first great war of 1914-1918. It barely existed in the 1920s and 1930s and finally ended, ignominiously, in 1945.

In the 19th century, it was widely believed by all nations that there was nothing beyond the capabilities of the white western Christian world. The British Empire reigned supreme and was almost invincible, in the same manner as the old Roman Empire in its pre-Christian era and the new American giant that took over from Britain after 1945.

Those who were living in Europe between the two wars relate amazing stories showing how most of the old ideals that set western civilization apart from other civilizations started to change so dramatically after 1945 that it was like living in a new world.

The new ideals that replaced the old ideals - the new 'religions' of communism and multi-culturalism - seemed to create more problems than solutions, indicating that western civilization - currently led by America - has both a short-term as well as a long-term future.

The new western civilization is being overpowered by a force that is not so much attacking it from without but undermining it from within. The ideological belief that any one civilization can rule the world - and the way to achieve that aim is by integrating all races and cultures under one religion or political or economic system - is an arrogant denial of individual and social uniqueness and freedoms as well as a denial of historical precedents.