Originally Posted by
James Madison
I'm gonna get this out of the way and say that, yes, I am a Christian. I've read the Bible, most of the Apocrypha, and a few other assorted texts.
Having said this, there are a few points I need to make.
Whether we're dealing with religion or government, let's think about to our evolutionary history as a species. Let's imagine a village of primitive humans, sitting around a fire, maybe 50,000 years ago. Somewhere along the line, humans (along with most other mammals) learned to organize themselves into a hierarchical system with the alpha male on top.
(Make a note of this because it's important)
In time, schmoozing up to the alpha male granted other males the privilege to do things they couldn't get away with by themselves. Having the biggest, fastest, and the strongest member of the tribe backing you in a fight can have its advantages. It also grants easy access to females, who already flock to the alpha male. With this in mind, let's hop in the proverbial time machine and travel to around 10,000 years ago. Civilization is in its infancy. But the specter of generations gone by remains. Religion, as an institution, set itself up in a manner similar to tribes of yester-millenium. But who's the alpha male? It's none other than the supreme deity. God, Zeus, Jupiter, etc. If you're a human, being on God's good side is the ultimate ace in the hole. After all, who better to have your back than the Creator of Everything!? But just as citizens today fight to the death over which nation's ideals are greatest, so too did people fight over whose God was greatest.
And this brings me to my final point. Individuals who claim that ending religion will somehow improve the lot of humanity are lying to themselves. Statism predates religion. It is the foundation of all religious belief. Statism is the original ideology. So, to the OP I commend you for your analysis. But the point I must emphasize is that statism isn't just a religion; it appeals to an even deeper fear of the human psyche. Fears that are millennia-old. Fears that will never die until fear, itself, is conquered.
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