Religion As A Means For Political And Economic Gains Essay

Religion As A Means For Political And frugal Gains - Essay ExampleThis statement will be tested through qualitative analysis of the breathing literature on worship and a case study of Taliban. By looking into the question of whether Pakistan utilise Islam through Talibanization of Afghanistan essentially to stem the growing Pashtun nationalist case, I will attempt to show that religion was used for political gains and virtually economic gains by a country which broke apart at the hands of a similar nationalist movement three decades ago. The outcome of this research can sponsor to bring us closer to understanding religion and add to an ongoing debate on religion and its correlation with politics and economy.Keywords religion, religious exploitation, religious values, fundamentalism, Taliban, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Pashtunistan Research Design in Anthropology (Final Project)1. OBJECTThe main range of religion is maintaining a desirable social order which protects the individua ls and the society from physical and emotional harm caused by fellow members and promises deliverance from deprivation (Columbia Encyclopedia), but since it has the ability to gain a high level of acceptability among its followers, sometimes to the level of reverence, it demands a blind organized religion from who follow the rituals without reasoning. In their introduction to the first majority of the famed Fundamentalism Project, Fundamentalisms Observed, editors Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby (1991) claim that the religious aspect of fundamentalism tends to express itself in the following four ways as a fighting for the worldview associated with the religion a fighting with the myths, traditions and doctrines created by the religion a fighting against those who do not subscribe to the religion and finally, a fighting under the god or other exceeding reference thought to be the religions ultimate source. In under-developed societies religion has a stronger hold over the shor tsighted and the powerless who seek protection in its name and solace when they when they fail to achieve the desired goals in life. Since the clergy claim ownership of religion their role becomes the most important for the society as well as for the individual, sometimes even more important than God himself. Some high-priests become so powerful that their command rivals the powers of the rulers and other pressure groups. Thus religion commands absolute obedience from the poor and the powerless which enslaves them to the custodians of religion that is to say the clergy which in turn gives them the power to alter social behavior. More recently, such a phenomenon has come to be identified as fundamentalism whereby the clergy and associates have sought or achieved change of social, political and economic nature. Any socio-political movement that requires of its members a strict adherence to specified fundamentals or doctrines that seeks to impose those fundamentals, by persuasion or force, on any who are outside the movement and that claims for its motivation in doing so a divine, or otherwise transcendentally grounded, mandate. (Carr & Saha, 2001) This has happened in some societies while elsewhere other social factors emerged to mollify or cancel the magic of the religion and its custodians such as interfaith or sectarian rivalry, rise of modernized forces which further the power of reasoning and science and so on. History is full of incidents where clergy using religious edicts and faith have tried to alter social