Religion vs. Government, Democracy vs. Tyranny, and Capitalism vs. Communism

I will apply this to religion and government. Religion and government go together, always have. In some civilizations the rulers were deemed gods or the people’s connection to the god, much like Christ is viewed as humanity’s salvation. In other civilizations the priests were at the highest social order, and the rulers looked to them for guidance. In the absence of credible religious figures, leaders turned to the unknown. King Arthur, according to myth and legend, utilized the help of Merlin the Magician. Likewise, many of our presidents have utilized the help of psychics. So it is natural for religion and government to exist together, and yet, it seems as if they are in constant conflict. Take Democracy and Communism for example. Democracy is based on freedom, it is based on humanistic ideals, and combined with Capitalism, it stresses the individual over the group. Conversely, Communism is based on equality and stresses the whole over the individual. Both have failed. It is said that “Democracy is the worst form of government, but it is the best we have.” This is so true, and at the same time, it illuminates one of the many downsides of Duality: apathy. When we are trapped between two warring sides, knowing that both are wrong, we tend to lose our spirit, lose our will for the ideal, and become lazy, apathetic realists. Religion plays a role in this because religion is responsible for the failure of both systems.

Communism failed because it strived to be atheist, saying that the government was the only thing that people needed. This failure to understand the basic needs of humanity, the needs of the soul, was the undoing of Communism. If it had been coupled with a form of stable religion, Communism would have survived. The religion would have been the uniting factor, the factor that kept the egos of the society on the same level plane. The government would have eventually dissolved, and the people would have existed in harmony, or at the very least, a much better harmony than witnessed in the former USSR, China, Cuba, and other Communistic states.

Likewise, Democracy is undone by religion. Democracy, and its chief economic counterpart, Capitalism, is based on the individual: individual freedoms, individual wants, individual needs. The government is there just as an individual-elected presence to allow the wants of the individual to come to pass. That is how it is supposed to be. Religion, on the other hand, stipulates that the individual is nothing compared to the power of a being much greater than man. Thus the individual is lowered to an insignificant level; the needs and wants are not important, only the wants, the demands of the powerful being are important. In Monotheistic religions, the being is supernatural and supreme, thus disconnected completely from the individual, usually by “imperfection” or “sin”. In many Eastern religions, everyone is part of a greater SELF, a Tao, or a Force, if you will. Thus, the needs of the individual still carry some weight, but it is the needs and wants of the whole that define the system. Regardless of which religion is followed, the individual still has no importance.

The conflict created by the combination of religion and Democracy is easily highlighted by the conflict of “Separation of Church and State”. Society, a living entity in a sense, realizes that Democracy and religion, especially a monotheistic one like Christianity, cannot co-exist, and thus it tries to create a pseudo separation. Unfortunately, society fails because the government, at least the US government, was based upon religious ideals and laws. Even the people-elected politicians (as well as the entire court system) are, for the most part, under the influence of some type of religious structure, and usually, that is monotheism.

Even the supposed Democracy of the world is nothing more than a Republic, carefully nicknamed a “representative Democracy”. This is not true, for even in a “representative Democracy”, the people are supposed to have more power than the politicians. Voter apathy is a strong indicator of who has the power; the people do not feel important, and thus they do not participate. Citizens become apathetic because the power, no matter how much some will say to the opposite, is not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of the politicians. Thus, we are a Republic, much like Rome and the “Old Republic” of the prequel trilogy in Star Wars. The Republic of Rome eventually devolved into a triumvirate, which was soon dissolved into an Imperialistic Empire. This is seen exactly in Star Wars, as the “Old Republic” slowly devolves from a Republic, to a triumvirate of the Senate, the Executive Office of the Chancellor, and the Jedi Order. Likewise, the potential for disaster lies in the US, as we are a Republic that could quickly dissolve into a triune government (and it may already be one with the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branches), and then become an Imperialistic Empire, the very ideal of Tyranny that we are supposedly fighting against (“The Axis of Evil” of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea). If this sounds grim, take solace in the fact that Communism reverted to Tyranny as well.

Speaking of Communism, in its essence, it was never a government. It was just an economic system based on equality. Conversely, Democracy is just a governmental ideal based on equality and the rule of the whole. Capitalism was “adopted” by Democracy to perpetuate the individual, but in the end, it only perpetuates or helps a few individuals, like the Republic only grants power to the few. Equal opportunity for prosperity becomes prosperity for the few, and most of the times, those few become prosperous by taking advantage of not only the opportunity, but society itself, hence, the laws against monopolies. Perhaps the reason we do not live in a Democracy is because of the presence of Capitalism and Monotheism. Thus, Democracy vs. Communism was actually just Capitalism vs. Communism, Monotheism vs. Atheism. This is a well known and accepted idea, but what if taken in the context of Rome? What if the Cold War was merely just a battle to see which Tyranny, disguised as a government, would win? In this light, the war cries of Democracy vs. Tyranny, Patriotism vs. Terrorism, and Freedom vs. Oppression, could be seen as just another fight to preserve the status quo, the Tyranny disguised in Democracy. I offer, though, a possible solution (before returning to Duality), in the form of a question, a food for thought: What if the equal economics of Communism were combined with the equal government of Democracy and the equal philosophy of an eastern religion like Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, or perhaps a combination of all four?



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