In other words, a different religious
belief is a threat to the successful practical self-constitution
of one group. To get rid of the threat is a pragmatic
requirement, for which many wars were fought. Some are still
going on. With each religion that failed, a pragmatic requirement
failed, and was replaced by others more appropriate to the
context of human self- constitution. That these conflicts
appeared under the aegis of conflicting deities, represented by
leaders regarded as representatives of divinity, only goes to
show how close the relation is between the underlying structure
of human activity and its various embodiments.
In a world of unavoidable and even necessary diversity, religion
maintained islands of unity. When interaction increased among
the various groups, for reasons essentially connected to levels
of efficiency required for current and future practical
experiences, patterns of common activity resulted in patterns of
behavior, increased commonalty of language, accepted (or
rejected) values, and territorial and social organization. The
commonalty of language, as well as the commonalty of what would
become, during the Middle Ages, national identity (language and
religion being two of the identifiers), increased steadily.
From among the major changes that religion underwent, the most
significant are probably its reification in the institution of
the church and the constitution of vast bodies of discourse
regarding its intrinsic logic, known as theology.
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