RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY
I had written an article long time back about Religion and fanaticism and about how religious dogmas give rise to fanatics and fanaticism. While writing that article I came upon a thought about whether religion suppresses democracy or whether democracy suppresses religion. Either way the effect would be explosive as in both the cases the fundamental freedom of man is at stake. Therefore in this article I have decided to pen my thoughts regarding that very question, whether religion suppresses democracy or whether democracy suppresses religion. There is another very pertinent reason as why this debate should have a logical conclusion. What we are seeing in India along the Kashmir border, what we are seeing in Pakistan, Afghanistan We only point our fingers to one culprit to all the troubles that are been endured by the innocents in these places. Not only in these places but world over we have started blaming one religion for the troubles and the problems and the depleting economy of every nation in this earth. Have we ever tried to find out the proper reasons for the anomalies that are perpetrated world over? Is it not the responsibility of the elected government to set the things in its right perspective? Here in lies the crux of the issue, the crux of the debate that whether religion suppresses democracy? Or the other way round.
Let us then first start defining these two words. What do we understand by the word Democracy. DEMOCRACY: the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them majority rule: the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group
Democracy, which derives from the Greek word "demos," or "people," is defined, basically, as government in which the supreme power is vested in the people. In some forms, democracy can be exercised directly by the people; in large societies, it is by the people through their elected agents. Or, in the memorable phrase of President Abraham Lincoln, democracy is government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." And now let us define the word Religion. It is very difficult to define religion because it encompasses not only one aspect of human social behavior but it encompasses the entire gamut of human social cultural intellectual behavior. Unlike democracy which just deals with the political behavior of human beings, religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. Again as said earlier to limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition." There are many interpretations of what defines a religion but not one that can be said to be the most accurate. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. An institution to express belief in a divine power. A belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the practices and institutions associated with such belief. The sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe.
In dictionaries, religion is defined as "any specific system of belief, worship, or conduct that prescribes certain responses to the existence (or non-existence) and character of God." Also, "a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to supernatural power." This was just an attempt to define, religion but how did this aspect of human evolution come into being? If you go to the history you will find that religion was the second important thing that developed in the course of human evolution the evolution of social cultural human being, the physical evolution being complete by that time. the first thing that developed was the need to keep a group of the then hunters and gatherers together as a economical ,social coercive group functioning as one unit, a progressive unit therefore certain rules and regulations were imposed and developed --The first signs of democracy. The development of religion came second out of fear of the natures fury, the time I am talking about is 40000 to 30000 years before present when the earth was going through various physical turmoil evidence are plenty in various cave arts all over the world which we call therianthropes. Actually the evolution of the brain is responsible for religion to take shape in the psyche of the human beings. The religious mind is one consequence of a brain that is large enough to formulate religious and philosophical ideas. During human evolution the hominid brain tripled in size, peaking 500,000 years ago. Much of the brain's expansion took place in the neocortex. This part of the brain is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are necessary for human religiosity. The neocortex is responsible for self consciousness language and emotion. According to Dunbar's theory, the relative neocortex size of any species correlates with the level of social complexity of the particular species. The neocortex size correlates with a number of social variables that include social group size and complexity of mating behaviors. In chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain.
