Basically he was of the belief that humans, aware of their mortality, spend their days creating a culture that helps them to ignore it.
Whereas in the past, religions were used to help people cope with their mortality, now we seek distractions from movies, jobs, social climbing, ego building etc. Anything to take your mind of it.
An extension of this is that people will attack that which is foreign to them (ie other people's religious beliefs) as a way of reinforcing their own beliefs.
This is pretty much the observation of the social psychologist Ernest Becker from the early 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
Basically he was of the belief that humans, aware of their mortality, spend their days creating a culture that helps them to ignore it.
Whereas in the past, religions were used to help people cope with their mortality, now we seek distractions from movies, jobs, social climbing, ego building etc. Anything to take your mind of it.
An extension of this is that people will attack that which is foreign to them (ie other people's religious beliefs) as a way of reinforcing their own beliefs.