Regime, Religion and Politics

Religion is a concept that controls the decisions in governing a country; however, many were overpowered to represent such religion they did not correspond with. In American history, the New World gave the people the fallacious promises to escape religious persecution. Nonetheless, having different beliefs caused war, diverse opinions in politics, the economy, and even slavery. The title of a religious leader was not used to respect God, but in a way to overpower civilians and deceive them.

A theocratic form of government was known to many ancient peoples and is intrinsic to Islam. An attempt to realize the theocratic ideal was made by J. Calvin at Geneva”(theocracy). With every new idea that is created, other points of view will be created. Theocratic governments have created problems within society such as boundaries, no benefits, limitations and people are starting to speak up on the oppression of their government. “Christian conservatives who would fuse the state and their religion should remember that the tools of oppression fit many hands.

The word Democracy means that the people rule. Democracy may require things like freedom of speech and universal suffrage but the notion of democracy sets no limits on what the people may do in their sovereign capacity. The United States constitution is not a true democracy because it enforces limits on what democratic government decides. All liberal constitutional democracies enforce regulations on what private activity government can regulate, including religious behavior. Since counties can be more democratic or authoritarian than others, I like to view the differentiations through the data collected by Freedom House. While the number of countries labeled “free”

Governments of the past were based largely on religious beliefs. Be that as it may, the theologies of a governed locale today may be so diverse that the very notion of having a government on top a religious foundation seems ridiculous. Instead, we judge others based on the lowest expectations of moral regulation and while these laws are primarily influenced by religion it is not the sole attribution. Yet, as I expound this there are still governments that are heavily built on religion, much like those of the past. Though, in spite of the respect held for such governments, these governmental bodies can be seen as less globalized, modernized, and in some cases, civilized. Some governments today, in retrospect, would be called taboo in the

“Religion is often still another determinant of political behavior, and in many societies, plays a role in the formation of social and political values, especially when religions diversity is present”. (Camp.1993.Pg. 86) Even though the pre-dominance of Catholicism has strong religious differences, it can be described as a battle between secularism and religion.

Since the beginning of human civilization, there continues to be a strong relationship between the state and their chosen religious institution. According to an interpretation of an anecdote of Thomas Jefferson, “He didn’t say he say he believed in the Christian God; he evaded that point. But Jefferson did agree with what all his colleagues in the founding thought that a people cannot maintain liberty without religion” (Novak, M., 2006). While the relationship is inevitable as it is used to unify a population, true government should seek as diminished a relationship as possible. While religious freedom is essential to what America was founded on, it cannot infiltrate our governmental systems

By analyzing any war, such as the American Revolution or World War I, people tend to accuse religion as the cause. Society attempts to mainstream religion at the fore front of war by ignoring politics. What do I mean by that? Well, politics is the study of global governance, how power and resources are distributed within a society, while religion is the study of human values within our divine commands or self-conscious. So, politics focuses on the process of deciding who gets the tangible goods such as land or the abstract goods such as power, which indeed, at times causes conflict. On the other hand, religion deals with human values, which often gets misinterpreted, and becomes a fault line between politics and war.

We are charged with a near impossible task of creating a new system of governance. We all have concerns that need to be addressed, but I want to discuss the importance of making a clear statement of the separation of government and religion.

Throughout the course of time, democracy is now becoming widely accepted by a majority of countries. As countries become generally educated, democracy is become favorable. As the liberation Technology becomes an acceptable way of education, countries seek the freedom of technology. Liberation technology also allows for other people to look at the democracy of the United States and share ideas. As citizens become more educated and have greater income, the democracy’s popularity grows. The freedom of working and profiting from their own money makes people of other countries look at democracy with envy. Moderate religious practices, not including extreme religions, provide a moral grounding for a system that respects the freedom and dignity of

Strong religious belief is generally benign and often formed with benevolent intentions. While this is generally the case, these same teachings produce theomaniacs who perform egregious acts in the name of their theology. Theocracies have been the most prominent patriarchies throughout history including an omnibus of war torn, anti-suffragist countries like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, and Afghanistan. From the licit stoning of homosexuals to the physical abuse of wives, violence justified through religion has occurred since creed was conceived. In these theocracies women who have been raped are licentious in the eyes of god, and therefore, impotent the eyes of the court. If god was the truly the paternal, omnipresent being people claim

