If we forget formal rhetoric and consider reality we can recognise the following top religions in the west and elsewhere:

1. The most popular religion still on rise is Dogmatic Humanism.

Humanism is (natural extension of atheism ) a religion that puts human being in the centre of universe by believing in his unlimited possibilities and power.
Humanism is at the present dominant religion in the western world.
Many institutionalized Christian religions in the west evolved shifting from original Christ teaching in to pragmatic humanism.
For example Catholic Church did it long time ago by introducing new dogma about Pope’s infallibility (sinless or Pope is a God) and so on.
With this new dogma Catholic Church actually replaced God with the human being, at least as his representative on earth.
Immediately after introducing the new dogma Jesuits had their new motto: “We don’t need Christ we have a Pope”.
On the other hand the protestant Church was transformed in to even more pragmatic humanism, shall we say business Christianity by introducing their own new dogmas like Jon Calvin’s ( 1509 – 1564 ) doctrine that “ God’s grace would be gained through hard work and financial success”.
This directly confronts with Christ teaching:
“ You can not serve Mammon and God at the same time”.



2. Dogmatic democracy

Second the most important religion in the west is Dogmatic Democracy.
Western world took for granted ancient Greek social concept called Democracy and made a new religion of it.
One of the greatest Greek philosophers Plato had very low opinion about democracy.
In his book “Republic”, Plato put democracy on the bottom of his list of possible social concepts by expressing opinion that democracy possesses inherent, long term fatal weakness, with potential to encourage bad leadership and a few people (Plato refers to as the "beasts” ) can take advantage by manipulating masses and accumulate great wealth  which can lead in to potential collapse of the society and different forms of tyranny.
The west ignored all of this and made a religion of democracy which tries to export everywhere to everyone by all means. Like during period of Catholic Inquisition any one who dears to criticise democracy faces danger to be announced as a heretic or even a terrorist.
The democracy also can be defined as dictatorship of majority. If stupid, manipulated and uncontrolled majority (separated from intellectuals - Plato refers as “Philosophers”) reaches critical level then it can lead to self destructive society what is happening in America at the present.



3. Social Darwinism

Religion that believes that happiness in the society can be achieved trough competition of the fittest and the most adaptable. Social Darwinism established in the Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest only should survive and flourish in society. This "ethical" concept very well compliments with the idea of corporate capitalistic globalisation and is very suitable for today’s materialistic shopping societies. When Darwin established the theory of evolution in 19th century, he pointed out that his theory was supposed to apply strictly to animals, but English capitalism and Victorian colonial fascism found this theory very suitable for British society. Today social Darwinism is widely accepted in corporate world and used for increasing productivity of modern slaves: working class and corporate employs.

Social Darwinism, by definition, is the principle that "the survival of the fittest" applies to human ethics and politics just as it does to biological evolution. The theory of Social Darwinism was introduced by Herbert Spencer. The theory was then used by White Protestants, men, and others to proliferate the idea that they were socially superior.
Capitalism of the early 20th century led to very clear class distinctions in the United States. The Captains of Industry, (depending on whether you saw them as philanthropists or criminals), subscribed to a concept of "Social Darwinism" which promoted a survival of the richest ideal and was reflected in their business dealings. Men like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others (today Bill Gates) have used this social concept to justify their incredible and morally questionable wealth.
In order for Communism to be an effective system people must deny their desire to be competitive and greedy or to progress on a higher moral level. These desires are a part of human nature which, in accordance with capitalist teaching, should be encourage as a driving force for becoming rich. Competition, according to Darwin, is what promotes evolution, thus in a societal context if there is no competition then there would be no evolution.
Today, in the west and elsewhere, capitalism together with social Darwinism is adopted as more pragmatic and efficient social concept feeding off of human characteristics, like greed and competition as a meaning of the life.

freediver wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 1:19pm:


My concern is hypocritical dogmatic democracy:
As I said:

"Like during period of Catholic Inquisition any one who dears to criticise democracy faces danger to be announced as a heretic or even a terrorist".

Actually the top religions are sleeping, then eating, then excrementing. Actually that makes statement that other three are top wrong.

freediver wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 2:50pm:


That's exactly why democracy became a religion.

muso wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 6:33pm:


I want to play too.

So hypothetically speaking does not matter what crisis it is as long as I have a choice like in real democracy. So I would filter out undemocratic representatives across the world first and see if that makes a difference.

tallowood wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 8:08pm:


OK, again hypothetically we have China - a totally undemocratic country. The government of China consult with their best technical advisers who explain that unless they radically change the way we do business, the future of mankind is doomed.

Meantime in the US and Australia, we have a fully democratic process. "Big Business" interests democratically lobby government, using appropriately democratic deployment of brown paper bags (for a just cause) in order to change government policy to ensure that their short term financial security is not compromised. Now unfortunately accountants and economists alike find it very difficult to plan any more than say 20 years ahead.  Meanwhile, the general population is fed subliminal information that hints that there will be massive job losses and (shock horror) house prices will plummet unless we ignore the coming crisis and take measures to tend to the very real threat that the Market will crash unless we encourage more and more consumers to use more and more resources.

In summary, the democratic view is keep feeding Mammon at all costs. The undemocratic view is to listen to the technical advisers.

....hypothetically speaking of course.

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2008 at 1:08pm:


What if the general public is too stupid to understand?
(we're talking hypotheticals here)

I don't know where you got the idea of blowing up power stations from. It sounds a bit radical.

muso wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 10:13pm:


Knowing that Chinese technicians usually produce very crappy products I would not trust Chinese technical advisers to come with credible solution and as it happened I was correct. Future had shown that after the crisis had passed democratic nations enjoyed even better life style and happiness while undemocratic China get itself even in deeper problems again.

Disclaimer: All that of course was hypothetical speak as the genre of hypo dictates.