The Fall of Religion, and Why the State is Next.

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After thinking about the Consequenses thread and some of the comments in the last Abortion thread, I realized something. There is a reason that Society is going to hell, and you can't pin this on Religion or it's exclusion, but the rejection of religion is merely a symptom of a much greater problem.

That problem is simple--we really don't like people telling us what to do.

That's right, we don't like people telling us what to do. When we want to do something, and someone tells us it's wrong, we would then question who they are to tell us what to do.

Once upon a time, the local religion had a monopoly on morality. They were the only game in town, and nobody questioned it. But then, Authority was abused, groups split off internally and other religions became known, so their monopoly on "the truth" was shattered, and people started picking from what they wanted, even questioning it's legitimacy entirely. Soon, people who were sick of religion telling them what they should and shouldn't do started to tell it to get out of their public places.

Likewise, once upon a time, the local government (king, lord, whatever) held such a monopoly. But over time, authority has been abused, people within a nation began to disagree with each other over the right way to govern and what the laws should be, and other nations became known to the masses, and governments have been overthrown because they think another nation's ideas are better and want that for themselves.

Are we seeing that today? You bet. How many political scandals have we heard to death? And how about contested elections? The United States is almost split in half between Democrats and Republicans. How long before things get really ugly? People even look at other nation's laws and decide that the other nation's law is better than their own...

How does this tie back to the Consequences thread? The lady wanted Prayer out of School? They did it. How long before they want the flag out of the classroom because they don't like the law telling them what they can and can't do? Isn't the problem that they complain about rules they really don't want to follow.

Aren't the majority of complaints about Religion about the rules they preach and the abuse of authority?

 

Yes, it would be nice if people submitted to authority (be it religion, the state, a king, you name it), and let that authority tell people how to live their lives. Er, except for the fact that said authority doesn't always know what is best for everyone. One should be able to live one's own life, making one's own decisions about what is best for one, without the church or the state interfering and saying "this is bad, stop doing theis, or else" and "this is right, start doing this, or else." Granted, there must be some cooperation and compromise for society to function, that is to say if what you want to do prevents someone else from doing what they want to do (by killing them, stealing from them, etc.) then that should be banned. But thats pretty much it, unless the members of a society decide they want to subjugate themselves to further restrictions. No one should be dominated by any one else, because no one else can claim to know what is right for anyone else.

 

Never has a society existed without all the ills that plague our modern society. We always like to think that the current generation is ruining the world, but we always forget that in this utopian past we yearn for there were things like slavery and segregation, and women had no rights. Why does our collective memory always gloss over the warts of our past?

 

Not as I see it, Gnarff. I think the majority of complaints about religion happen when members of a religion try to impose their rules on people who aren't members.

More later - parenting calls!

 

I'm with what Rally says... and most likely with whatever "More later" will be, too. *waves random pompoms*

 

Speed the day

Show people that these morals, rules, ect are anything other than an arbitrary nuisance and maybe people will follow them. Naturally any power which tries to impose nonsensical pointless rules is going to be perceived as illegitimate - and naturally people aren't going to be interested in that.

Of course, the state has the advantage over religion in that it has a monopoly on violence, while religion just has (or had, or wants to have) a monopoly on morality. Having a monopoly on violence is a whole heap more useful than a monopoly on morality when the unwashed rabble start a revolt

And how exactly is not wanting people to tell us what to do and think a problem? Who knows what's best for us better than ourselves, and who else has the right to impose their beliefs in that matter on us? I'm opposed to many religious values not because they come from some authority, but because I believe them to be (morally?) wrong for me. Should these be imposed on me regardless?

 

It's a rather sad situation actually. Indeed people lack the 'duty to your country' that we saw in the 1940s but that required a war to bring out in people. Also on doing what the government says is good? That nationalistic fervour is what allowed the Nazis and the Japanese Empire to bring the world to it's knees.

However if the leaders of these countries had been a little 'less' paranoid, genocidal or just plain violent they could have thaken this fervour and turned it into something wonderful.

Now the issue with democracy is that the people are their own moral compass. There is no 'big brother' with the authority to tell them how to live their lives, they are the 'big brother'. If everyone in the world was to go off and read Plato's Last Days of Socrates they could find a tragic tale of how one man's brilliance and duty towards his country was what destroyed him, people would see how the democratic system betrayed a country's most respectable citizen. Socrates followed the system of the government in place, such was his duty and his reward was continued existance in the country. This is is something people need to realise, there are three honorable choices if you don't agree with a law in a country:

1. Shut up and put up - don't like it but still obey it. (Although in a few years time {depending on the time between elections in your country} you can attempt option 2.)

