More God in America – Or More Money in God? « The Socjournal

This article discusses the relationship between God and Money with America as an example of how Money and God influences our daily lives.

From Australia to Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland, there is an increasing number of people who identify themselves as “non-affiliated” with religion. However this is not the case for America. Richard Wiener[1] from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona, explains that it is a result of a simply psychological condition that propels individuals to follow the group and the majority.

According to Weiner, religion, both as a belief and a practice is soon to go extinct in basically all countries of the world – except for in America. He has with a team of scientists, conducted a research study based on a mathematical model of the complex social motives behind joining religious groups.

People Follow the Flock

The study is based on the theory that the more people that are in a group, the more likely others will be to follow. The study has shown that on a mathematical level, each person is simply equally influenced by every other person. The study thus concludes that mere social utility is the driving reason behind people’s religious affiliations.[2]

“… social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility. For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there’s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.”

Programmed Identities

According to the theory of Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, the development of national identity is specifically developed dependent on emotional connections with what they call ”significant others” (usually parents) – this is what they call the process of “internalization” wherein the child will accept and identify themselves as specifically belonging to and being a part of a certain group and thus internalize the behaviors and patterns of the significant others as its own:

“…the child becomes capable of identifying himself, or acquiring a subjectively coherent and plausible identity. In other words, the self is a reflected entity, reflecting the attitudes first taken by significant others towards it, the individual becomes what he is addressed as by his significant others”. [3]

This self-identification is developed within the emotional connections and is developed specifically through the passing on of cultural values and language. It makes sense that the passing on of cultural values, with rituals such as pledging allegiance to the flag,  is something that is highly developed in America  due to the historic background of the country as conglomerate of languages and cultures, that can suggest why religious rituals build into the culture has emerged within the need for a strong national identity.

Why religion as the basis of national identity?

Within an entirely different theory, one of the founding fathers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, in the 1880′s proclaimed that if France were to survive untying its ties to the church, religious symbols and rituals had to be applied transferred into the class room and the work place by a strong state, placed as representatives for the civic society.

According to Durkheim, a new social moral had to take the place from the role religion had up until then had played, to ensure a social cohesion within society – because he saw within the developing complexity of the industrialized and urbanized world, an danger people disassociating with and being divided within society. The blooming scientific and rationalist dogmas, did simply not have the same unifying effect on people, as religion did.

He admitted that even though he did not support the metaphysical rationale of religion, its rituals and emotional associations had a specificaunifying effect on people. [4] For Durkheim, religious rituals thus became a matter of practicality – as a force that bound people together and ensured a form of cohesion.

Religion is thus, together within and as emotional association through culture, used to keep a society “coherent” within preventing people from rebelling or disassociating themselves with national identity. The same takes place in the family, as show by Berger and Luckmann, wherein the parents represent the culture and through the emotional connections to the child, make sure that the child integrates and accepts the dominant culture as its own, which again ensures that the dominant culture prevails and maintains it dominance.

The question is now if this is still the issue – that religion is so overly dominating the American culture and Society because of the effect religious practices have on people – or if other aspects are playing in on why people remain religious and why religion is so closely tied to the maintenance of a nation’s social coherence and prosperity?

Are Americans closer to God?

According to Elizabeth Lemons, a Professor of religion Religion, there is in America a sort of  “marketing” of religion going on, that has close ties to moral values.  However she also says that: “Some people say they go to church but they don’t, or they say they believe in God, but what does that mean in their lives?”

In another study[5], the scientists rather than asking people how often they attend church, investigated through observation and through neutral questionnaires – and what they found, was that there was a clear discordance between what people say and what they actually do, which led the scientists to conclude that Americans are not more religious than others, but that they are simply more like to claim that they are.

The study also found, that for Americans, religion is closely related to a general assumption that being religious is the same as being a good person and a good patriot and that is in itself a specific cultural and moral value that is being shared between a majority of the American people.

Religious to Survive?

The previous mentioned theories and empiric studies suggest thus that the base motive for participating in religious activities is caused by other factors than faith – as it is closely related to the individual’s inclusion into and acceptance within – and thus survival in –  the society.

According to Associate Professor of Sociology Paula Aymer, there is a definite link between religious beliefs in America and the development of capitalism:

“At the very beginning, capitalism and religion managed to form very strong bonds,… Socioeconomic success is often treated as a mark of specialness — that your religious faith, your prayer life and your God marked you for that success.”[6]

As a common belief, this suggests that people with money and financial success are considered favored by God, and that they are thus better and more Superior people. The question is if it was God that gave them the success – or if they became successful because of their affiliation with religion?

