Understanding the Role of Religion in Today’s World of Power Politics: Are We the Player or the Played?

Religion, in its various manifestations, is supposed to bring us a measure of comfort and reassurance. It was also intended to explain essentially everything such as the stars, how we got here, why life is so tough, and so forth.  However, it’s institutionalization has simply provided a degree of control and ability of manipulation, promising something which is unmeasurable and illusionary in the “hereafter” for you obedience in the here and now for a handful of individuals.

 Of course, what’s a system of rewards---eternal happiness, meeting up with departed friends and family, singing hymns and playing harps ad nauseum, 72 virgins, and so on without a corresponding systems of punishments---a lake of fire, the smell of sulfur,  eternal torment by demons and pitchforks, endless reruns of “I Love Lucy”, those hymns and harps ad nauseum again, and having to put up with 72 virgins?

It’s always about rewards and punishments. The stick and carrot (or apple I suppose in this case). Countless institutions and individuals have made a pretty good living as this. The Vatican for instance, is one of the richest and most powerful corporations on the planet.  They’ve amassed a level of wealth that would have Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Exxon, and Google look like paupers. Most estimates put its wealth at around $10 to $15 billion dollars, plus they pay no---zero---taxes on that wealth, not to mention priceless artifacts and documents. For centuries it’s also been the great keeper of secrets.

This has ranged for the ordinary peasant confessing his or her lust for the neighbor’s crops, cows, or son/daughter all the way up to the plans of princes and princess. Kings and queens have been made to grovel on the bellies to the papal throne. It’s been the power mover behind the scenes in global politics for over 2000 years.

It’s given legitimacy to kings and governments for thousands of years, raising some up and bringing many down. No other institution has welded such power over its fellow human beings.  Of course, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t gone unchallenged. There has been numerous political ideologies which has tried to supplant religion down through the centuries.

Take the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great for instance. He conquered hundreds of nation-states, empires, and tribes during his brief reign. In each instance, he would often leave much of the old government and religion in place with only minor changes. The Roman Empire did much the same, asking only that the Emperor be acknowledged as the supreme secular power. Genghis Khan, who amassed the largest land empire in history, followed pretty much the same political philosophy.

However, there has been numerous schisms, reformations, separatist movements, protests, and so forth which has rejected the institutional power of organized religion such as the “Great Schism” (aka “The East-West Schism”) of 1054, separating the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church (a fight essentially over power, giving a “holier than thou”  authority of the Bishop of Rome over other Bishops), Martin Luther’s Reformation of 1517, King Henry VIII’s Reformation of 1527 (aka “The English Reformation”), and countless others, There’s the Sunni and Shia split of 632 CE which is still being battled everyday on TV screens and across the internet.

 Hinduism, the third largest religion behind Christianity and Islam, dates back some 4000 years, has experienced four major internal breaks with dozens of subsets. Buddhism, known for its peaceful philosophical doctrine, had its first schism just one hundred years after Buddha died in 483 BC. Christianity at least waited three hundred years before it began purging competing ideologies like the Arians, Gnostics, and so forth.

So, with all the reformations, schisms, and other breaks, how many religions are there today? Although no exact number is possible, there’s an estimated 10,000 distinct religions in the world today. They range from having thousands of deities to alleged having one (or is it three with a subset of hundreds of the lesser divine?) while others have no specific entities, preferring nature or the natural world. Most (though not necessary all) have their sacred texts or spoken traditions, holidays/festivals, morals, values, and mythologies.

Of all of them, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are the largest, representing 77% of all religious followers. Broken down by the numbers, Christianity, which represents about 32% of the world’s population, has 2.2 billion adherents. Islam, which has 23% of the global population, has roughly 1.6 billion followers, and is the fastest growing organized religion in the world outside of the Middle East.

Hinduism has about 1 billion followers and makes up 15% of the world’s population. Buddhism has about 500 million followers although the number may be higher since adherents may follow Buddhist teaching as either a religion or as a philosophy.  Lastly, Judaism, which is the smallest of the so-called “Great Religions” and certainly one of the most influential, has about 14 million adherents although many consider themselves as “non-religious” or “not practicing”.  Just 0.2% of the world’s population are Jewish.

