Secularization is a concept important to science, technology, and ethics, because it encapsulates influential general theories about how moral influence may be exercised over and by science and technology under different historical and social conditions.

Most societies incorporate practices, beliefs, and institutions that correspond roughly to the domain of religion in modern Western cultures. These religious features presuppose the existence of non-human entities with powers of agency (i.e., gods) or the existence of impersonal powers endowed with moral purposes (i.e., karma). Moreover they generally assume that these non-human agents or powers have an impact upon human affairs. Secularization is a process by which religion comes to have decreasing importance in society along several dimensions.

First there is a decline in the status, prestige, and power of persons, practices and institutions associated primarily with religion. Second there is a decline in the importance of religion for the...