Religion and Law - Some Thoughts

Hi,

I have tried to put in writing some of my thoughts on the role of religion and law in our society and their interplay. The views are totally personal, in fact I have not read any work on the subject. By posting them here, I am inviting your comments on them. If possible, I would like to give them a shape of an essay or article.

Ordeenarily,

Tejinder

Religion and Law

The Need of a Framework

The need to have some type of feeling of security in dealing with others is one of the fundamental requirements on which the human society is based. This feeling arises from the knowledge and understanding of basic principles governing the society. The need is to avoid the uncertainty about the other's actions, the consequences of our actions in a social as well as economic set-up. More strong and uniform, the basic values of a society, the stronger will be the ability of its people to deal with unknown set-ups within the system (leading to lower uncertainty avoidance?).

Religion and Law as the Frameworks

In creating this shared understanding, two of the most important institution of our society are religion and law. While the former is a belief system, the later is a set-up guided by a sovereign or state. Both are fundamentally based on certain premises of good and bad deeds. In a way religion is also guided by a sovereign - an unknown, unseen force or system which rewards or punishes the actions and deeds of its followers and also of non-believers, even if they don't follow the belief system. The reward can be the one decided on a judgement day or one sending the being into a higher or lower life. We shall discuss the differences among religions in a later posting. The law is not much different; it ideally follows the same principles. A human being would both like to be treated fairly and also be accepted in the society. But there is another more important need - to understand as to how others would view his/her actions and how others would act, think. These needs are at many times in conflict with each other.

Similar and Dissimilar Frameworks

Whenever two humans interact there have to be certain basic assumptions understood by both. We need a secure framework to analyse other's actions, thoughts, understand the society around us. The reason being that if we do not understand the basic framework of other person's social understanding we may make mistakes in dealing with them. A man will analyse the world around on the basis of his framework, so he may find it diificult to understand the actions and thoughts of the people whose framework is diffrent. Such people whose framework is not in his framework may be considered as ones who are to be avoided and if required shunned[1]. If dealing with them cannot be avoided he will try to deal on the basis of his own system. This has been the reason of the clash of civilisations, all through out the human existence

The Resolution of Conflict and the Acceptance of Hieriarchy

Some of the clashes got resolved as the people accepted more universal systems. The ways to the acceptance have been varied and diverse and so have been these systems. In older societies it was the acceptance of a more universal Gods and religions. Where there was a segregation of people within these systems, by virtue of birth or other reasons, the down trodden accepted it, as fate or destiny as at least they knew how the superiors fit in the in the larger system. It is not easy to shun a known system that is biased against you for an unknown system, which promises to alleviate your status but which is not widely acceptable in society. People may continue to thus live in the system biased against you year after year and generation after generation.

The Appeciation of the Diversity as the Means to Accepting the Different Systems

Since the fundamental reason for the system is to avoid this uncertainty associated with human action, these differences and clashes can be reduced by the understanding of the other person's framework - be it belief based or law based. Knowledge of the other frameworks may reduce the conflict.

The Axioms of Our Hypothesis

Now let us try to understand how will the social and legal scenarios, will thus interact.

1. Rule of Law Reduces the Religious Orthodoxy. In a society with a very robust law and order system not based on a particular religion, religion will loose its importance as the basic framework. Belief in God might exist, religion as a philosophy may continue to exist but its strength in determining what is right and what is wrong will surely reduce. The religion will become more a matter of personal belief rather than practice and thus, the ritualistic aspect of the religion will reduce in number and elaboration.

a. We have seen this in the societies in many developed countries, for example the European countries have come a long way from the witch hunting days.

b. Some people hold the view that the religion loses its importance as we move up on the quality of our life, but on a closer thought we may realise that it is not the case in all the societies and countries.

c. If we differentiate the countries on the basis of having a secular and robust legal system and the others, which do not have it, perhaps the distinction will be much clearer.

d. In many a democratic societies of course the ground realities may portray a picture which supports the common view of an inverse relationship between the religion and the riches and status in the society. A closer look however will help us understand that the poor are deprived of the protections and rights promised to them by law in the actual practice. The law is not relaible and trustworthy in practice because of the rampant corruption as in many developing countries or simply because of the cost associated with getting the justice and there are many examples of countries where despite a huge growth in the riches the religion continues to hold a place of very high prominence as there is no robust system to replace it as the framework.

2.And the inverse also holds True. We have several examples of the countries, where the crumbling the Legal System, the fall of Government or Civil War etc. have led to the rise of Religious orthodoxy, strong ideologies or fundamenatlism.

Explaination. When the law and order in a society degrades, the religious leaders and systems will gain importance. It may not be that the system has to be democratic, it just should be capable of ensuring justice for all, and people should expect to be seen as equals in the eye of the legal system. If it is not so, we have a possibility of asymmetry of information, like we see in the economic theories on market dynamics. I get into a contract with a person and I am not sure what sort of trick he may play on me and not honour his part of the contract. The contract can be of any type, monetory, social or just about keeping a promise made. It is at this moment that the religion will gain its importance, because I want to remove this asymmetry of information, to have a more reliable system, which I get in the form of religion, information on whose systems is more or less in public domain and where the distinction between good and bad is more prominent.

a. Corollary: Being Rigid may Help Leaders in Such Setup. In such a society the religious leaders will no doubt become more powerful and being inflexible on the religious issues may only increase their ability as it at least removes the uncertainty associated in dealing with matters at hand. It is like law which will deliver the same award after taking reconnaissance of the facts at hand, time after time, every time. The more well known are the faiths by the masses, the easier will it be for them to gain mass follower ship.

