Introduction
This article is excerpted from "War Without Gunsmoke - An Analysis of World Spiritual Warfare", written by Li Qingguo. This ** was published in May 1992.
There are only two forces in the world - the sword and the spirit. In the long run, the spirit always conquers the sword.
—Napoleon Bonaparte
The material cause and effect is nothing but the handle of the sword, and the spiritual cause and effect are the precious metal, the truly sharp blade.
—Von Clausewitz
Since its birth, mankind has been fighting on two fronts, one is the material front and the other is the spiritual front. According to statistics, from 3200 BC to 1964 AD, there were 14,513 wars in the world in the 5,164 years, 36400 million people died, and this is a tangible war. At the same time, on another front, an invisible way of warfare is accompanied by the footsteps of history, and it is increasingly showing a magnificent face, which is based on spiritual products. A kind of quiet warfare - spiritual warfare is waged with the goal of changing people's thinking, consciousness and psychology with people as a battlefield in society.
Spiritual warfare has a long history, like a constantly rotating cone, and in different historical periods, spiritual warfare has been expressed in a variety of ways, and in the main body of military warfare, it has appeared in the form of religious conflicts and psychological warfare; In the main body of economic warfare, advertising and commodities have become the most important spiritual front, and the market has acted as the opening part of the spiritual front; In the main body of intelligent warfare, the rapid development of intelligence, media, and information has greatly promoted the expansion of the spiritual front in breadth and depth. The multi-level system, the multi-category framework, and the multilateral crisis have made the world spiritual front present a complex situation.
Body
Religion is a form of social consciousness, an important part of the superstructure, a distorted reflection of the natural and social forces that rule people in people's consciousness. In essence, religion is the fundamental embodiment of a certain philosophical outlook. In a sense, religion itself is a cultural phenomenon. The culture of every nation is closely related to the religion in which it is believed. "Especially in the early historical stages of human intelligence, there was the closest relationship between language, religion and people". Religion has had a significant impact on various cultural forms in the history of a nation and country, such as philosophy, culture, art, morality, etc. In the main body of military warfare, religion is the most important one in the field of ideology, and other ideologies tend to be centered on religion. This is true of Islam, and so it is of religion. Although Buddhism in China has not replaced the dominant position of Confucianism, it has pushed Confucianism, which has a strong religious color, to the core position of ideology, but after integration, the conflict between the main area of military warfare and the religion within it is the most important form of spiritual warfare.
Religion as a form of consciousness has a multifaceted function. There are four main types. (1) Worldview function"Any religion includes a certain understanding of the world, feelings and evaluation of world relations." (2) Comfort functionWhether it is the heaven of ** or the realm of Nirvana in Buddhism, it provides people with a carefree and worry-free paradise. In this world, all contradictions are eliminated imaginarily, all practical oppression is overcome by spiritual freedom, and social inequality is replaced by an atmosphere of mutual respect and love. (3) Adjustment functionReligion changes the mind, will, and behavior of believers through belief. Religious thoughts, gist, norms, sacrificial activities, and religious organizations are the regulators of people's thoughts and actions. (4) Integration functionThrough the power of faith, religion unifies people's thoughts and actions, and then condenses into a powerful spiritual force.
The unique function of religion and its dominant position in ideology make it the most powerful routine of the spiritual front in the main body of military warfare, where science and technology are not very developed.
Religion and politics have always been entangled and intertwined. Political groups need religion in the name of God to accomplish political unity and legitimize rule; Religious groups, on the other hand, need to strengthen theocratic rule through politics, and religious ruling groups, theocracy, theocracy, religious military centralization, and religious colonialism are all products of the combination of politics and religion. In their interaction, it is politics that plays a decisive role. The relationship between religion and politics has made religion a spiritual tool for political struggle between different classes, different nationalities, different countries, and different political factions. The controversy between theological heresy and orthodox religion, the conflict between clerical power and monarchical power, the contradiction between religious reform and counter-reform within the exploiting class, and the war between different religious sects caused by religious colonialism constitute the main content of the world's spiritual warfare.
Religious conflicts between classes are the inevitable product of political contradictions in class society. Religion representing the interests of the exploiting class as a spiritual instrument of political domination. It justifies and argues theoretically, morally, and emotionally for the existing social system, and makes various theological arguments for the rationality of society. In order to destroy this irrational society, the ruling class must seek a revolutionary socio-political theory. Due to the limitations of the times, it is difficult for people to create and find the right spirit**, so they create a religion that represents the interests of their own class, or borrow traditional and foreign religions. Infused with elements of the interests of the class as a revolutionary theory**. This religion is often referred to as "theological heresy." "All attacks on feudalism in general must first and foremost be attacks on the Church, and all socio-political theories must be theological heresies by and large." In Chinese history, Zhang Jiao's Taiping Taoism borrowed the form of prophecy and preached that "the sky is dead, the yellow sky should stand, the age is in Jiazi, and Lei Gong helps me" was an attack on the authentic theology that advocated "the sky does not change, and the Tao does not change", and the White Lotus Sect of the Red Turban Army, the Ming Sect of Fang La, and the God Worship Society of Hong Xiuquan are all declarations of war against Buddhism and Taoism that represent the interests of the ruling class. In Europe, throughout the long Middle Ages, the activity of "theological heresy" was even more ebb and flowing. The Pauline heresy that was prevalent in Armenia and Asia Minor in the 7th and 9th centuries AD, the Bogmüller heresy that was born in Bulgaria in the 10th and 15th centuries, the "Apostolic Brotherhood" that appeared in Italy in the 13th century, and the Hussite heresy that emerged in the 15th century were all the result of the conflict between opposing classes on the spiritual front.
