The Regulatory Function of Religion in Social Control. Enlightenment Concepts

Andrzej Wierciński (1930–2003) wrote that the period Enlightenment (he did not use the term, however) saw the separation of philosophy and religion as a consequence of the development of empirical sciences, mathematics and logic: The rationalised philosophical world-model was advanced to the rank of an ICS [Ideological Control Subsystem]. Its institutional carriers were bourgeois groups and political parties which caused the first breakdown in the feudal system during the French and American Revolution. Mechanicism was therefore to replace animism as a principal generator of the world-view. Wierciński’s approach does not contradict the perspective generally accepted by historians. Probably never before had the fight against revealed religions, including Roman Catholicism, been so intense. The best example is the attitude of Enlightenment authors towards Catholicism and church institutions.