Tuesday, July 10, 2012

On the Purpose of Religion: Order

As far as I can tell, order includes unity and structure. (I used to have power as a fifth purpose, but these two seem to cover that fairly well.)  The first is self-evident, as religions without unity die out, while successful religions are often examples of the strongest communities around. 

Structure is automatically generated then, because groups must have leaders (with a few exceptions). The larger a religious community grows, the more levels of authority are needed to control it, rendering a sort of government invested with divine authority and with the charge of enforcing the religion's laws and/or customs. 

Unfortunately, religion can also validate structures such as the caste system with divine justification, separating humanity on an arbitrary and often detrimental basis. Of course, over the course of history, people have come up with plenty of ways to justify harmful social structures such as slavery without the help of religion, so the fault lies less on religion and more on humanity itself. :P

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