ECONOMIC MATERIALISM VS. RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

Looking at history, it is somewhat possible to see the future. The undulating history of conflict between materialist driven Power Elites and their partners, religiously driven Power Elites, appears to be a human syndrome. And just as materialists use the tools of religion in their strategic and tactical planning, religionists use the tools of materialism for their planning. The great equalizer in the future battles of the worlds will be weapons of mass destruction. Iran in 2008 seems to be in the forefront of melding fundamental religious power with the latest nuclear weapon technology. Will opposing fundamentalist Elites be in the forefront of the coming battle of the worlds – or will it be materialism dressed up in masks of morality and ethics battling religions and religious fundamentalism which are also dressed up in the trappings of morality and ethics?

Three Power Elite models exemplified by China, Iran, and the United States provide insight into the continuing conflict. Materialist China suppresses religion. Fundamentalist Iran espouses religion. The United States combines materialism and religion. I predict that China and the United States will ally themselves against the forces of fundmentalism. Each side will attempt to gain allies from natural national constituencies. The winner of the war of the worlds? Materialism with lip-service to religion. They have many more atom bombs than the fundamentalists. The wealth of the fundamentalist states will go to the materialist nations. Fundamentalists will waste millions of bodies yet live to fight another day. Belief in god is impossible to kill. The destruction will be monumental and long-lasting. An outcome of that war will be that atomic weaponry will go the way of chlorine gas. Mano el mano will be the way wars are fought in the future.