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In Japan, many still believe their Emperor to be divine despite the Imperial Family having distanced itself from divinity since the end of the Second World War. The imprints of social construction of God remain etched in the minds of many old Japanese long after the 'Gods' themselves have denied divine association. The Imperial Family, comforted by the constitutional guarantees that replaced divine safeguards, readily accepted the suggestion that most Japanese no longer subscribe to the notion of divine association.
There are still many religious worlds in existence today where believers imagine they are being ruled by the Gods through their agents on Earth. The Tibetans believe that their leader is a divine incarnation. The worlds of the Moonies and many other religious cults are thriving; their leaders are enjoying great material comforts.
The reasons for divine association
The writer, Berger, in his article entitled, "The Sacred Canopy", described all socially constructed worlds as inherently precarious. Supported by human activity, they are constantly threatened by the vicissitudes of life. In such a precarious environment, when power is usurped by an individual and all opponents have been destroyed, there still remains the problem of legitimation. This is all the more urgent owing to the novelty and therefore highly conscious precariousness of the new order.
Legitimation can be achieved by concealing the constructed character of the institutional order and enhancing the impression that the order has been in existence since the beginning of time. Let the populace believe that in carrying out the institution's programmes, they are realising the aspirations of God and that they are putting themselves in harmony with the fundamental order of the universe. In short, let us set up religious legitimation.
A handy stratagem is to clear away the old order and liquidate all thinking persons (eg Cambodia in 1975). It will then be easier to portray the ruler as God (can be a communist God) or associated with the Gods. He speaks with divine authority and to obey him is to be in a right relationship with the world of the Gods. This microcosm/macrocosm scheme of legitimating the social order is typical of primitive societies and repackaged in major civilizations. In China, the concept of tao (the right order or right way of things) linked its institutional structure to a cosmic order. In India, the notion of "'karma" (social duty, particularly caste duty) related the individual to the supernatural in the universe. Israel legitimated its institutions in terms of the divinely revealed law.
Marginal situations
Religious legitimation has a further important role of integrating into a comprehensive nomos the 'marginal situations' experienced in everyday life. Marginal situations are characterized by the experience of "ecstacy" (stepping outside reality). The confrontation with death is probably the most important marginal situation. Religion permits the individual to face up to these situations and to believe these events or experience have a place within the universe. It is thus possible to have a 'good death'. The believers can be trained to be totally obedient and even 'brainwashed' to welcome death as had happened to Japanese kamikaze pilots, Iranian soldiers in the Gulf War and the mass suicide of Jim Jones followers.
Whenever a society must motivate its members to kill or risk their lives, religious legitimations becomes extremely important. Thus, killing under the auspices of the legitimate authorities has been accompanied since ancient times by religious paraphernalia and ritualism. Further, religious legitimations, when crystallized into complexes of meaning, becomes part of a religious tradition. They attain a measure of autonomy as against the activity which it legitimates. In such a state, it may then act back upon the socially constructed world by remoulding and changing it. The Catholic Church is thus able to restrain its members from practising birth control and to enlarge its religious world.
Religion and the modern society
With globalisation, many religious worlds will lose their influence. Each religious world requires a "social base" for its continuing existence as a world that is real to its members. This base may be called its plausibility structure. Since every religious world is based on a plausibility structure that is itself the product of human activity, every religious world is inherently precarious in its reality.
When the conquering Spaniards destroyed the plausibility structure of the Incas, the reality of the world based on it began to disintegrate with terrifying rapidity. It shattered a world, redefined reality and the existence of those who lived in it. The Spaniard World was supplanted as reality facticity upon the numbed consciousness of the conquered Incas and thereafter on the rest of Latin America.
The reality of the Christian world too depends upon the presence of the social structure within which its reality is taken for granted and within which, successive generations of individuals are socialized in such a way that their world will appear real to them. If this plausibility structure loses its intactness or continuity, the Christian world will begin to totter as its reality ceases to appear as self evident truth.
Today, the plausibility structures of many religions that have come into contact with the modern societies have been adversely affected by it. Conservative religious worlds have long viewed contacts with non-believers with suspicion. They have sought to keep their plausibility structure free of foreign pollution. A hundred years ago, China and Japan maintained a closed-door external policy and European merchants had to pry it open. Many countries have, from time to time, attempted to insulate and preserve their internal order of things by forbidding their inhabitants from travelling beyond their borders.
Jews who are confined to the ghetto are much less conversion-prone than Jews existing in the open societies. Indeed, travel in areas where there are no Jewish communities is not only ritually impossible but inherently anomic for the traditional Jew, as travel outside India is for the traditional Hindu. Such journeys into the darkness are to be shunned because the purity of the Jewish or Hindu world - that is, its subjective reality or plausibility is threatened by the exposure. The advancement of education, mass travel, communications and multiculturalism have weakened many plausibility structures and this will spell the death knell of traditional religions in the forms that we recognise.
More and more people are beginning to question the existence of God. In the Christian world, some members are rethinking why an all powerful and loving God can be so unmoved by so much sufferings on Earth; why the innocent first born of the Egyptians had to die because a Pharaoh had been recalcitrant, why He allowed his own Son to die such agonising death.
Summary
In summary, every new generation coming into a religious world will require legitimation of some sort. Since every religious world is based on a plausibility structure that is itself the product of human activity, every religious world is inherently precarious in its reality. With the internet and easy sharing of information, many religious worlds appear destined for great transformations as their respective plausibility structures are threatened and weakened by the onslaught of modern 'contaminants'.
Increasingly, communities will look to religion as a 'comforter'. The role of religion in marginal situations will grow in importance. As societies become more complex, its members are exposed to increasing ecstacies of fear and violence. Man will become more reliant on the solace that is provided by religion especially when faced with the spectre of death. The Chinese who practises ancestorial worship is comforted in the same manner by the spiritual ambience of departed ancestors: Your departed ancestors are your 'ambassadors'. If they cannot look after you or say a good word for you, who can?
The traditional power and influence of religious men will be taken over by 'priests' of the new societies: the doctors, lawyers, sociologists, psychiatrists, economists and the likes. Less people are now consulting the rabbi or saving their souls in confessions. In Europe, America, Australia, there is a progressive decline in church attendances.
Conclusion
A variety of religious worlds exist today. The majority say there is only one way to the Gods - their way. If the Gods do exist, and one surveys the many doors proffered by the pedlars of religions, it is not unreasonable to conclude that from a mathematical view point, the probabilities are against entering the correct door.
Many may wait for a door to light up. The wait may be in vain. The demise of the Supernatural may gain increasing credence.
Bottom line
Let us say there are 100 prophets (there are more, actually) preaching their way to the gods. From the way they preach, only one of them can be right (if it is possible to be right). If you follow any one of them, you have 1 in 100 chance of being right (if you are an optimist) or 99 in 100 chance to be wrong (if you are a pessimist). You may wish to follow one of them (sometimes you have no choice, your girlfriend insists). If you do not want to offend your girlfriend for reasons best known to you, just remember the odds.
References
1.Berger, P.L., The Sacred Canopy
2.Berger, P.L., A Rumour of Angels
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