Religion as it stands today faces many issues and problems, many of them being by no means novel. Of these problems, I will address one of the biggest issues in this post: the limiting of religions to mere ideologies that serve social, economical, political, cultural and individual interests. This action is a form of exploitation as it seeks to twist the teachings and values of a religion and gear them towards aspirations that are in most cases dishonorable, selfish and less than noble. In some cases, they may be geared towards reformist interests, which may or may not be consistent with religious values. Regardless, I personally think that such ideologization of religion is incorrect and hypocritical in many cases, and I will base this post on my perspective as I lightly discuss the abovementioned issues.
Ideologies are sets of values or principles that define a set of common goals that a group of people wish to attain. These people use ideas, values, principles, rules, etc. from more or less general sources in their aspirations towards goals specific to these people. They can draw such values from political, economical, social, and religious grounds. Many ideologies exist today. Communism is based on the works of Karl Marx, who was more or less a political sociologist and thinker who followed his own ideals. Capitalism is based on the want and need for private business ownership. Classic liberalism and social liberalism are based on capitalism. They can also be mottoes and the values of companies and businesses. As such, ideologies define these common aspirations that people aim towards, and many people follow them as if they were religions: some follow them blindly and without question, and some follow them with constructive skepticism.
Ideologies, however, are also made for uniting people or controlling them, among many other purposes that could only be used to keep people in line with the demands of their superiors. According to David Minar, ideologies have come to be recognized
Most current ideologizations of religion, from my POV at least, seem to speak the language of religion in a certain political, social, temporal, and geographical context. That polarizes and limits the religion to a certain goal and/or movement. Take the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and even Al Qaeda (the most reviled of them all). Even the Saudi government uses religion to ideologically justify the Saudi monarchy. This in turn leads us to the question: can ideology exploit religion? Well, ideology is the set of values, and those who use religion to justify a certain ideology make the best out of it by cherry-picking religious beliefs that remotely seem to conform to their visions and aspirations. Obviously, then, it is an exploitation on part of those who originate the said ideology. A great example is the case of Pakistan, where the patriarchal rule has established laws that men could easily slip out of... Laws regarding honor killings and rape, which are consistently being used by men to escape the hands of justice (2). There are other cases reported of political groups surfacing ever since the initiation of the state of Pakistan that vary in terms of sect and goals to be achieved in terms of political gain and societal change.
Christians have also been ideologizing their religion. The most famous of these exploitations is of course that of Nazi Germany (3). The idea of the white Christian human as part of the "master race" was attractive to many Germans who were disenfranchised post-World War I. There's also the KKK, who seek to spread their church of hate and bigotry throughout the United States and still do so to this day. Other elements include Indonesia's Laskar Jesus and Lebanon's Phalange/Kataeb and LF, who speak of uniting their countries under a Christian flag.
People of other religions do it as well. Kach, the Israeli group that was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, espoused a hatred towards Arabs based on interpreted Biblical allegories and verses that seemed to talk of Arabs as misled and wayward peoples. Hindu nationalist parties also espouse sentiments on similar lines towards non-Hindu minorities in India; the face of this movement these days seems to be Narendra Modi, member of the Bharatiya Janata nationalist party (4), which holds Hindu supremacy above all.
What they all have in common is there tendency to limit the religion they adhere to within the boundaries of a political framework that they have defined for themselves. But for the most part, they've been political, and that is the main problem with ideologizing a religion to a specific goal: at most times, it tends to be political. And political aspirations, as have been noted above, are quite selfish in nature. To associate rules of justice with rules of partisanship doesn't sound so rosy (case of "honor killings" in Pakistan). But these movements need not be radical. They can be as liberal as Progressive Muslims and Tikkun. These movements are geared towards social and progressive reform, but even that is political in nature. Using religion to gain power is also a dubious matter, and that of course is... need I say it?... political in form.
This makes ideologization a dangerous process. Limiting religion to a certain political and social framework might jeopardize the religion to an extent that the perceptions of religion and the way it is practiced become infringed upon and take form of misunderstandings and phobias that could surface about the "other", especially considering the notion of radical Muslims who use religious ideas to put their religion to shame and commit horrendous acts. Ideologization devalues the true meaning of a religion by reducing it to a mere and specific ideology that requires people to submit to it. It also seeks to delineate religious values of equity and equality by isolating and cherry-picking verses and scripture for certain verses that only remotely conform or seem to conform with their ideals and use those to back up their political aspirations, despite all consensus that may contradict their interpretation of the religion that they follow. In that way, they seem to alienate the religion, themselves, and themselves from the religion.
I urge people to take heed and stop trying to limit a way of life to a specific set of ideals that conform to one linear interpretation of this set of ideals, and instead deal with the set of ideals as a whole rather than cherry-pick it to suit one's own ends. Such action does more harm to the religion and its followers more than it does to the movement that supposedly espouses the religion, but limits it to nothing more than a mere ideology.
P.S. I know I haven't been posting much. I was out enjoying my busy life and trying to survive my 3rd year of university, which is still going on and is so far the busiest semester I have ever had.
