Wars are caused by power, and people searching it. Religious, political, economical, symbolic, … when there’s power, there could be war.
Religion is a way to give sense to a world which seems very chaotic. Governments need legitimacy. Mix the two, and the sense given to the world by a religion can be justifying the legitimacy of a government. If it’s the case, this legitimacy can be very strongly rooted in people’s mind, making any decision of this government a part of the sense of the world (even if for an individual, this decision may look nonsensical). The more nonsensical a political movement is, the more religion will be useful to it, but ut’s a very strong temptation for any government, and that’s why the religions and the State should be separated.
Now, religion is a very complicated thing. I was reading yesterday an article in the last issue of the socialist American magazine Jacobin which says : “there is not, and has never been, a single identifiable thing that we can call ‘Christianity’ except with excruciating generality.” And I think it’s true for Christianity, but also for any religion. For our subject, we could discern to kinds of movement within every religion:
An open one, which sees in the Divine a reality exterior to the world, thus too complex to be locked up in any religious tradition. This kind of religion don’t give a turnkey sense to the world but ask their members to think by themselves. They’re more a method than a dogma.
A closed one, which sees the Divine as perfectly given in their own tradition. This kind of religion ask for obedience and conservation of the dogma. The sense of the world is given, no need to think by oneself.
Of the two kinds, which one will be more useful for a government? Of course, the second one. That’s why we see, all around the world, alliances between oligarchic political movements (which have less legitimacy than more popular political movements) and with reactionary forms of religion. Trump with evangelicals, Putin with super-Z orthodoxs, and so on.
Interesting. I’ve been wondering about that pattern. I think what you’re referring to as ‘closed religions’ I’ve been labeling ‘fearful’ and ‘legalistic’ because I’ve noticed a pattern. They seem to have a great and suspicious view of the world, and prescribe a set of strict laws to keep us all “safe”. Ironically, not what I believe Christianity was intended to be, but there have certainly been forces shaping it that way.
Wars are caused by power, and people searching it. Religious, political, economical, symbolic, … when there’s power, there could be war.
Religion is a way to give sense to a world which seems very chaotic. Governments need legitimacy. Mix the two, and the sense given to the world by a religion can be justifying the legitimacy of a government. If it’s the case, this legitimacy can be very strongly rooted in people’s mind, making any decision of this government a part of the sense of the world (even if for an individual, this decision may look nonsensical). The more nonsensical a political movement is, the more religion will be useful to it, but ut’s a very strong temptation for any government, and that’s why the religions and the State should be separated.
Now, religion is a very complicated thing. I was reading yesterday an article in the last issue of the socialist American magazine Jacobin which says : “there is not, and has never been, a single identifiable thing that we can call ‘Christianity’ except with excruciating generality.” And I think it’s true for Christianity, but also for any religion. For our subject, we could discern to kinds of movement within every religion:
Of the two kinds, which one will be more useful for a government? Of course, the second one. That’s why we see, all around the world, alliances between oligarchic political movements (which have less legitimacy than more popular political movements) and with reactionary forms of religion. Trump with evangelicals, Putin with super-Z orthodoxs, and so on.
Interesting. I’ve been wondering about that pattern. I think what you’re referring to as ‘closed religions’ I’ve been labeling ‘fearful’ and ‘legalistic’ because I’ve noticed a pattern. They seem to have a great and suspicious view of the world, and prescribe a set of strict laws to keep us all “safe”. Ironically, not what I believe Christianity was intended to be, but there have certainly been forces shaping it that way.