Foucault and relgion

BG’s blog post caught my attention and I felt a connection with this person’s post. The quote that initially grabbed my attention as well as provoked my interest in this point was

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (99). Foucault’s statements can be connected with the idea of religion as BG mentions. The topic of religion is one that is highly controversial and extremely difficult to define. However, I felt strongly about a few ideas that BG had commented on in the blog. For example, it was clear that religion and its principal is all about order. And it does this by “creating the identity of its followers”. This rings true in the topic of religion because most religions re based on this idea. Religion is all about unity of its followers and the identity is thus created through order. Order must be present for the followers to have any structure and identify with the religion of his or her choice. The idea of God being present at all times in an individual’s life is interesting and correlates with Foucault’s quote. Visibility is identified in all religion in terms of Gods, or hierarchy. Whoever is the higher being in charge in whatever religion is the visible force within the structure of the religion. Followers of a certain religion can understand how a bigger force is the visible force and dictates all that the followers believe. The concept of being visible governs people’s actions and ideas. How they think and act towards other being is governed by religion since he or she knows that the higher power is at watch always. I think these points raise valid questions and make one really take a step back and analyze his or her life. Religion is a true force that governs people who take part in his or her religion of choice.