DGP Chapter 15: Religious Fundamentalism in the Modern World: Faith, Identity, and Contemporary Politics (1970s-present)

On page 461, the text provides the advantages, or rather, important social benefits. The first item listed is identity. It gives “a way to define a group and give it unity.”

This statement is true. Most people use their religion as a characteristic that takes part in their identity. Many religious people use their faith not only as a religion, but also a lifestyle: everything they do revolves around their faith.

This statement can be quite problematic, however. I don’t necessarily disagree with this statement, but similar to how people of the same ethnicity usually “stick together”, those that believe in the same faith follow these norms. This unification of people creates a feeling of stability, community, and safety for people. However, at the same time, it creates tension between the different groups of people. Without religion, tension is still inevitable however, for there are still groups of ethnicity, gender, status, etc, that provide unification of people, and yet at the same time, separation.

Even without religion, the simultaneous action of separation and unification occurs. In a classroom of kindergartners, where religion is probably not a prominent interest, little boys that like to play basketball with stick together and the little boys that like to play dodge ball will stick together. While they all are joining groups and making friends, the two groups also create a partition, not so drastic as a violent act, but nonetheless, a division.