2. Attempt to change the law through the legal means provided.

3. Leave the country. (Vote with your feet.)

Now the issues in America are rather strange for somebody like me who lives in New Zealand. For us we simply see the problem as government officials believing that if they impose 'Christian law' that the people of their 'Christian country' will be happy. America is, quite ironically, turning into one of it's worst enemies - a therocracy. In New Zealand we're suffering from extreme socialisim. We have so many people on government benefits of some kind or another. Yet we have doctors leaving because they simply aren't getting paid enough or the work hours demanded of them are too high and they can fix both problems by working in Australia.

This is turning into a rant, sorry. There are so many problems with governments and the people of a country. They will always knock heads. It just seems when the people in the country ARE the government also there are just alot more heads knocking.

 

I wonder if it'd just be easier to abandon all semblance of morals and law, and returned to the mindless protoplasm from which we evolved.
At leaast then we wouldn't have to worry about politics.

 

So I guess you'd like a feudal theocracy. Well, there are plenty of examples from history to choose from : France during the Louis kings, Russia at almost any time, or even one of the muslim models (let's see, only one religion is true, check, those who question it face death, check, and the rulers have almost absolute power). Which one of these examples you would propose we follow?

 

I have this feeling from the thread starter message that seems to split religion and the state, as if they were enemies or something. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to say that these two institutions always? worked together. They complement each other, so to speak.

Right, both the goverment and the religious institutions know this, and that's why they work in mmm subtle ways. That means they used other "tools" to do this dirty work: media, school, tv advertisements (even if they don't have anything to do with politics or religion, could be a car add for instance), music bands (best example), celebrities. Uhm, has anyone here played Vampire: the masquerade? Not the videogame, the pen and paper version. It says that people get pissed off (very) when they find out they've been manipulated. That's why both gov and religion resort to these methods.
Another thing that it'd be interesting to point out is that the goverment usually doesn't tell people what to do, but do without telling the people. Here in Argentina it took us ten years or so to realise we'd sold our country to foreign companies (I was a kid, don't blame me!). Same could be said about many political episodes in the past years. Things happen too fast for us to realise what's going on (as if they had celerity 6! or a haste spell, for d&d players).
Back to the religion/goverment topic, I'd say we shouldn't separate them in this discussion. I don't believe, like Abomination said, that people is its own moral compass, not after being through school and work and family. I firmly believe people IS easy to manipulate. Not by a single person, by a big brother per se, but by a big brother network; say, family, school, work, media, etc. A whole structure that determines our tastes. I'd venture a bit too far and say that's why north american eat donuts and we south americans don't (they're disgusting).
Abomination, that what you said about Socrates is interesting. But I don't agree with your first "honorable choice" because of what you'd say previously. If you get killed, or if "the people" votes for your execution, you can't wait four years for next elections. This is the major flaw in today's democracy, I believe. We simply do not participate in our country's affairs as much as we should for it to work properly. And again, the people itself doesn't know what it wants and probably will choose between two bad options for its own good, simply because it doesn't have enough information.
Maybe Socrates knew it was going to be like that anywhere he would go and that's why he chose to stay and die? Hey, now that I think of it, he died because he used to tell people what to do! Still, I prefer him than that ass-licker Maquiavelo.
PSI: You have flags in your classrooms? Intersting.
PSII: I'm not sure if bad words are allowed here, like that one above. You're free to change it, or tell me to change it (to the moderators).

 

Someone once said that every idea that the human mind is capable of dreaming up exists in Plato's "Republic."

In other words, there are no new ideas. Anarchy, monarchy, oligarchy; capitalism, communism; atheism, existentialism, monotheism, polytheism, animism, solopsism, et. al. Been there, done that 4000 years ago. Wrote it down on a stone tablet. Had it printed up on T-shirts. Whatever.

It's not like "the lady that got prayer out of schools" 50 years ago invented atheism or was the only person on the planet Earth who thought that every kid in every classroom in America shouldn't be praying to Jesus every morning. This is as bad as blaming legalized abortion on Roe. You think abortions didn't exist 1,000 years ago in Catholic Europe? Read your history books.

 

What? Are we forgetting the crusades? The inquisition? The Salem witch trials? All the other witch trials? The multiple wars fought with Russia because they were Orthodox and western Europe was Catholic? If the state has a monopoly on violence, it's because they stole it from religion. Give the power back to religion, and we will have more religious violence again.