It bears mentioning that historically, more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause. So, how many people are we talking about? While there’s no way to provide an exact number of deaths, conservative estimates put the number of dead at over 195 billion in deciding who God loves the most. A few examples include the Crusades which killed an estimated 6 million Muslims and Jews. The Thirty Years War killed some 11 million men, women, and children.

The Congolese Genocide (led by King Leopold II of Belgium) resulted in the deaths of 13 million. The ongoing Islamic War has murdered (since 2000) approximately 150,000 and thousands condemned to slavery (mostly Shia’s, Kurds, Yazidis, and Coptic Christians). About 20 million Native Americans died as a result of continental expansion in the name of “Manifest Destiny” (and disease). The Muslim conquest of India took somewhere around 80 million lives. In Africa, due to Church prohibition of birth control (including condoms), some 30 million Africans died of AIDs.

Of course, about 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.   The French War of Religion killed some 4 million French Protestants and led to exodus of tens of thousands so-called “Huguenots”. By comparison, 5000 Jews were killed during the Spanish Inquisition (although almost every Catholic country carried out its own inquisition), and these are but a few example.

It bears mentioning that there’s been other, more lethal, causes of human death down through history such as malaria (which is the single cause most responsible for human death), the Black Plague, starvation due to crop failure, drought, and other forms of natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanos, tornados, hurricanes, storms, etc.).  The Spanish Flu of 1918/19 killed over 500 million people worldwide. That’s roughly 1/3 of the global population at the time, making it the deadliest pandemic in recorded human history.

These, however, were largely outside of our control. At best, we could only take precautions. Economic wars, fought for the control of land or resources, are the ones we’re most familiar with (ie: Kuwait or Iraq were fought mainly over the control of oil production) and they often go hand in hand with religious war, which both go to control---political, economic, and social compliance.

According to a 2024 Pew report, religious freedom is in decline. 92% of the 190 countries looked at---183---restricted religious freedom in one way or another. In the 20 countries comprising the Middle East and Northern Africa, there was at least one instance each of religious harassment. The same was true for 43 of 45 European countries as well as 33 of the 35 nations in the Americas, 44 of 48 sub-Saharan African nations, and 43 of 50 Asian/Pacific countries.

The decline of religious freedom was, in fact, the lowest recorded since 2007, when Pew began tracking religious freedom. 55% (or 29% of the total) had “high” or “very high” levels of government imposed restrictions on religious freedom (most of these were in the Middle East and China).  

The countries with the highest rates of religious freedom included Australia, Canada, Japan, Finland, South Africa, and along the western coast of South America such as Peru, Chile, Columbia, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Ecuador and Honduras in Central America.  The United States was listed as being a “moderate” when it came restricting religious freedom.

43% (or 22% of the countries studied) had “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities against minority religions. These “hostilities” included violence against private individuals and groups, religiously affiliated organizations including schools, as well as religious places of worship. The worst offenders were Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan due to the very high level of religious persecution socially and governmentally imposed.  So, what religious groups were most affected?

According to the 2024 Pew survey, Christians were the most heavily persecuted religious group, despite being the world’s largest faith. Persecution was the worse in predominantly Muslim nations, and in areas where Muslims were in the majority , including in the UK and Europe, which have been historically Christian.

Muslims, the second largest religion in the world, were also the second most religiously harassed population. However, most of that harassment came from other Muslims (such as Sunni vs Shia) or more accurately, Muslims vs. Islamists.

Muslims tend to follow the Koran or teachings of Muhammad while Islamists tend to promote a radicalized political philosophy using the corrupted version of the Koran’s teachings. Islamists tend to not only oppose other Muslims, they oppose Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and especially Jews. In fact, Islamists pretty much oppose anyone who isn’t them.

The third most harassed group, and the smallest of the “Great Religions”, was Judaism. Jews have long been one of the most hated religious groups in history, regardless of where they live or how much they’ve tried to integrate. Fourth were largely the much smaller religions such as Zoroastrianism (which is the common “grandparent” of most religions including the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the Sikhs, Baha’i, etc.  

They are closely followed the fifth most harassed group, the traditional Chinese and Japanese folk religions such as Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism, Tengrism, Native American spiritualism,  Australian Aboriginal spiritualism, Wicca and paganism.

