Bakrač Vladimir – Nikšić

Theoretical aprouch to similarity and diferences between Religion and nation

Religion and nation are concepts and phenomena that many acknoledqued and famaus authors have dealt with. We all know something about the religion and nation if we think about them as separate concepts. But we know far less about them if we look at them as connected concepts. That is why we have decided to focus on the relationship between these two concepts important for both an individual and the society. We do not pretend to say something completely new. What we have tried to do is reflecting and thinking over what others have already said, building on what others have already made and achieved and the renewal of partially forgotten and neglected ideas finally, we have tried to connect what seemed to be impossible to connect. We wanted to give a modest contribution to the examination of these two concepts.

The religion is very old phenomenon, so old that we could say that it is as old as the mankind there has already existed some kind of belief which could be defined as religious the religion itself could answer those questions that science so far cannot. We believe that psychologists will agree with us that we all think about the questions which only religion can give aswers to when some bad things happen to us.

When the religion was no longer convincing with its answers to some questions such as."What happens after we die?" „How to alle viate pain when we lose someone dear?"...,there comes a period when people still look for imaginary answers but apart from the religion. There comes the period when the nation and nationalism as its ideology prevail over the religion. The nation overtakes also many other functions which used to be religiaus. There fore, the nation becomes" the modern sacred"! The nation as the concept and term has relatively recently appeared, at the end of XVIII and the beginning of XIX centuries. It is important to empgasise that some theoretician claim that it appeared earlier, from the beginning of XVIII century untill nowadays, the popularity of the nation is great and the nation is still interesting to scientists. We think that the popularity of the nation and nationalism results from the fact that they themselves caused the most dramatic consequenes.

Kay words: Religion, nation, identity, identification, integration, universality.