 

Yes, but there is less and less of that these days. The copyright issue is one of those things. Certain people own rights to the distribution of a sopng or movie and want to earn money off that. People hijack that right when they copy a song or movie against those laws, in essence stealing those rights for their own use. You hear more about people wantonly assaulting or even killing others as well. The Government has been fighting a losing battle against that.

With religion, some of the rules are coming into question in similar fashion. For example, premarital sex is forbidden in Christianity, but two people get together on a regular basis, they both agree, they use condoms, and argue that nobody get's hurt, so it's okay. Aside from spiritual arguements, which they would reject, I have nothing to contribute. As I have pointed out with the copyright laws or drug laws, the same thing is happenning there.

Slavery and Segregation, the oppression of women and other unpoleasantness in our past were some of these abuses of authority that I've mentioned. They had to be changed, but that leads to the questioning of the good things that the state does. I'm not advocating the destruction of the state, but I suspect that it is inevitable...

And what of the people that either didn't qualify to vote (underage), or those that voted for guys that didn't get elected? What's to stop them from saying that "I didn't vote for George W. so why should I do what his government wants me to?"

Can that be done without people ridiculing these teachings for their alleged source? Why do so few people face the points made but rather attack the source? Can we actually share a higher view of humanity? I've been trying, but I don't know how well I do with that...

Why don't we check the effectiveness of that? Ask the British Monarch how their Colonies in the Americas are doing--oh, wait, they gained their independence in a war. Or how about the King of France, Louis XV I think his name is--Oh wait, where's his head. And what about Mr. Hittler? It seems that he didn't really have that monopoly after all and got beat down like a dog by about half of the world. No one state had a monopoly on violence...

Are there not people saying that about Government? Don't Drug users say the same thing when they light up a joint or whatever drug they choose? Aren't people saying that when people copy a CD, movie or Video game? My point is not (for once) that people should submit to my religious beliefs (even though I do believe this), it is that how long before people refuse to submit to Government using the same arguements...

And the more diverse those compasses are, the less impact the law will have. The Constitution of the US or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms sound nice on paper, but as differences in culture and morality become more pronounced, the less right the governments defined in those documents have to actually govern.

People won't do that. They get pissy when people try to impose morallity on them.

And how long before those legal means collapse the law itself?

Where are we going to go? Most such places are in the same mess that we are.

Actually, no. The majority of the people voted for a party that promoted Crhistian morallity, and that's what they are getting.

No form of government will fix all the problems, and that's why governments fail.

Feudal Theocracies were the ones that abused their power in the olden days. That's why religion has been falling, and State will be falling soon...

Actrually, they are in the same boat. The problem is that with the seperation of Church and State, you saw the boat in half. When that happens, both sink. They need to work together, but when there are people that don't like the one, they play one against the other.

That's why they are both falling. People don't like one of the other telling them what to do, overtly or subtly, so they reject them. As it has happenned to religion, soon it will happen to the state.

And with multiple voices speaking for this "Big Brother network", the messages begin to conflict, thus the homogenous whole starts to seperate, rending the fibres that tie our nations together.

She just led the charge to force the law to stop the practice, striking a huge blow against religion.

 

The major difference between the two here, is that one, in many cases (not all cases though) is a democratically elected body, the other the peopel have no say in. It is, technically, the people who make the rules.

If you look at Brissot's (a French revolutionist and defender of representative democracy)definition of democracy - or atleast representative democracy; direct democracy is another issue complete, and is not very likely to occur as a central government form - he places three criteria on a system for it to be called a democracy.

“a government in which all powers are, firstly, delegated or representative; secondly, elected by and for the people; thirdly, temporary or removable.”

If you look at those criteria, and the meaning of democracy itself (Rule of the People, or some such), the people have complete power to put laws in place and remove them, through the system, so it is highly unlikely that the masses will revolt. Unlike with organised churches, where the majority (or minority in most cases) have little or no say. You can't go and re-write the 10 commandments, where as you can go and rewrite a consistution if there is a big enough demand for it.

The problems you do get with something like this though, atleast in many countries where the democracy is not truely representitive, is the tyrrany of the majorty; where minority groups can be completely left off the scale. This IS when you do get unrest. Look at the riots in France, for example.

I agree with you here, America isn't turning into a therocracy as such. The term I would use - one of Aristotle's, I believe - is an oligarchy; the rule of a few. If you look at the predicted spending levels for the next presidental race, you will see what I mean (I hope). With US$5,000,000,000 been spent (I may be a zero or two out, but the number is HUGE) on each candidate, this instantly rules the majority of America right out. Also it is highly unlikely that either a non-white or non-christian is likely to get power. So what we see here is the elite few ruling - certainly not proper democracy, where the people are chosen from the people, by the people, for the people.