The last two most harassed religions were the Hindus and the Buddhists, which, despite their size (third and fourth largest religions respectively), tend to be relatively unbothered, but when they are, it’s mostly in countries with large Muslim populations. Finally, the least harassed group are the non-affiliated. While as a group they tend to be largely left alone, But when they are harassed, it has tended to be by those who are most strongly affiliated with a religion in general rather than any one specific religious group.

Religion, especially organized or “dogmatic” religion, is a fickle thing.  Historically, it has usually sought to justify its existence by claiming or doing one thing while seeking another. I cannot imagine a benevolent deity sanctioning intolerance, hatred, or the horrific acts mentioned above to be committed in their name, nor can I imagine such an entity even creating a species with those attributes. 

Mankind has changed little over time, and like little children, we tend to blame someone else (“I don’t know” did it) rather than except responsibility for our actions. In this case, we blame some invisible entity who we know won’t contradict us, especially if we’ve imbued it with inordinate power. All we have to do is shift the blame when things go bad or take the credit when things work out.

Then again, what if all these wars and atrocities were indeed the wish of some deity? What if Humanity was convinced to play “Risk”  while this entity or entities play a cosmic game of chess and Humanity is their pawn?  What, when the game is over and we exist no more, the deity (or deities) simply moves on to the naïve species somewhere in the galaxy to start a new game? Either way, I don’t care much for either scenario. For some reason, I think it’s time we should light a candle for Mankind.

 

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Religious Hostilities Hit Six-Year High

Religion

The East-West Schism

Schism

How Many People Have Been Killed in the Name of Religion

Spanish Flu

Muslims vs Islamists

Pew Global Survey Shows Rising Religious Restrictions

Religious Restrictions Around the World

The Global Religious Landscape

Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: The Supreme Court Ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

I guess I should have known something was up. I noticed a sudden large increase in the number of emails received, most of which were from Left oriented organizations. While most are from some ubiquitous sounding organization like "United for Intergalactic Peace" or "Surrender Now", several were from LGBTQ groups, and others which promoted transgender "self-identification". Each mentioned some recent apocalypse sounding event in their headline beckoned me to open and read on. I usually get a broad cross section of political emails from all political corners; each pushing its own cause and citing some recent tribulation (real or imagined) which they felt warranted my immediate attention and as always, begging for money to make it go away. However, this seemed like an unusually lot, even for me.

However, before I got the opportunity to delve into this mystery, I received a phone call from a friend of mine asking if I heard the latest news. Knowing that could be just about anything, especially sense I follow and usually write about news from a national and even global perspective, I had to acknowledge that I was stumped (of course, I was secretly hoping it had something to do with all the emails). Still, the two mysteries just might be related I thought. As it turned out, they were.

Back in 2012, an ordinary baker by the name of Jack Phillips was asked by a gay couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig to bake them a wedding cake. Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop, politely declined to accept their order for the wedding cake (usually a very profitable project with a big markup) because of his religious beliefs. Mr. Phillips claimed to be a very traditionalist Christian, has said all along that his religious beliefs prohibited him from partaking in any way with an event which goes against his faith's religious tenets, which so happens to include gay marriage. Apparently Mullins and Craig couldn't accept his answer, and neither did the Colorado Civil Rights Commission which said that Phillips had no such religious freedom and his refusal to bake the cake was violation of Mullins' and Craig's civil rights.

Nevertheless, the couple insisted that Phillips bake their wedding cake, which was repeatedly refused, which makes me wonder why? It's not like there weren't other professional bakers capable of doing at least as good of a job; maybe even better. It's not like they couldn't have asked around in their local LGBTQ community for recommendations for another baker. Nope. It had to be this one and only this one. Again, I ask why? My personal opinion is that the couple saw this as a potential payday. An opportunity to gain some national notoriety and maybe a large financial "piece of the pie" if you'll pardon the pun. Besides, if you force someone into making a wedding dress, drapes, or a cake in this case against their will, what kind of product do you think you're going to end up with?

Apparently the Supreme Court, in a rare act of common sense, had ruled 7 -2 in favor of allowing the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, to decided who he does business with or not. Imagine that. You, as a business person, getting to decide whether or not you want to accept someone's business. I'm sure we've all seen signs on the doors of various establishments which read "No shoes. No shirt. No Service" or something similar. These proprietors were telling prospective customers that they have certain criteria which has to be met if you want to come in and get service. if you didn't meet these requirements, feel free to move on.

