November 18, 2020

Religion is the combined complexities of thought processes that give humans purpose to life. Religion can get quite rudimentary for corrupt persons who do not have much complexity in their thought processes.

For the most corrupt persons, religion is in mechanisms that are used to achieve results. Their awareness does not extend beyond mechanisms, though a wide variety of mechanisms can be used for various purposes.

For more rational persons, thought process get more complex, which means their religion is more complex.

This definition of religion does not require a knowledge of religion existing. Religion should be defined that way. The usual definitions are more structural, which leaves religion out of rudimentary, human life. Yet humans always have a degree of complexity to their thought processes that creates religion for them.

What then makes complex thought the equivalent of religion? Living by assumptions makes complex thoughts religion. People apply their assumptions to life and expect to get results or expect results to occur because of the assumptions which they acquire.

In this way, religion shapes the lives of humans because of their thought processes. Assumptions taking form in minds and shaping lives is what makes religion religion.

Formalizing the concept of religion as an institutional endeavor is way to restrictive, because there are often no such boundaries around the nature of beliefs forming in human minds and directing lives. Formalizing through institutions the process of minds shaping lives is only a recent construction of humans overlaying what human minds have been doing all the time.

Getting to practical matters, the meaning of religion is important in understanding the nature of corruption. Corrupt persons are very dogmatic in imposing their beliefs upon other persons and society.

More rational persons are less imposing. In fact, rationality is about the opposite of imposition. Evaluation is the fix for the problem that impositions create. Evaluation says there is a whole lot more that needs to be considered than corrupters assume, because there are errors in over-simplification.

The element of religion in corruption needs to be understood because of the depth of the meaning of corruption. Superficial persons trivialize corruption. The imposition of corruption upon life should not be glossed over so lightly.

Understanding what religion is explains why corruption is not trivial. The assumptions of corrupters redesign the standards and purposes of life, which is religion. Corrupters have the purpose of changing what life is. That's religion.

The Alternative To Religion

Religion is the human method of evaluating life, which history shows has extended assumptions in extreme ways. An almost alternative to religion is created by aligning upon objective reality. Now days, aligning upon objective reality is referred to as secularism as distinct from religion.

Only rational persons align upon objective reality; corrupters do not. That's why rational persons improve social standards by separating church and state and creating a secular social order. It's aligned upon objective reality with science and technology shaping the results.

But since corrupters have no relationship to objective reality, they keep trying to replace secular social orders with religious social orders. The attempt by rational persons to align the social order on objective realities is a constant battle which corrupters often win in creating religious, authoritarian societies.

Trump tried to do that with no identifiable religious characteristics—that is, when looking at organized religion as an alternative to secular existence. In that frame, Trump looks like the most godless person in politics. But look at his standard and purpose. He sees no other purpose in government than self-worship. He demands worship of the ruler of everyone he is in contact with in government.

Trump's de facto religion is also visible in his replacing rationality with subjective whim. He acquires his reality from unidentifiable sources which he calls gut feelings. He will not listen to explanations from advisers, because he has no ability to evaluate objective reality. In that manner, like all corrupters, his existence is religion, because he has no ability to add objective reality as an alternative influence.

When rational persons align social standards upon objective reality, they separate social interactions from subjective concerns, which is the same thing as separating church from state. But that standard is not a total separation from subjective religion, as Christ taught objective reality as the basis for morality. He said to look and listen to acquire understanding and judge for yourselves what is right.

In other words, the objective universe allows humans to create ordered existence through rationality aligned upon objective reality as a source of stable reality. But imposing the subjective elements of life upon other persons is not constructive, which means the subjectivity of religious beliefs must be separated from objective concerns.

Corrupters have no relationship to objective reality; so they never separate their subjectivity from other concerns. Imposing their subjective concerns onto everyone is their only state of existence.

Conservative are in the values business, not the objective reality business for that reason. They have no respect for laws created by government, because laws create objective requirements which conservatives do not accept.

Conservatives impose values and nothing other than that, because they are disconnected from objective reality which is supposed to replace values in social interactions.

People have a right to not have values imposed upon them. Everyone's values are somewhat different; and they have a right to be different. Conservatives are hell bent on erasing differences. They have no right to do so.