3. The Rise of New Systems. If both the Law and the religious system are in turmoil and the conflicts are large, a new ideology may be born. This new ideology may be a religion, in most cases or it can be something like communism. The new system is more universal than the previous one. All the great religions of the present day have their origin in such circumstances. It is not the case that the new ideologies may not be proposed in more stable times, they may however fail to gain large spread follower ship.

4. Intolerance towards Other Belief Systems Rises with Failure of Justice. Such is the need of the common framework, that in a society lacking in fair legal system, the people may not feel comfortable in dealing with others from very different belief systems. The worse the legal condition, the more the corruption, more will be avoidance of people from other belief systems. This phenomenon is further compounded when we also take into consideration the effect of point No. 2.

5. Knowledge of Other Belief Systems as a Moderating Variable. The avoidance may depend on the difference between the two systems. But it will also be a function of the knowledge one has of the other's belief systems - the other person's religion. But this is not so easy, it has its own associated complexities:

a. The propensity to avoid dealing with people from other belief systems also reduces the knowledge that we may have about their religion and thus we get mired in a vicious circle. Only a robust legal system may help break it.

b. The situation becomes more complex because for implementing this legal system, the sovereign/state will need people from among the common people, which are themselves subject to these prejudices.

c. The Vicious Circle. So the religious fanaticism may take only a short duration to get deeply entrenched, in the absence of law, developing a non-biased legal system may take generations in a country with varied belief systems and religions.

d. Perhaps rather than avoiding the teaching about religion a teaching of all the religions and belief systems may help, but the issue is the people implementing the teaching are liable to have their biases towards their religion or belief system.

6. An Issue facing a Multi-religion Society - The Alienation of Certain Sections. Let us consider a society where law is not based totally on the decrees of a religion. Let us now suppose that one of the religions, say A, is fairly commonly taught - it may or may not be the official religion. Further let us consider that the laws that are not biased towards a religion, have failed to be actually implemented and thus are incapable of providing that secure framework which we have been discussing. In such a society the people from a 'significantly' different belief system, B, may very well be capable of dealing with the people from the belief system A, because of their knowledge of that. But the vice versa may not be true. The people from system B, will slowly start feeling being biased against. And the Effects:

a. Rise of Religious Leaders in Community B: Either the person from the community B, who is not capable of fighting for his rights, seek refuge with the people from his beliefs, which provides an ideal case for the religious leaders to gain importance.

b. And Some Social Justice Champions. He may decide to fight for complete fairness in the system, because this is the only case where he can ensure that he is not subject to any prejudice - actual or perceived. It is this which has perhaps led Voltaire to note, 'Virtue exists among the minority' (The quote may be from some other author or I may have failed to recall it correctly).

c. Communal Militancy: Such conditions may provide for another favourable environment for religious militancy on either side, only the militancy will be more in the garb of national identity in the case it is from the side of the majority, consider for example the Nazism. However the militancy may start from the first outburst of the minorities, their angst against the system some right and wrong measures taken by them to protect their interest and then it can go on either side or both.

7. The Incresase in Importance of Rituals and Rise of Sub-Belief Systems. It is also that as the legal system (and also the education?) fails, the rituals will gain importance in order to differentiate between the accepted and the unaccepted ways. If such black age is long enough, slowly we have separate belief systems developing within religions. What started as an avoidance of the people not following the rituals or the newer rules of religion, slowly leads to different sects within religions. The powerful group may associate severe stigmas to the other group. We have seen such developments in Sub Castes in India, sects of Christianity and Islam.

8. Why Does the Newer More Universal Systems Try to Create a Separate Identity. If in such conditions a new belief system emerges, which is totally based on the universal brotherhood and the equality, it will also have to enshrine its separate identity by someway so as to ensure its continuity through such turbulent times. But the threat is that the explanations that get associated with these special rituals or identities over a period of time, may lead to the loss of the original message of universal brotherhood.

9.Non Religious Systems. Systems like Communism are capable of replacing religion or at least reducing its importance if they can remove uncertainty along with ensuring fairness. But they being guided more by the powers of the sovereign (state) rather than internalised beliefs are more prone to change and deterioration and thus demise.

Concluding Note. Karl Marx called religion as the opium to masses. It is in fact a shield which we seek refuge behind. But simultaneously it is also the framework which provides us with a world-view and an assurance that there is some higher system which follows a set pattern. The religion and law also increase our capability of becoming responsible citizens at younger age, because they reduce the quantum of conditioning required to understand the social order.
[1] The Christians shunned the jews, and much earlier in the Indian Aryan systems the people who did not accept the requirement of deciding land ownerships, in vedic era became known as Rakshas.