Introduction
Any official or informal cultural system, including ethics, organizations, sanctified places and things, handed down texts, designated behaviors and practices, and worldviews, that has a clear connection between humanity and the supernatural or transcendental is referred to as religion. Anthropologists like Clifford Geertz have described the relationship between religion and humanity as an actual cosmic "order of existence." (Geertz, 2013). What exactly constitutes a religion, either formally or informally, is a matter of debate among scholars. This essay will show how this topic has affected the advancement or decline of various civilizations over time and how it has affected those civilizations' development. It will also provide a conclusion upon which the arrived at findings will be noted down.
Religion as a Unifying Factor in Societies
Religion is a contentious issue that began its controversial metamorphosis right from the days of old. It was invoked in several societal aspects like the religion sanctioned expansion of mighty kingdoms and dynasties. The application of it viewed as similar across the board was religion being implemented as a uniting factor towards a given national cause. For instance, the utilization of Jihad (a religious warfare) justified the Ottoman's expansion strategies to conquering new lands and thus instituting the Islamic religion and culture (Aksan, 2014). The use of religious weapons was a shared aspect even in other faith like Christianity that used the Crusades (Christian faith-based wars) to conquer new lands and convert pagans not forgetting the suppression of the infidels (Muslims) (Geertz, 2013).
Religion's Role in Shaping Laws and Customs
Religion was also very instrumental in the shaping and defining of the laws of several jurisdictions across the globe. The application of the Sharia law as propagated by the Koran was growing and taking shape (Geertz, 2013). During the rise of the Islamic world power in the mid-20th century the context of the Hadith (Islamic stories defined to catechize on the tenets of Islamic) became more controversial. They were to include the using of such stories as a basis for laying down the customs as derived from the Koran as the laws of the land upon which Muslim was practiced. With that development, the Islamic nations including the Ottoman Empire and others across the globe adopted some of their pre-Islamic laws and customs as actual legal and binding. The same was applied in the Christian states especially during the protestant reformation. During that period the protestant was in the process of eventual schism from the Catholic Church, and there was the inherent need for the new converters to identify themselves as different from Catholicism on one extreme and Islamic on the other. Hence they used religion as a blanket theme and as a proponent to defining themselves as the followers of the reformation order under the banners of their leaders such as Martin Luther and Zwingli to mention but a few (Estes, J2017).
Religion as a Factor of Division
However, religion as a matter of contrast was also a consequential tool of dividing communities, societies, and nations. During the Protestant Reformation when Catholicism was splitting, religion was used as the basis as to why the reformers had to take of a new identity from the original Catholicism. The king Henry divorce controversy – a matter with religious connotations saw the State of England divided between the newly created Anglicanism and the conservative Catholicism (Ward, 2017). Moreover with the rise of enlightenment there came up several inventions that revolutionalized the world. The discovery by Galileo that the earth revolves around the sun as opposed to the other way round proposed by the church was a matter that saw him excommunicated. His excommunication sharply divided the individuals who were pro-enlightenment and those who were subscribers of the primacy of the Catholic Church (Wright, 2017). Hence the very factor that brings together people of a given community to fight for the spread of their faiths into other lands is the same factor that divides them within when they fail to agree on its correct interpretation as just mentioned in the immediate example.
Religion as a Tool to Justify Slavery and Division
Moreover, religion has been used as a tool to instituting slavery or as the rather justification of it. The argument that man is meant to rule and dominate the earth and all uncivilized beings towards some common good is a religiously derived ideology that justifies the initiation of African slavery (Manning, 2016). The scramble of Africa and other third world states by the superpowers has always been seen as a divine right by the civilized to put some rationale and order over the primitive world. Moreover, there is the religious insistence of spreading the faith into primitive lands that later transformed into slavery as an order. This feature was also evident in the era of the rise of Islamic power and its expansion since most of the Islamic states especially the Ottoman Empire captured and persecuted Christians.
Conclusion
As illustrated religion is a societal feature that has served since days of old to bring communities, nations, and faiths together. However, it has also been used as the same factor that has sharply divided the same neighborhoods as illustrated in the examples provided. Its double-edged sword remains a controversial issue even in the contemporary world.
References
Aksan, V. (2014). Ottoman wars, 1700-1870: an empire besieged. Routledge.
Estes, J. (2017). Anglican Re-Formation. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Manning, P. (Ed.). (2016). Slave Trades, 1500–1800: Globalization of Forced Labour. Routledge.
Ward, I. (2017). The ‘Great Matter'of King Henry VIII. Journal of International Dispute Settlement, idw029.
Geertz, C. (2013). Introduction to Islam observed. Clifford Geertz in Morocco, 10.
Wright, A. D. (2017). The Counter-Reformation: Catholic Europe and the Non-Christian World. Routledge.
