Ulrich Beck on religion's totalitarian heart

"God is dangerous," writes sociologist Ulrich Beck in a pre-Christmas essay, in which he presents five theses on why the humanism of religion disguises an essential totalitarianism: "Religion is by nature absolute: its core is faith. All other social differences and contradictions are unimportant by comparison. The New Testament says: 'All are equal in the eyes of God.' This equality, this rejection of boundaries that separate people, groups, societies and cultures, is the societal foundation of (Christian) religions. But the result is that the very same absolutism that abolishes social and political differences establishes a new fundamentalism and hierarchy in the world: the one between believers versus non-believers."

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