Although the historical and geographical origin of modernism is related to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe, but there is no doubt that it has increasingly affected the farthest places in the world till today and still moves forward to equalize the cultures of different nations. One of the most important characteristics of modernism from the beginning to the end of 1960 decade is opposition with religion, tradition and the past but from then onward, we gradually see the increasing tendency to religion and tradition in the world; such that some have named the new period as post-modernity. Antony Giddens believes the essential elements of modernism are still present and strengthened in the new period because the essence of modernism is pluralism not opposition with tradition.
This writing will compare the prior and later approaches of modernism after mentioning its epistemological, ontological and sociological characteristics and will analyze the factors which have changed this orientation such as inability of science to answer some fundamental questions of human and the meaning of life, epistemological doubt in the bases of science, formation of social and mental crisis and even changes in the basis of classic religions and formation of newborn religious movements and… and will show that changes in the bases of new technology and science and some main changes in the principles of religious and traditional thought is the way to rescue from destructive crisis of mankind.