Participating in religious activities can affect whether or not you get a job, become president or are able to establish a network of support that can ensure that you get food on the table. Thus whether or not a person is practicing religion from a starting-point of following the flock or within presenting oneself with a religious personality – it is about surviving and thus about being able to support oneself financially in this world. God follows the Money.

More-Money with Mormonism?

One of the most successful religious groups in America is the Mormon church and the official LDS church is one of the wealthiest in America.

The popular TV-Show “Big Love” portrays a modern polygamist-Mormon family of a man with three wives. The show is interesting because it brings up issues that are common in all relationships, but here magnified and intensified because of the polyamorous design of the relationships.  However the show also reveals and magnifies the foundation of religious beliefs and their connection to survival.

Life with God

The Mormons believe that if a man and wife are “sealed” in a special Mormon ceremony, that there marriage is sealed in eternity as well – and so marrying is not only for life, but for the rest of eternity. This is why they in the TV-Series are so obsessed with getting as many wives and children as possible:  to have a big family of “superior souls” to spend the rest of eternity with.

The belief is furthermore that the time spent on Earth is like an interim Hell that is not really relevant in the big scheme of things. What is relevant is the pre- and after-life as “the real life” only begins after death, when the family is “reunited” with god in heaven – as they’ve voluntarily accepted to come to Earth, be tested, measured and judged by god, for to, if they’re found worthy: reserve a seat next to god in the after-party of Heaven. [7] So basically as a Mormon, you do not have to take Responsibility for what is Here, because what is Here is “not real”. This is so not only for the Mormon church but a basic Deceptive strategy of all religious and spiritual practices.

An Ex-Mormon gives a morbid overview over the role of money within Mormonism:

“It’s the World’s Perfect Business Scheme and you can do it too. Just start your own “Afterlife Insurance Company” then make the greatest promise humanly imaginable — promise your clients that if they totally obey you and pay their premiums, after death they’ll become Gods! In fact, polygamous Gods who’ll have eternal sex with innumerable partners! Until then, they’ll enjoy moral supremacy over all humanity. You do need to claim that you’re a prophet of God however, but this is the easiest claim on earth to make and no one can prove you’re lying.”[8]

One of the reasons for religion being so important in America, can be that the country has created its economic system based on the deception within religion as shown clearly within this example above. As each person is born, they are forced into accepting the dominant culture in order to survive. Religious beliefs and practices allow people to compromise actually Living, in the name of “god” and the “eternal afterlife”.

Common Sense Perspectives

So – At a mathematical level, it is more practical for a person to follow the majority. Identities are formed within the cultures as emotional attachments, to those that nurture us in those critical first years, where we’re unable to support ourselves to survive. Religious practices and rituals are being used in societies to maintain social cohesion, thus survival as the group. Religious identities are being deliberately used in groups as a moral statement of superiority in order to reach success and make money. We learned that religious beliefs allow people to make justifications for not Care for or take Self-Responsibility for what is Here.

Everyone is Participating

America is just an example – religion is in a way also just an example. Because this shows that our entire behavior, identity, morals and faith are based on survival as the main motivator for everything we do and participate within and as. Our identities are shaped and formed so that we will survive. We form our identities to fit the dominant culture (represented to us by our parents) to survive. Our cultures survive, through the continuous indoctrination into us as children. Everything and all we do – even that which we cherish and experience as personal and emotional values are created from and within survival.

Thus – all of this can equally be said about other countries and other practices that we participate within and as in our world and reality, from sex, drinking and doing drugs, to spirituality and political activism. We are slaves of our own programmed “nature” to survive.

The Programmed Nature of Life is Survival

In poor countries were people actually starve from birth to death, it is about physical survival, about making it through the day without dying. In rich countries it is no different, except we have shifted our level of survival from biological to social and spiritual – and that is what we call “human evolution”.

If we want to stop existing within this programmed existence – both within our societal and cultural systems, but equally within ourselves as our personalities and identities are shaped and created according to the exact same purpose.

we must come up with Solutions that is based on taken the point of Survival out of the equation. In Common Sense,  it does not matter to the universe or even the planet, the plants or the animals if we as Humans survive – in fact, they would probably stand a better chance of Living a satisfying and Dignified Life, if Humans do Not survive.

Are YOU satisfied with Living to Survive?

