4 ms·

Religions exert as much control as they can. Christianity used to be much more powerful in the West and controlled everything, as Islam does in some countries.

• drostie 14y ago
  As someone who is building a religion in his spare time, I must say that I don't see something intrinsic to religion which says "they must exert as much control as they can" and "they don't give up control willingly," just as I don't see something intrinsic to government which says "they must form sprawling bureaucracies." With that said, there may be a feedback-theory reason why these things often connect. In the case of governments, for example, bureaucracy allows you to marshal much vaster quantities of resources, especially for your military: so as we look for a positive feedback loop, the most successful governments were probably bureaucracies. (Yes, I would also classify evolution by natural selection as a feedback theory.) It may therefore be the case that there is a competition for a limited believership and the religions which control their believers most tend to grow themselves in this competition. If you want an interesting perspective on what Anonymous is doing, it is trying to increase the cost of religious control, to the point where the feedback goes from positive to negative. If each exertion of control (however that is defined) tends to lose believers rather than gain them, then religions will either have to adapt to a policy of less-control, or else will naturally die out due to negative feedback.