Introduction

This way of life, known as 'secular', combined with a vigorous and aggressive free market capitalism has been extremely successful in the last decades of the twentieth century, and through a series of technological and communication breakthroughs has been able to penetrate most parts of the world, a process commonly known as globalization. However, not everyone has been happy with the results or able to participate in its benefits equally. The rich and the powerful have become more so, and the world's poor populations have proliferated. The divide between the world's rich nations and poor nations has increased.