(December 9, 2021 at 11:06 pm)masoni Wrote: How much have religions always been tied into geopolitics?
Going back to Egypt and Mesopotamia at least. Also in China, The Indus Valley and Meso America.
Organised religion has always had a symbiotic relationship with the status quo, often legitimising who or what happened to be in charge . In turn, religions have always been allowed to shear their flocks.
Still very much in all of those areas except the PRC which remains strongly anti religion. The poorer a country is the more powerful are religions. There is strong correlation between religiosity, education and poverty. Affluent countries tend to replace organised religions with perhaps secular humanism or even simple hedonism. Probably just a coincidence.