Salaam, from Saracen
Ideologies are sets of values or principles that define a set of common goals that a group of people wish to attain. These people use ideas, values, principles, rules, etc. from more or less general sources in their aspirations towards goals specific to these people. They can draw such values from political, economical, social, and religious grounds. Many ideologies exist today. Communism is based on the works of Karl Marx, who was more or less a political sociologist and thinker who followed his own ideals. Capitalism is based on the want and need for private business ownership. Classic liberalism and social liberalism are based on capitalism. They can also be mottoes and the values of companies and businesses. As such, ideologies define these common aspirations that people aim towards, and many people follow them as if they were religions: some follow them blindly and without question, and some follow them with constructive skepticism.
Ideologies, however, are also made for uniting people or controlling them, among many other purposes that could only be used to keep people in line with the demands of their superiors. According to David Minar, ideologies have come to be recognized
as a collection of certain ideas with certain kinds of content, usually normative; as the form or internal logical structure that ideas have within a set; by the role in which ideas play in human-social interaction; by the role that ideas play in the structure of an organization; as meaning, whose purpose is persuasion; and as the locus of social interaction.The common point that these definitions convey about the term ideology is that it serves a regulatory role in that it streamlines the thoughts of the people towards serving a certain set of goals. This is affirmed by William Mullins, who states that an ideology
must have power over cognitions, be capable of guiding one's evaluations, provide guidance towards action, and must be logically coherent. (1)Political actions tend to be specific in nature, pertaining to a particular frame of time and space, and tend to be supported by the same semantics that propel people to commit to such actions.
Most current ideologizations of religion, from my POV at least, seem to speak the language of religion in a certain political, social, temporal, and geographical context. That polarizes and limits the religion to a certain goal and/or movement. Take the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and even Al Qaeda (the most reviled of them all). Even the Saudi government uses religion to ideologically justify the Saudi monarchy. This in turn leads us to the question: can ideology exploit religion? Well, ideology is the set of values, and those who use religion to justify a certain ideology make the best out of it by cherry-picking religious beliefs that remotely seem to conform to their visions and aspirations. Obviously, then, it is an exploitation on part of those who originate the said ideology. A great example is the case of Pakistan, where the patriarchal rule has established laws that men could easily slip out of... Laws regarding honor killings and rape, which are consistently being used by men to escape the hands of justice (2). There are other cases reported of political groups surfacing ever since the initiation of the state of Pakistan that vary in terms of sect and goals to be achieved in terms of political gain and societal change.
Christians have also been ideologizing their religion. The most famous of these exploitations is of course that of Nazi Germany (3). The idea of the white Christian human as part of the "master race" was attractive to many Germans who were disenfranchised post-World War I. There's also the KKK, who seek to spread their church of hate and bigotry throughout the United States and still do so to this day. Other elements include Indonesia's Laskar Jesus and Lebanon's Phalange/Kataeb and LF, who speak of uniting their countries under a Christian flag.
People of other religions do it as well. Kach, the Israeli group that was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, espoused a hatred towards Arabs based on interpreted Biblical allegories and verses that seemed to talk of Arabs as misled and wayward peoples. Hindu nationalist parties also espouse sentiments on similar lines towards non-Hindu minorities in India; the face of this movement these days seems to be Narendra Modi, member of the Bharatiya Janata nationalist party (4), which holds Hindu supremacy above all.
What they all have in common is there tendency to limit the religion they adhere to within the boundaries of a political framework that they have defined for themselves. But for the most part, they've been political, and that is the main problem with ideologizing a religion to a specific goal: at most times, it tends to be political. And political aspirations, as have been noted above, are quite selfish in nature. To associate rules of justice with rules of partisanship doesn't sound so rosy (case of "honor killings" in Pakistan). But these movements need not be radical. They can be as liberal as Progressive Muslims and Tikkun. These movements are geared towards social and progressive reform, but even that is political in nature. Using religion to gain power is also a dubious matter, and that of course is... need I say it?... political in form.
This makes ideologization a dangerous process. Limiting religion to a certain political and social framework might jeopardize the religion to an extent that the perceptions of religion and the way it is practiced become infringed upon and take form of misunderstandings and phobias that could surface about the "other", especially considering the notion of radical Muslims who use religious ideas to put their religion to shame and commit horrendous acts. Ideologization devalues the true meaning of a religion by reducing it to a mere and specific ideology that requires people to submit to it. It also seeks to delineate religious values of equity and equality by isolating and cherry-picking verses and scripture for certain verses that only remotely conform or seem to conform with their ideals and use those to back up their political aspirations, despite all consensus that may contradict their interpretation of the religion that they follow. In that way, they seem to alienate the religion, themselves, and themselves from the religion.
I urge people to take heed and stop trying to limit a way of life to a specific set of ideals that conform to one linear interpretation of this set of ideals, and instead deal with the set of ideals as a whole rather than cherry-pick it to suit one's own ends. Such action does more harm to the religion and its followers more than it does to the movement that supposedly espouses the religion, but limits it to nothing more than a mere ideology.
P.S. I know I haven't been posting much. I was out enjoying my busy life and trying to survive my 3rd year of university, which is still going on and is so far the busiest semester I have ever had.
Salaam, from Saracen
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