ABSTRACT
Religion became institutionalized because of Spencerian selection pressures and religion continued to evolve through a combination of Spencerian, Durkheimian, and Marxian selection dynamics. Religious and ethnic movements can, however, become very much like state warfare when they have access to recruits, material resources, and most importantly, war-making technologies of client states or, as is the case today in the world, an active arms market. The movement embodies a stringent religious orthodoxy, which its leaders zealously strive to impress upon its members and, at the same time, to impose on all institutional realms. Organizational leaders articulate a unifying ideology, often drawn from religious beliefs, if cult structures are organizing into social movement organization (SMO), that challenge the authority of those in power, and typically all other cult structures organizing worship of the supernatural. The goal of the religious conflict is social control of the population in the larger territory and its conversion to the winning religious cult system.