Of course, did the Supreme Court really have any other choice in making their decision? The Bill of Rights provides us with the freedom of association, meaning we get to hang out with whomever we want without interference by the government (provided, of course, no crime or criminal behavior is implied). That means you can associate with folks who role-play, follow a certain religion or philosophy, cross dress, or whatever. It's up to you and it's not any of the government's business. The Bill of Rights also provides us with freedom of religion, which means that the government will do whatever it has to not to interfere with those beliefs, so long as those beliefs are legal and fall within the general norms of society as a whole (that means no religious based rapes, human sacrifice or beheadings).

Some would argue that using the "freedom of association" or "freedom of religion" argument would mean refusing to associate with anyone you don't like under the mask of "religion". However, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote for the majority, said business owners can't deny services or goods to individuals under neutral public accommodation laws, otherwise it a "community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights" could result. Justice Kennedy went on to say that Phillips acted within reason based on his religious beliefs, which had remained consistent throughout. He added that may have been a one off decision, and the verdict on similar cases in the future might be quite different. True. I wonder how the Court would rule if some Southern "redneck" requested a Muslim caterer to provide a pork-laden spread or a Hindu caterer to provide cooked steaks and hamburgers with their order. It's coming folks. It's coming.

Now, as everyone who knows me personally or reads my articles knows, I couldn't care less about someone's gender, race, orientation, religion, or whatever else. I may or may not agree with their choice, but it's not for me to decide; it's theirs. However, people have to understand that not everyone is going to playing along in their personal drama. People will look at you funny. People will speak out--- rightly or wrongly. That's just the way it is in our relatively free society. If I seriously don't like something about you, I'm obviously not going to invite you to participate and no law is going to make me. If you get "offended", that's just too bad. By the same token, if I don't get to play in your "reindeer games" because of my opinion or whatever guess what? I'm a big boy. I'll somehow manage to live. It also means that while we disagree in one area, that doesn't mean we disagree across the board. We accept the fact that not everyone is going to agree with everything we say or do. That's known as maturity.

Just because you made a conscious decision about your lifestyle (tattoos or body piercing for instance), that doesn't mean you get a free pass. If you decide that you self-identify as a dog or space alien, and you go out and spend a bunch of money having yourself surgically altered to fit in with your new persona, well good for you. Hopefully, it makes you happy. But don't expect to be greeted with open arms by society as a whole. If you decide you're going to be omni-sexual, pan-sexual, or whatever, then great; whatever floats your boat. But, again, that doesn't mean you're going to get to float that boat in just anybody's pool. There are consequences for your actions, good or bad. No one is ultimately responsible for the decisions you make but you, so suck it up and get over it.

As an aside, I personally believe there are two and only two sexes---male and female, and regardless of how you self-identify, Mother Nature wins out as she always does. As for your sexual or life choices, I really don't care. It's not my business. For that matter, it's really not anyone's business other than those directly affected, which means that neither do I particularly care or need to know. Now, whether it's a psychological disorder, a simply a genetic mutation, or one of Satan's demonic minions as some claim, I don't know. I've known a lot of folks who are gay, Lesbian, transgendered, bisexual in my lifetime, and I can't say a single one was the product of a "choice" . It was just the way they were. It may have been a choice on their part to "come out", but their sexual orientation was never a choice in itself.

Now, having said that, not everyone agrees. Some people believe for personal reasons that "something" is wrong with them. That's fine. That's their decision based on their upbringing or life experiences. Meanwhile, there are others who believe being gay or whatever is a violation of their religious beliefs, and to violate those beliefs is to disobey God or whatever deity they worship. That deserves as much respect as does someone else's personal decisions about themselves, be it body piercings, tattoos, or coming out. So, kudos to Mr. Phillips for standing his ground for his religious beliefs and a polite nod to at least seven of the nine Justices for getting it right for once (now, if only they would go back and revisit their "Citizens United", which was one of their biggest mistakes). The trouble with diversity is that it's diverse, and we have to get used to it. That's also it greatest strength.



Supreme Court rules for Colorado baker in same-sex wedding cake case


Supreme Court rules on narrow grounds for baker who refused to create a same-sex couple's wedding cake