If you read some of Hobbes works (I think it was him), you'll see some interesting ideas about this. He was a politcal science/philosopher during the English Civil War, who was loyal to the King and monarch. Anyway, his reasoning was something like this. Without any government, humans exist in a State of Nature, which according to Hobbes is pretty much a 'war of all against all'. Humans though, due to their intellegence and reasoning, are able to pull themselves out of this state by forming social contracts between themselves and a soverign (which does not have to be a person, it could be an idea, religion or country, although I don't believe he talked about this), bringing into existance a series of rules and laws which keep things in order to allow us to advance and prosper.

To quickly summerise up, what he was saying is that naturally humans do form authority bodies/figures/etc to place these laws on themselves so order can exist.

Back to my own line of thoughts, by removing these laws, as you are suggesting would solve all the problems, you are just creating anarchy, which comes with a new set of rules and boundries. Trading the old for the new. Under anarchy, with no soverign body, you are limited to what you can do by the power you hold - whether this is monetary, as believed by the neo-libralisms, I think they are; or force, as would probably be likely with no monopoly on it. Eventually those who do posses the power will be in a position to put in place a new set of rules, therefore forming this social contract between people and soverign again (we all know that the people could rebel, it's always a possibilty) and bringing back order.

Wow, I really feel like I am rambling now... back on topic.

Once again, the problem with state and church working together (if church is used as a singular word) is once again we have this oppression that comes - the tyranny of majority. What about all those who do not wish to follow this church? Do they not have a say in the matter? How is that democracy? Also churches are often not very compatible with the ideas of democracy.

In New Zealand, and I am sure many other countries who claim to be a democarcy, there are many messures in place that allow everyone (yes, even those who didn't vote for the current sitting government!) to have a say. Using New Zealand as an example, as that's the place I'm fimilar with, before any contraversial law is passed, it must go through a Select Committee. This committee's job is to review popular opinion regarding the proposed bill and take note of different opinions. It is very easy to get heard by one of these and have your opinion have an affect on the formation of the laws. When a 'Smoke Free Workplace' law was going through, for example, the Select Committee travelled the country, listening to hundreds and hundreds of people (in NZ that's a lot ) before forming their final report.

Likewise, under many systems (not sure about the US) even if the party you voted for doesn't have the biggest numbers, they can still play a key roll in things. In New Zealand, once again, we currently have 8 different parties in parliament, none of them with a complete majority. Therefore, even the small parties get a big say on issues when it comes to controversial matters. A standard situation we would see is having Labour (current sitting, centre left government) voting for a bill to be past, National (opposition party, centre right, has only two less seats than Labour) voting the opposite way, leaving it down to these minority parties to have the final say in whether or not these laws are passed. So even if your party isn't currently sitting in the power seats, they still have a major say. It's the difference between proportional democracy vs majority democracy.

Anyway, I've rambled a hell of a lot more than I meant to. I guess that is what is called procrastination when you have an essay sitting open in another window that's wanting to be written. All I was meaning to say was that no matter what happens, as Hobbes claimed, humans will form a soverign body and put in place a state. It is the way we work.

[Big Edit]Must have pressed Submit half way through the post, as it cut off half of it. Fixed now!

[Edit] Oh! I just remembered another point. Where the state differs majorly from the church is that the state is an organic, evolving creature. It has, or should have, the ability to change with the peoples will. Where as the church is fixed. Now that I've written that down I seem to recall already writting it up there somewhere... hmm...

[ March 26, 2006, 10:17: Message edited by: Rotku ]

 

To the people stabbing me for the monopoly on violence comment, I was thinking of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

Well, can it be done period? For example, the whole homosexual rights issue - without a religious context it has no real legs to stand on, so how do you prove issues such as this to be important?

And I'm one of those people who can't wait until everyone starts refusing to accept the government with these arguments. I really hope you're right about all this 'the state is doomed' stuff, it's music to my ears Honestly, I can't see your problem with it (well, I assume you have one, your posts so far seem mostly to be just observations of this, rather than any for or againsts)

Strongly disagree (depending on your definition of 'anarchy') - pretty much all proposals for working anarchist societies involve eliminating hierarchy and capitalism - so there would be none who possess power over others.

 

That's because you cannot impose/advocate religious viewpoints by using reason alone (and I would think you should know this, Gnarf ).For all ages, the church's (any church, for that matter) answer to "why so?" was because "it is written in the book".

And you think that the new ones won't do so. You must be a great optimist

 

Oh, that's what they believe. But what I think is that they are more theoritical beliefs than practical ones. But you mention working anarchist societies, so prehaps I'm wrong. Where abouts are there working examples of anarchy?

