Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

====Existentialism and secularism====
Behind the diverse cultural forms of different religions, Eliade proposes a universal: traditional man, he claims, "always believes that there is an absolute reality, ''the sacred'', which transcends this world but manifests itself in this world, thereby sanctifying it and making it real."<ref name="Eliade, p.202">Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202</ref> Furthermore, traditional man's behavior gains purpose and meaning through the Sacred: "By imitating divine behavior, man puts and keeps himself close to the gods—that is, in the real and the significant."<ref name="Eliade, p.202"/> According to Eliade, "modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation."<ref name="Eliade, p.202"/> For traditional man, historical events gain significance by imitating sacred, transcendent events. In contrast, nonreligious man lacks sacred models for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed—he "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and refuses all appeal to transcendence".<ref name="Eliade, p.203">Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203</ref>

From the standpoint of religious thought, the world has an objective purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: "Myth teaches [religious man] the primordial 'stories' that have constituted him existentially."<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 12; see also Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', pp. 20, 145.</ref> From the standpoint of [[Secularism|secular]] thought, any purpose must be invented and imposed on the world by man. Because of this new "existential situation", Eliade argues, the Sacred becomes the primary obstacle to nonreligious man's "freedom". In viewing himself as the proper maker of history, nonreligious man resists all notions of an externally (for instance, divinely) imposed order or model he must obey: modern man "''makes himself'', and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. [...] He will not truly be free until he has killed the last god."<ref name="Eliade, p.203"/>