ToughDiamond wrote:
^
Interesting. By what mechanism would government support for a religion have a negative impact on its popularity? I would have thought the general tendency would be for people to accept a thing more if their leaders approved of it, if it made any difference at all.
The latter might be true in the short run, but not in the long run.
If a religion is sponsored by the government, then a lot of people will join it for reasons having nothing to do with any real belief in the religion, and a lot of people will join the clergy for opportunistic reasons, as a means to gain temporal power. This has the longterm effect of weakening the religion, as more and more people notice all the hypocrisy.
On the other hand, if a religion is NOT endorsed by the government, then its adherents are more likely to be sincere believers, with relatively few ulterior motives. Sincerity makes the religion more attractive, especially if the believers manage to create a strong grassroots sense of community.
Outright persecution can strengthen a religion even more, by guaranteeing that all its adherents are hardcore, and sometimes (e.g. in the case of the ancient Roman Christians) by inspiring popular admiration of the adherents' bravery. As they said in the early days of Christianity, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
10 Dec 2023, 6:59 pm
