Among other gods
Over the past few decades, the West has promoted the idea that the only truly impartial worldview is secularism, the absence of religion In fact, secularism is now seen as the dominant and only viable perspective in the world, which--in typical Western myopia--ignores about 3.17 billion people in the East who are adherents to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and folk religions (according to Adherents.com ). We in the West have little understanding of the role religion plays in the daily lives and worldviews of nearly half of the world's population. Two weeks ago, I was able to witness an annual event in our apartment community which vividly demonstrated the divide. Our community is located on the outskirts of Xiamen in an area made up of country folk. The story we've been given is that this apartment complex was built on the ruins of a village and housing was given to many of the people to replace the homes they lost. So, the atmosphere of this complex is much more rural than most.