Hi All, This is my first post under this section. And I can see from many of the topics presented that my opinions will probably be in opposition to most here. So, I figure I will get the best debates. The topic of this post is to comment on how religion serves to create a collective identity. In other words, one person will say, "I am a baptist," or, "I am a christian," or I am a Muslim. I believe that many religious people, especially religious fundamentalists do not see themselves as sovereign or the concept of "liberty" as it is referred to in the US constitution (based on the primacy of the individual and individual rights) is not acknowledged by them. In other words, religious people do not actually believe in liberty, but believe in the totalitarian dictatorship of god. In other words, they believe in a theocracy, which is not based on individual rights, but based on worship of a divine deity. The authority behind religion, in my opinion, starts with the authority of the family unit and the individual as seeing themselves as part of the familial collective. Once you see yourself as "part of something" and not something in yourself, you are morally obligated to serve the greater whole, whether that be the family, the nation or the religion (abiding by its moral strictures). The danger behind seeing yourself as part of a collective is the perception of lose of individual control or accountability, because part of your decision making process is left outside the bounds of reason and instead diverted to tradition or authority. This is an accost to politics because politics in a free society is based on cooperation and reason, rather than authoritarianism. So, it is my opinion that religion in general (at least fundamentalist religion) contributes to authoritarianism in general and ultimately contributes to a massive transfer of power to the state, because people are conditioned to act on the basis of power and authority rather than reason. And people in general live their lives outside of reason, following old traditions, following laws because they are afraid, and never embracing rationality fully. In order to have freedom, individuals must be recognized. Religion promotes collective identity which ultimately leads to the individual not being recognized, and especially individual rights not being recognized, since individual rights are just the product of the recognition of individual existence. So, it is collectivism, whether in the form of collective religious identity, communism, socialism, nationalism, pure democracy, that is eroding individual liberty and diverting vast quantities of power to a few individuals. NOTE: This is not to say that religion in general is necessarily collective. In other words, religion has much in common with philosophy and a completely free person can choose to make themselves a slave if they wish. However, religion or collectivism becomes a problem when members of a so-called collective, attempt to enslave free men, by claiming that the free are in fact members of their collective, or slaves just like them.
