Religion and Politics Again – Boring, huh?

The more individuals come together to practice their faith, the more their faith is influenced by each other (i.e. by man). Faith turns into a religion with man-made hierarchies of control and influence. The more disciplined the hierarchy and the more it can effect punishment on its members, the greater man’s control over religion becomes. 

By batsman

I believe an individual’s faith and spirituality is personal. However, spirituality cannot be separate from behaviour and action. Otherwise one becomes a complete hypocrite. Therefore, a person’s faith must also determine his way of life or at least the way he leads his life. (For example, if you believe in recycling, then you must have “green” habits and the way you lead your life must also reflect this belief – otherwise you are just a plain old hypocrite who mouths empty words.) 

And within a community, life is inseparable from politics. So, consequently, faith is inseparable from politics. 

Having stated this very basic tenet, I admit to many complications that can occur. The more individuals come together to practice their faith, the more their faith is influenced by each other (i.e. by man). Faith turns into a religion with man-made hierarchies of control and influence. The more disciplined the hierarchy and the more it can effect punishment on its members, the greater man’s control over religion becomes. 

Further complication arises when religious groups form into political parties. Can you imagine the complications when an entire religion becomes one single political party? Such an entity is not manageable by man. It is bound to fracture especially if it encompasses the globe. Centers of power and influence will form in various parts of the globe and these can actually quarrel with each other, because it is extremely rare to find an individual whose faith is 100% of his being. Capitalists however can talk about globalization because selfishness has universal characteristics especially when ruled and united by the Great Satan. 

Most people are infected with other interests besides faith in God and any way of life is never perfect being greatly influenced by geographical, cultural, historical, social, economic and physical factors causing them to vary widely and maybe even coming into conflict with different communities of roughly the same faith. 

So it is that politics affect religion just as religion affects politics. Religion and politics are inseparable. They are different and yet the same. They are two ways of allowing man to live harmoniously with and regulate his relations with his neighbors. 

So how was it that religion became separate from politics in current dogma? It was never so. In fact throughout history, religion and politics were intertwined for much longer than the period when they got separated. 

Secular and religious power sat together to rule during feudal times and even before that. This was natural since men of letters were mostly men of religion and nobles. In fact it was religious orders that founded the first universities. The rest of the population was illiterate and ignorant in comparison. Even when capitalism was on the rise, its champions were fanatically influenced by religious beliefs. Not only that, the early scientists were also extremely religious persons. 

It was only when science finally unseated religion in explaining the physical world that capitalism found it convenient to abandon their old religious allies and separate religion from politics. Scientists started to play a more important role in social control than priests and since science was a different dogma apparently antagonistic to religion, the capitalists had to choose favourites and they chose the scientists who were also coincidentally more subservient and more compliant. 

Personally, in my view, science is not inherently antagonistic to religion, but because the scientists needed to suck up to the capitalists to become second-in-command and to get scientific grants, they made it look as if science is antagonistic to religion. This was helped somewhat by the priests who in trying to keep their positions persecuted the early scientists. 

These days, the capitalists are finding that science is not an adequate dogma to fulfill the needs of humans for spirituality. They are trying to turn capitalism itself into a religion. In this, they can only meet with failure as capitalism will be beneficial to only a few and oppressive of the many and these days the majority are much better educated and exposed than their forebears during the “Dark Ages”. Yet the capitalists have not given up. Instead they turn education into skilled training for the working trades. Subjects such as philosophy and ethics are slowly being abandoned. They try to turn people back into the illiterates of the “Dark Ages” albeit with productive skills. 

In modern times, religion can be weaved into politics for the benefit of mankind as long as the old dogmas are got rid of. For example, if a religious group forms into a political party, where does it loyalties lie? In intolerant Communist China, for a religious group such as Catholics to be loyal to a foreign authority such as the Pope is something the communists cannot comprehend or tolerate. 

Similarly, for a religious group to place its loyalty foremost with God, that already makes it difficult to regulate relations with other religious groups who place foremost loyalty with their own god. Democracy becomes difficult because these groups respect their loyalty to God more than they respect their interactions with each other. The vote becomes redundant even within each religious grouping since authority comes from closeness with God and not elections among men. So it is that if we go back to the basic tenet that faith is a personal matter, control and discipline by men becomes something not coming from God, but necessitated by the need to regulate relations among men. 

Religious groups can thus only form into political parties if they recognize that within the political arena, they have to play by democratic rules and treat others as equals – neither inferior nor superior. Their motive of spreading spirituality throughout society must be tempered by the realization that it must be done through education, good deeds and the free right to propagate their beliefs without force or violence by any side and if they want to educate others, they must also be prepared to listen to others. It is either religious democracy or a democratic theocracy – never a secular democracy controlled by secularists suppressing the religions and praying to the capitalist god which is as good as a capitalist / secular theocracy. 

Such a secular democracy which separates religion from politics can only indulge in the most offensive hypocrisies, eventually leading to corruption and abuse of power and even murder. When political action is separate from and not accountable to morality and ethics i.e. religious values and beliefs, then it is possible for the most heinous and immoral actions and sins to be committed.  

For a start, in Malaysia, there is nothing wrong with or dangerous about placing the captains of religion in the Senate instead of the useless senators we now have and are paying good money for. This starts the traditions and practice of religious tolerance and religious democracy within Malaysian society. Our current senators are appointed anyway and even in England, Nick Clegg is already talking about an elected House of Lords and since we suck up to the English and copy their every move, it is not a big step if we change our Senate as well – only instead of elections, the captains of religion sit in it by automatic right (I might add – this includes the spiritual leaders of the Orang Asli. Even secularists may be admitted, but only if they admit that secularism is just another form of religion. heeheehee) 

What say you?