Primordial religions have always been about avoiding the calamities of climate: drought, fire, disease, war… But religion has also always been more that an individual alleviation of insecurity and guilt. It has been a stabilizing force of society’s dominance hierarchies.
Monarchs have always had symbiotic relations with organized religion, and that is no accident. Rulers gain perceived legitimacy, while the church-maintenance class gains high relative social status and privilege. In recent history, one might even argue that the downfall of the USSR was facilitated by a suppressed church.
Clearly, if a system can combine individual-identity-creating beliefs with the impression that the state is vital in defending those beliefs against outside threats, then one has a powerful entity that is directed and centralized, as long as it can all be maintained. A current example is Israel’s remarkable success (as a strong and influential entity), against the a priori odds.
What to do in a secular and multi-cultural empire, to prevent dissolution?
In this regard, the author Michael Crichton, among many who followed , in 2003 made a key observation to the Commonwealth Club:
I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can’t be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people—the best people, the most…