There is not a single Being in this World that is satisfied with merely surviving – surviving means avoiding death at all costs – literally at ALL COSTS – as we pay with everything we’ve got to survive.

As the World currently is functioning, survival is dependent on the Money System – a Money-System, that we all participate within and accepts as a fully functioning system of Governance and maintenance – that is based on humans having to fight each other and compete in order to exist. It is based on the base acceptance that some win and some lose – even though it is always the same people that win and always the same people that lose. Thus the game has been fixed from the beginning and religion is one of the ways that we’ve justified our acceptance of this system, in abdication of Self-Responsibility.

The Solution is Here

It is Common Sense to follow the majority as it is the most Practical for our own Survival. But when the majority Supports a System that is Destructive and Abusive in its very foundation, it is time to change course.

It is time to stop fighting for our survival – and to come up with Solutions that Considers and Cares for Life. Life is for the Living – We are the Living, but we are not Living Life. We are Living programs of fear of not surviving that will do anything, fight anyone, become anyone – to survive.

An Equal Money System – where everyone is given, and give each other, Equal Money from Birth to Death is a Solution that is based on the Mathematical Equal of What is Best for All. When we say Best for All, we mean All Life – so not only the Humans, but also the Plants, the Animals and the Planet itself. It is Common Sense – each can do the math for themselves. When All Life is Supported and Supporting All Life Equally, no one is required to fight for their own Survival. We are collectively Responsible for Creating and Accepting the World to Continue Existing as it does – and we are Equally Responsible for Changing it into a World that we would Actually want our children to be born into.

How can I Participate:

We have seen within this article, how all we are programmed to survive. This means that none of us exists as “original” Beings – in fact we are entirely conditioned into and as supporting the current Money-System’s dominating direction. Therefore a re-education of each of us is required – where we re-program the programs we’ve become – to systems that honor Life. And within doing so, we remove all programmed, conditioned and automated behavior and identity, as we Stand up to Live according to the Basic Principle of What is Best for All.

We do so within the Realization that what is Best for All, is Best for each of us – and that when we Stand up for – and become the Living Principle of what is Best for All, we can Actually Create a World that is not conditioned in any way.

What will Change with The Equal Money System?

• Children are not forced or indoctrinated to replicate the culture of their parents or society or to rebel against it in desperation of the enslavement that we have submitted ourselves to.
• No one has to compromise themselves and create fake personalities and persona’s in order to be accepted by the society they’re conditioned into.
• We support the plants, the animals and the planet as they are Equally and Unconditionally Supporting us to Live.
• We can Allow ourselves to – for the first time – Live without Fear.
• From the Equal Money System a Self-Honest, Self-Dignified Self-Expression may Emerge as the Living Word of Equality and mutual Support.

To Participate – is to Take Self-Responsibility for Who and What we have Accepted and Allowed Ourselves to become – in the Realization that we’re Equally Responsible for All that is Here. And so we Walk – step by step, to correct and purify that which we have become, in Self-Support and Self-Honesty.

The Desteni I Process

At Desteni we Support each other and ourselves through a re-education to Self-Honesty, Self-Forgiveness and Self-Responsibility. We provide a platform of Support where each Stands Transparent and Equally Accountable in Self-Responsibility – so that each of us may Stand up and Support Life, as what is Best for All. This is called the Desteni I Process and consists of a course that is available through Desteni. The Participants with Desteni also write blogs – wherein we write ourselves to Freedom and Self-Honesty, within Standing up as Self-Responsible for and as the Systems of programming that we each have Allowed ourselves to become.

The Equal Money Movement

We are in the Process of Creating a Global Equal Money System, that will be both political as well as financial – and as such, we Stand Equal with the Governing Systems that we have Accepted as the Directive Principle in this World to correct them to become Systems of Life-Support instead of Systems that Support Inequality, Deception and Abuse. In this each is an Equal Participant. There are No Masters, No Slaves, No ideology – Because the System is based on Practical Equations of Equality – as What is Best for All. Thus the only requirement for Participating is to Participate as an Equal – Equally Responsible for what is Here and for Ourselves within and as this World.

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Posted by Anna Brix Thomsen on March 30, 2011.

Tags: American Culture, Emile Durkheim, Equal Money System, God in America, Patriot, Patriotism, Peter Berger, Sociology, The American Dream, The Social Construction of Reality, Thomas Luckmann

Categories: Anna Brix Thomsen, Featured Articles