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CONFLICTS BETWEEN RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY PART II
Posted on June 18th, 2010 No commentsCONFLICTS BETWEEN RELIGION AND POLITICS/DEMOCRACY PART II
SOME CONCLUSIONS
RELIGIONS
At a certain point in time most religions needed to get organized. Since I have lived the major part of my life in Europe I better use some examples from this continent.
The organization was formed in an easy and understandable manner: The Supreme Head or CEO, Bishops or Executive Management and the Priests and clerks the staff. A framework for how to carry out the vital functions was established and was solid and firm leaving no open doors. The product was clearly identified based on one idea (one only/our concept/understanding) and the marketing plans were carried out. The major marketing vehicle, due to the communication tools available at that time, was of course the Church and during services the priest/speaker would present the whole package from belief to how to cope with the all circumstances in the society. It was education (sometimes indoctrination) and the level of information was always kept at a level ensuring that the Church’s powerbase was never questioned.
The main focus for the priests was at all times to ensure that the actual developments in the world and the local society were never allowed to question the basic rules of the Church and its teaching. The attempts from groups like the Gnostics to debate about the speculative and mythological cosmology which represents a huge world of dualism between spirit/materiel, light and darkness, God and the world were never accepted and history can show extreme sad examples of the methods exercised by the Church to remove any potential rival from the monopolistic market.
However one can say about any religion that is actually a certain form for a view of the world and each religion may have it own concept. Each concept will outlay its views and specify how the adherents should live their lives based on a firm decision on the actual situation for human beings and a list of priorities of the importance of maintain the existence, e.g. The Ten Commands, and it is obvious that most religions have limited connection to rational thinking. The result is of course that adherents believe and need not any proof of reality.
The major problem today for most major religions is the adjustment to the new world. The question is important since it is necessary to keep the herds in proper place because the herds are the customers and in order to get cash you need to sell the products they will pay for. That is why most religions have turned into cool cash machines but just as important they became the most vital instrument for political control based on the state/religion principle.
Some of these facts lead to the big split in Europe (The reformation). The fight was fierce for getting out of the greedy claws of the Pope in Rome and the right to voice different views on the organization of the Church and its power control plus different views on the liturgies, rites and culture. The strong personalities, the driving forces behind the movement won.
If I look at the present state of affairs for Religions as a whole I find it is about time to change what I will call the concepts to meet the actual and realistic approaches of the world in 2010. Maybe shift the basics to be more in line with pragmatic philosophy. The Church must be open for constructive dialogues and ready to let down the fences and leave outdated and old myths in which the modern and well educated generations do not accept as facts.
Today some nations are still governed by a strict combination of state and religion and again I voice that this is an old fashioned system mainly due to the fact the Church in reality is controlled by scrupulous leaders using faith as a political instrument and leaving no freedom for the citizens to make other choices, this situation we find e.g. in Italy at the moment controlled by a CEO who suffers from schizophrenia. Most likely he is embedded with the Mafia that again coheres with Rome. But much more dangerous is the fanatic leader of Iran Ahamadinejad, who will create severe problems not only to the Middle East but to the World.
PHILOSOPHY
If we now turn to countries not controlled by a religion, we are talking about democracies. The meaning of democracy is “a society controlled or ruled by people”. But much more important is a total amount of freedom in almost all aspects, but executed under personal responsibility. The question now turns up being if believing in reasons, that all things have a supreme reason and reasons form knowledge, can replace religious beliefs? My answer is a solid yes, of course. It is a human right to be skeptical and that believing in objectivism will give more perspectives in lives than basing this on outdated and often ridiculous fairy tales applying mainly to persons, who are at the best naïve.
Maybe a better way to explain this is to use the phrase contemporary philosophical realism. It eases the understanding that the roots for realism are found in the basic Greek philosophy. (Plato). The term realism then can be added in front of Religion, Philosophy, Logics, Mathematics and Physics we just need to agree to the exact meaning of realism. Or we may add natural realism and then touch on metaphysics as well (Kant).
For those interested I strongly recommend to read Ayn Rand and her book “Atlas shrugged”
Could we all agree that the most important for a human being is to establish facts about our identity, the purpose of existence, knowledge and moral? Add then real values, ethics and the purposes and we are closer to total concept that according to my humble opinion is a preferable set of conducts than religion.
HISTORY
It can be said that history is a representation of our past written down in a certain organized order. It is interesting since almost all events are a result of choices made based on constraining structures and circumstances. I pay a lot of attention to the latter since it gives more insight knowing about them since they play a vital role when considering a choice. You may also state that history is an attempt to explain the chain of events from as many viewpoints as possible, but this is based on the assumption that these are as accurate as possible and not folktales, creations or fictions or “interpreted”.
All attempts to get reliable pictures from the past regardless of being speculative or metaphysical is to find e.g. patterns or repeating circles and are of course an everlasting basis for academic debates. Since only human beings produce the history the question of a human being’s nature is more than relevant. Are we able to form our own set of rules or are we bound or influenced by our history?
So as a closing remark to my plan trying to express my views on the main topic Conflicts between Religion and Democracy I will advocate that it is necessary to touch on the related issues (Religion, Philosophy and History) otherwise it is not possible to comprehend the whole picture.
I will continue my essays in chapter III
Chonburi 18th June 2010
Ole Casthoej
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