Over years of observing them what struck me the most was how similar in principle are the two extremes of communism and religion. While the first is a modern form of nation dominance the second is probably the oldest. As people wake up to the facts about nature, the world, and the universe religion has lost its place as the great source of mystery while communism has filled the gap to enable powerful men to continue in power.
While Karl Marx is credited with the philosophy in the mid 19th century the main objective of state control leading to a collective ownership of wealth, property, and economic enterprise. His ideology sprouted wings and was successful in underdeveloped and poverty-stricken countries. The appeal was an overthrow of the rich and equality for all.
In Russia, the first communist nation, the Tsar and his family lived in luxury while the rest of the country struggled under the burden of the first World War. The Industrial Revolution of 1917 saw their removal and murder as the Bolshevik Party seized power. They had their eyes on the world as they saw their struggle as an International one. Their propaganda reached into most countries where governments fought to eradicate them.
Religion, on the other hand, has long been a nation dominating force with eyes on the world. In countries where it has succeeded the governments are virtually controlled by members of whatever religion they belong to.
The most striking example are the Muslim countries of the East and Catholic dominated nations of Italy and Ireland in the west. The Jewish religion dominates Israel while Hindi controls the population in India. Russia was Orthodox prior to the Industrial Revolution.
In today's world a sizable degree of the global population is dominated either by religion or communism. China, which has something like 20% or one fifth of the world's population is the largest and India with 17.86% is second. Combined these two nations hold one-third of all peoples.
The Muslim religion now cover 23% of the total and the Christian population makes up to 33% in 2017 of which some 16% or half of that number are Catholic.
The trend in all these systems is to grow by population growth, influence, and conversion. Where people are agnostic the birth rate is declining and so are church attendances. There is now a major shift in the world's demographics and in the things people associate with.
It struck me that people only need strong leadership no matter what type it is. They also appear to be least worried about their spirituality. That may come from religion, communism, or politics. Whatever it is basically the world continues in the same manner and the situation in the world declines according to the loss of faith, readiness for war, aggression towards each other, and terrorism, which is based on a rush to get to heaven.
Whatever force has the most power it wins out, whether through revolution, murder of dissenters, the rise of dictators, or anything else. There is not one that is better than another as they are all after one thing – control of a bigger empire and ultimately the world.