Do you think political ideologies are closely related to religions?

[Anonymous]

Sacred beliefs, morality, hating and judging others, sometimes irrational thinking. Historically, political ideologies emerged when religious beliefs were declining in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, suggesting a relationship. What do you think?

Yes, that make sense.

No, that is dumb.

I don't know/see results.

[nightdrot]

Yes, but not necessarily in the way the question suggests. In fact, in the Western world, historically speaking, religious ideas played a part in the development of political ideas.

For example, an obvious example is Judaism and Christianity. These religions postulated, in different ways, the idea that man was a child of God. To be valued and worthwhile and, in effect, the center of the universe. Man mattered and had value. He was not simply plaything of the gods as was so often the case in the ancient Greek and Roman religions.

From this idea of man as valued being came the Enlightenment. The idea that there is an order to the universe and that man has natural rights derived from these natural laws. There is an order in things and man is part of, and is central to, that order.

From there - and skipping over a lot - to the contemporary political order. What Americans call liberal argued that society was corrupted and distorted the natural order. This having the effect of resulting in all sorts of social pathologies such as crime, corruption, poverty, etc. However, man's reason allows him to re-shape the natural order according to his vision of what ought to be. Thus Patrick Henry, "We have it in our power to make the world over."

To which what Americans call conservatives responded, "Oh no we don't" Man is imperfect and imperfectible, His reason is limited and his ability to account for all the variables in the moral and universal order is correspondingly limited and prone to error. To attempt to re-shape the world according to some a priori vision is to invite disaster. Rather man, to borrow from Edmund Burke, must "Reform where we can and endure where we must."

Suffice to say, all sort of philosophical, political and policy implications flow from this. Thus, however, did religion relate, and in a sense give birth to, political ideologies. Even, ironically, amidst those political ideologies that deny the validity of religion. These putting the primacy of abstract reason above all else and, in a sense, asserting that man is the center of the universe and is his own creation.

Of course, religion and politics, dealing as they do at the most fundamental way, in the nature of man, still are intertwined. Both in obvious ways - see also the "religious right" - and in ways less obvious - see also the debates over the economy. (Does man really have the capacity to "manage" something so vast and complex as the economy?)

Overall, though, politics and religion are intermixed beyond all disentangling. Both, at root, dealing in the nature of man.

[Guy13]

For sure snd you can go back to Genesis and trace those formations based upon “religion”.

[jennifer_bloom]

I don’t believe God fearing Christians support Trump, the bible says most people who claim to be Christian, do not obey God

[Nads111]

Yes. No question about it.

[ManHater]

Look at Islam and Muslim that is a fine example.

[jahaims]

Can be