Christianity Cannot Be a Religion for Modern Society


Christianity Cannot Be a Religion for Modern Society
              Being a Christian may be beneficial to an individual because he can talk to God, his life becomes easier, he can die with more ease, etc. We need to note that these benefits accrue to an individual. Game theory teaches that individual benefits are not necessarily consistent with social benefits. In other words, pursuit of individual benefits can make all people worse off. This mechanism is called the prisoner’s dilemma. Individual rationality does not necessarily mean social rationality, contrary to the individualistic philosophy of Western society.
              Religious wars are an example of the prisoner’s dilemma here. People involved think that they are right and that their enemy is wrong. They may even think that their enemy must be eliminated because of wrong belief. Religious wars are fought in this way. These states are very likely to be worse than those without wars.
              Consider Christianity from this viewpoint. It is an extremely exclusive religion in the sense that it even allows Christians to kill non-Christians. Today this tendency is pronounced especially among US Christians. If some non-Christians seriously fight back, the earth will face chaos.
Psychological wars are no less important. The state of mixture of people of different religions including Christianity is actually a psychological war in which hatred, distrust, and discrimination prevail. Such a state is not efficient in the economics sense: communication is not smooth, cooperation is difficult, and society is unsafe.
              How should a religion for modern society be? My idea is the following: Consider the group of people who practice a particular religion. Call them R and the rest of the people NR. This religion satisfies a condition for modern society if it makes both R and NR happy. This can happen if the religion is not exclusive. For example, R may be religious enough to help NR. Seeing the behavior of R, some of NR may join R.
Unfortunately, Christianity does not satisfy the above condition. I would like to add that there are various ways to derive benefits similar to those mentioned at the beginning.

Comments and questions are welcome.
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