I asked a friend who writes more then I do for some feedback on my previous post, she was good enough to give me some clear pointers. But one thing that she made clear was that I’d glossed things over, in fact I’d covered things much too quickly. She’s right and I’m going to make an attempt in the next couple of weeks to explore my ideas in a bit more depth.
I think it’s fair to start with the observation that our religions have, and still can, play a highly controlling part in society. This is usually informally and hand in hand with secular rulers (think religious politicians), but often with enough power of their own that these rulers would not provoke them thoughtlessly. After all, priests could have you executed or banished for arguing with them, and whilst kings have their glamour, priests had a hotline to the ineffable. Of course, as we can see in the West, this power has now shifted heavily towards the secular rulers, to the point that the words of the priests are often disregarded and the police will happily raid a church if they feel they need to (as happened recently in Belgium).
This has, in my opinion, caused a significant move towards faith in a society and its agencies and away from faith in a religion and its agencies. This tends to have a lot of the same characteristics, including an unquestioning belief for many that their society is always right and better, whatever the actual facts might be. Of course, we have a lot invested in these things mentally and often physically and financially, thus the world view that stems from a persons faith (or indeed their society) can frame everything for them. Any challenge to this is highly unwelcome, an observation that leads me onwards.
As in the case of religious faith, questioning this ‘societal faith’ invites swift and harsh criticism from some quarters, which is very understandable in light of my previous paragraph. After all, any challenge to that faith is more than intellectual, it strikes emotionally as well. Our answers to life’s questions and problems are found in the framework of our society or faith. To question that can feel like a very personal attack, it attacks the persons life choices and possibly their sense of who they are.
In religious terms, you’d be a “Heretic”, an “Infidel”, or a “Heathen” and in secular terms you’re a “Commie”, a “Traitor” or a “Subversive”. Interestingly, all of these are ‘ad hominem’ in that they condemn the person without addressing their ideas. I think it’s fair to say that these sort of terms are used to put down the ideas of both secular and religious heretics without thought or consideration. Of course, this is very likely because the faith (whichever that is) can’t afford to have those ideas examined closely. In each respective system you can be ‘excommunicated’ or ‘ostracised’ and capital punishment has been an option in both systems and still is in many places.
In both secular and religious systems we have competing groups and also sub factions within those groups. We can call the groups, ‘faiths’ or ‘nations’, it might then also be fair to call the factions ‘sects’ or ‘political parties’. These groups most often form around a charismatic leader, be it a “Koresh” or a “Stalin”, then power hierarchies form and a dogma is drawn up. There are always disagreements between groups, which can result in conflicts (armed or verbal) for ideology or practical power or the calving of sub groups.
To wrap up this first part, let me say that I take the view that there are definite parallels between a religion and a society. I hope I’ve demonstrated this, or at least planted the seeds of further thought, as is my usual aim. I’m hoping to get more into the ‘Tenets of the Religion’ in Part 2.
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The crowd image is by victoriapeckham and is licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic.
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