 

A working anarchy is just another form of despotisim. If everyone rules themselves then the strong will take from the weak. Yet rather than being a country an anarcy is simply 'The Despotisim of John Franks' and 'The Despotisim of Mary Wills' and many other people who just happen to share the same geographical region.

 

WARNING - long post ahead.

Therein lies the problem. You can't impose morality, and especially not through legislation. Just look at US Prohibition laws for an example of the shining success of that approach.

IMO, the polarisation in the modern US is more a function of increased fundamentalism (secular or religious) in politics, public debate and policy-making. As soon as one side starts going off the deep end of rationality looking for political support, it's bound to expose greater divisions. Particularly when it seems to tie into economic, social and strategic policy as well.

I'm sorry, Aik, but I don't see how that's possible. There will always be positions of relative power imbalance and dominance, even if it's only at a micro-level, and people will use that power as they become aware of it/desire to use it. To constrain them will always require some ability to resort to coercive force.

You might not have any agency, body or persons with the vested authority to use force, but it's a far cry from nobody having power over anyone else.

/me gets on soapbox

I believe the problem is basically twofold, but that the two problems are interrelated. On the one hand, actors holding any sort of authority (moral, spiritual or temporal), no matter how valid its legacy or provenance, have tended to abuse their authority, or have been less than scrupulous in the exercising of any powers that attend said authority. Power and authority is seen not as the awesome responsibility that it is, but as the complete entitlement that it can be.

Such a shift in thought leads inevitably to corruption, and you can see it anywhere, over time - police forces, governments, the judiciary, and just about any management body of any size that you'd care to think of. To paraphrase Douglas Adams (and others), the sort of person who wants to have that position - because it is a position of power - should necessarily be prevented from having it.

On the other hand, the prestige and importance assigned to such institutions, values and belief structures (religious or secular) is depreciated by those who hold power but misappropriate, neglect or flat-out abuse with it. If you can find me a person in Australia who has any positive word-association with the word "politician", I'll be utterly dumbstruck. There are laws that make little sense to most people (the new IR legislation or mandatory sentencing, for example), or little sense to some people (cutting the top tax rate), and most of these tend to benefit the plutocrats-in-all-but-name.

Between these two things, you have a simultaneous undermining of the legitimacy of an institution (as those within it subvert or redirect its operations), and growing antagonism towards not only the actors, but the apparatus. It's not just that someone decided "eff this bastard, I'm seceding!" - that decision would only have come after a long saga of abuse, indulgence and antagonism. If the majority of people (or even a substantial minority) don't see the rhyme or reason for such criticism or disengagement from the system, no-one would support it, and instead of being a heroic defender of principled opposition, you'd be just another drop-out, or a me-too jerk tooting their own horn for attention.

Despite this, there will always be a core group of laws/rules/regulations that just about everyone will agree is necessary to the functioning of any society. The basic stuff, like not killing each other. Every society needs its demons, just as they need their heroes; as Durkheim would suggest, even in a society of angels, there would still be a need for a concept of deviance, a need for the outcasts, the reviled and the criminal - if only as a definition of a boundary.

In the modern world (at least, in the West), no authority is or should ever be its own justification. That excuse only ever comes with meeting one's responsibilities, and even then, it's increasingly about doing the job the right way more so than just "getting results". That a person or body is in a position of power says nothing about legitimacy except in a strictly legal sense - and thus, I don't think it's a bad thing that people are re-evaluating a legitimacy they previously accepted unquestioningly. Increasingly, people are realising that authority is conditional, not absolute, and that respect and legitimacy are things that must be earned rather than demanded by those who would enjoy them.

/me hops off soapbox

Essay over. Thanks for getting this far, if you read it all.

 

Thats a really good point. I'd like to expand on it. People may individually disagree with certain laws and choose to break them, just as people individually disagree with established relgions, such as the Catholic Church. However, this does not mean that government (or the Catholic church) is on its way out. Like NonSequiter said, unless the majority of society sees enough of the current laws as wrong, authority and government are not going to crumble away around us. Same with established religions, only more so: unless practically everyone decides that the Catholic church is utterly wrong and practically everyone decides to stop submitting to Catholic authority, the Catholic Church will still stand. And it does still stand, because there are millions of people (I think millions, correct me if I'm wrong) who believe the Catholic Church (and the Christain faith in general) to be the right authority to obey, despite the absence of prayer in schools. My point is that the secularization of western government is not due to people rebelling against authority as a whole-rather its due to people not wanting to obey authority that respresents religious beliefs that they do not share.