Churches are themselves institutions of power and coexist with secular powers, sometimes allying with them, sometimes being subordinate to them, and sometimes in conflict with them. People have got to get this dogma (he he), born from a particular period in the history of Europe, that chutches are in every case appendages of the state out of their heads.
I mean, the Russian Orthodox Church pronounced Peter the Great Antichrist, as a result of which he gutted the Church (using his secular state power) and had the church bells melted down and remade into cannons.
--- On Sun, 5/10/09, Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> From: Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Query re study of suicide bombing
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, May 10, 2009, 10:10 PM
>
> This is somewhat incidental, but hasn't religion (in the
> sense of being subordinate to a church) virtually always
> been an ideological structure supporting an institution of
> power? At any rate, this was certainly true of the Catholic
> Church. Nowadays (in Western Europe for a long time) other
> ideological systems are replacing religion in this sense
> even if religious sentiments are still capitalized on from
> time to time such as in enabling Israelis to feel justified
> in the violent theft of Palestinian land.
>
> Regarding the precise topic: I suppose having a scholarly
> study around is handy as it will keep the footnoters happy
> but it seems to me only a superb perversion by ideology
> could cause one not to see the blatant fact suicide bombings
> have a political motive, if a confused one, at their core.
>
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