Religion has been a powerful force in human history. Mankind has longed and searched for the answers to its purpose, the reason for being and the possibility of life after physical death. They reasoned that an afterlife would be a place of accounting and reckoning for the life they lived on earth. Religious belief systems seemed to give the answers as to how to prepare for the afterlife. Religion became the means of giving answers to those basic yet deep-seated questions of both life and death. Religion provided a format of rules and laws for conduct and treatment toward others based on the desires and wishes of a god or gods that people envisioned, imagined or invented. Religious belief systems have been a powerful force for good and bad...good in the sense that it provided a measure of individual behavior and order in society for the wellbeing of the whole, but bad in the sense that men of ambition who craved power and control over others would often use religion as a tool of manipulation and fear. A casual glance of history tells us that complete civilizations have been built, grown and maintained around elaborate religious systems, ancient Egypt being a prime example.

The purpose of this memo is to discuss the internal debates between Muslim scholars, both inside and outside the Islamic World, regarding Islam and its compatibility with democracy. Are Islam and democracy compatible? Support for democracy is just as frequent as resistance in these developing nations with both sides pitching adequate arguments but in all traditions there are intellectual and ideological resources that can provide justification for an absolute monarchy or for democracy. Many argue that Islam has all the ingredients of modern state and society and many Muslim intellectuals and Western scholars alike seek to prove that Islam enshrines democratic values. John L. Esposito, founding director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and the author or editor of more than thirty books about Islam and Islamist movements argues that "Islamic movements have internalized the democratic discourse through the concepts of shura [consultation], ijma ' [consensus], and ijtihad [independent interpretive judgment]" ¹ and concludes that democracy already exists in the Muslim world, "whether the word democracy is used or not." ² For example, in Islam and Democracy,³ Esposito and co-author John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed Center, question Western attempts to monopolize the definition of democracy and suggest the very concept shifts meanings over time and place. They argue that every culture can mold an

Inside political, social and economic institutions all social groups are to be treated equally in a fair and just manner with equal access, equal opportunity and equal rights. Outside them the competing notions of the good must be left to thrive. The prescriptions of religion, for example, must be treated tolerantly both as guides to individual conduct and as recipes for living a good life. On this basis, I maintain, therefore, that the state, in a pluralist society, cannot have an established religion. If the state is to be neutral then it must be secular.

Throughout the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, a leading question arose regarding Islam and its traditions. This question asked whether Islam can be compatible with democracy. Seemed as a simple question, such an inquiry requires an in-depth look at the matter at hand. When one asks whether Islam is compatible with democracy, one needs to analyze the definition of democracy. According to Webster’s Dictionary, democracy is “a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or their elected agents under a free electoral system.” Such is the definition that mainly pertains to western democracy and western thought. What many tend to forget is that democracy should not be

Society and government in our day and age is much more secular than it has been for most of human history. In fact, many countries, such as the United States of America, even have laws built into their governments’ constitutions establishing a barrier between religion and government. But throughout humanity’s past, it was quite common across many diverse societies for religion and politics to overlap; religion often influenced politics and politics often used religion for practical purposes. In the process of trying to come up with a topic to research on South Asian history in the ancient and medieval periods, I was very interested in this relationship between religion and politics and knew I would want to pursue this topic in my paper. The period of South Asian history to which I narrowed my focus to was that of the Mauryan Empire and the post-Mauryan polities that existed in the times after the collapse of the Mauryan Empire. Thus, the period I focused my research and paper on fits primarily within the years of circa 321 BCE to around 320 CE. The leading question behind my research was that I wanted to research the nature of the relationship that existed between politics and the religions present during this time in the region of South Asia; I wanted to examine whether this relationship existed, and if so, to examine how and in what ways these religions influenced politics and vice versa. In my research I found that there in fact was a strong relationship between these