Topic 3& 4( Soc Scie1)

• Religion

  Concerned with the sacred
• Globalism


  Places value on material wealth
• Religion


  Follows divine commandments
• Globalism


  Abides by man-made laws
• Religion


  Assumes the possibility of communication between humans and the transcendent
• Religion's link between human and divine


  Confers social power on the divine
• Religious people


  • Less concerned with wealth
  • Ascetics who shun material things
  • Main duty is to live a virtuous, sin-less life
• Globalists


  • Less worried about heaven or hell
  • Aim to seal trade deals, raise profits, improve government revenue, protect elites from taxes
  • See their work as contributing to general progress
• Religious people


  Detest politics and quest for power for they are evidence of humanity's weakness
• Globalists


  Value politics and power as means and ends to open up economies
• Religious evangelization


  A form of globalization
• Globalist ideal


  Focused on the realm of markets
• Religious people


  Concerned with spreading holy ideas globally
• Globalists


  Wish to spread goods and services globally
• Identities associated with globalism

  Regarded as inferior and narrow by religions
• Membership to a religious group


  Represents a superior affiliation that connects humans directly to the divine and supernatural
• Groups that "flee" their communities

  • Followers of Dalai Lama establishing Tibet
  • Buddhist monasteries located away from civilization
• Living among "non-believers"


  Will distract or tempt religious groups to abandon their faith
• Communities


  Justify opposition to government authority on religious grounds
• First revolts against colonialism in Asia and Africa


  • Priestesses and monks led the revolts, warning that outsiders were out to destroy their people's gods and ways of life
• Contemporary millenarian movements


  Wish to break away from the hold of the state or vow to overthrow the latter in the name of god
• State


  Seeks to either destroy people's sacred beliefs or distort religion to serve non-religious goals
• The relationship between religion and globalism is much more complicated than it may seem
• Peter Berger: '"the contemporary world is…furiously religious. In most of the world, there are veritable explosions of religious fervor, occurring in one form of another in all the major religious traditions and in many places in imaginative syntheses of one or more world religions with indigenous faiths."'
• Religions are the foundations of modern republics
• Malaysian government


  Places religion at the center of the political system, with Islam as the religion of the Federation and the rulers of each state as the Head of the religion of Islam
• Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini: '"there is no fundamental distinction among constitutional, despotic, dictatorial, democratic, and communistic regimes."'
• Religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate secular themes and practices
• Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia

  • Islamic schools where students are taught not only about Islam but also about modern science, the social sciences, modern banking, civic education, rights of women, pluralism and democracy
• In some cases, religion was the result of a shift in state policy
• There is hardly a religious movement today that does not use religion to oppose "profane" globalization
• Christianity and Islam see globalization less as an obstacle and more as an opportunity to expand their reach all over the world
• Globalization has "freed" communities from the "constraints of the nation-state," but in the process, also threatened to destroy the cultural system that bind them together
• Religion


  Seeks to take the place of these broken "traditional ties" to either help communities cope with their new situation or organize them to oppose this major transformation of their lives
• Religion


  Can provide the groups "moral codes" that answer problems ranging from people's health to social conflict to even "personal happiness"
• Religion is not the "regressive force" that stops or slows down globalization; it is a "pro-active force" that gives communities a new and powerful basis of identity
• Religious fundamentalism may dislike globalization's materialism, but it continues to use "the full range of modern means of communication and organization" that is associated with this economic transformation
• Some Muslims view "globalization" as a Trojan horse hiding supporters of Western values like secularism, liberalism, or even communism ready to spread these ideas in their areas to eventually displace Islam
• The World Council of Churches has criticized economic globalization's negative effects and vowed to become the latter's advocates inside and outside "the centers of power"
• The Catholic Church and its dynamic leader, Pope Francis, likewise condemned globalization's "throw-away culture' that is "fatally destined to suffocate hope and increase risks and threats"