Religion as the spirit of political struggle between political factions** is also common in history. In China, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism coexisted for thousands of years as the spiritual spirit of the ruling class, and the three major sects coexisted, that is, they clashed with each other. In the West, since the day ** religion was declared the state religion, it has become the spirit used by the old and new slave owners and aristocrats within the empire to strengthen their own power**. In the 11th century, the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople were taught not only for religious reasons, but more importantly for political reasons, which were the churches that were at the disposal of the opposing sides within the ruling circles of the Roman Empire. Every religious reformation in the history of religion has been in fact a political reform movement in the guise of (religion).
Religion is the sharp spirit of colonization**, and its sword is stained with the blood of the colonists. In the ancient Greek and Italian city-states, religious beliefs were used to assimilate foreigners and expand colonies. In the wars of Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, the use of religious sympathizers in hostile countries to serve oneself has become an important condition for winning wars. "A Protestant monarch can convert the people of his opponents to his faith, or the religious sympathy of the Central Catholic minority to serve his political and military ends. It is possible to win a battle without firing a single shot. "In the process of colonization by Western countries, missionaries acted as the vanguard of spiritual warfare. Through medical care, culture, charity, and almsgiving, they penetrated deep into the interior of the country, and their methods were so flexible and so powerful that the colonial population unwittingly became prisoners of spiritual warfare. South Africa is the result of the spiritual warfare pursued by Western countries. The editor-in-chief of the British magazine "Review of Reviews" debunked the essence of religious colonization in one sentence. "South Africa is the product of three forces – armed crusade, ** and proselytizing. The main role played by missionary work, and everywhere the missionary was the vanguard of the empire.
When a political conflict evolves into a war, a religious conflict that serves their respective political interests evolves into a religious war, which is an extreme form of spiritual warfare between the main body of military warfare. In the main body of military warfare, religion and war are either separated or closely linked, and the hazy atmosphere of religion and the billowing smoke of war are intertwined into a solemn and cruel historical picture, writing one tragic story after another in the history of the world. The Crusades that shook the European continent, the banner of ** guided thousands of devout believers on the European continent to rush to the East. Arab rulers called on the Isinlanders to wage a "holy war" to establish an empire across Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the Tsar used the Orthodox Church to repeatedly infiltrate Constantinople and the Dardanelles, among others. In this series of wars, religion, as a spiritual **, fully demonstrates its performance.
Religion is inherently anti-science, and it is a distorted reflection of the real world. "Man created religion, not religion created man. ......The state and society have produced religion – that is, an upside-down worldview. Because they are themselves an upside-down world. "With the progress of science, the emergence of capitalist large-scale industry, and the establishment of capitalist relations of production, the dissolution of the patriarchal commune in the Middle Ages, the increasing separation of secular and religious power, and the dilution of the true body of God clothed in holy light in people's consciousness. The writings of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo, the philosophy of the Anglo-French materialists, especially Feuerbach's establishment of the interrelationship between religion and idealism, and Darwin's theory of evolution, greatly shook people's faith in religious doctrines. The birth of dialectical materialist philosophy completely shook the foundation of religion. Although religion still performs the function of spiritual ** because of its own consolation effect, it has lost far from its former edge. As modern science and technology have sent rockets far away from the earth, and the most advanced radio technology has helped mankind expand its horizons to the depths of the universe that are tens of billions of light-years away, people will no longer believe that there is a savior with boundless power in the underworld. With the revival of religion in modern society, people flock to churches not to hear the gospel of God, but to get in touch with the loneliness and anguish caused by the high frequency (fast-paced) society, and to find an intimate relationship. Religion, as a spiritual **, has lost its leading position in the ideological sphere.
With the boom of economic warfare, social consciousness in the ideological field such as politics, law, morality, and philosophy has become increasingly prominent as a spiritual one. Napoleon swept across the European continent waving the banner of "Whiteness, Equality, Fraternity". Darwin's theory of evolution was applied to the spiritual front, and became the philosophy of "survival of the fittest" in international politics, and became the theoretical basis for modern Germany to argue that the Aryan nation was excellent and demanded "territory under the sun". Malthus's population theory became another spiritual talisman for the fascist countries to launch wars and seize "living space" in World War II. Japanese imperialism, on the other hand, built a magnificent imperial edifice of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" on the grounds of a "humanitarian mission." The flourishing of political, philosophical, moral and other social consciousness in the ideological field contrasts with the increasing degradation of religion as an instrument of emotion. With the development of science, religion will inevitably go to extinction. "With the distorted reality of religion as a theory is extinguished, religion will also naturally perish. ”
Source**: War Without Gunpowder - An Analysis of World Spiritual Warfare