VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Matt Westwood|DATE|1371900347|CONTENT|The telling phrase there was Buddhism as a &quot;state sponsored quardian of national identity&quot;, which hits the nail on the thumb (apologies to Hammill).

Seems to me that this is true of every &quot;state religion&quot;, and in this sense, religion is merely the acceptable veneer of the pre-literate tribalism which is still the overriding motivation that gets people to cooperate.

Be it an oath to nation or community (see Thursday) or to football team or to family, it&#039;s one of the few ways you can get people to work together (and by extension to control them): to identify them as a member of a set, such that those outside that set are different and in some sense inferior. Dressing it up in the uniform of a religion is just a particularly effective way of achieving this aim.|EMAIL|prime.mover@proofwiki.org|IP-ADDRESS|90.208.123.231|MODERATIONFLAG|