What, for crying out loud, is the difference?!
As George Carlin so wonderfully put it, religion posits a Man, living in the Sky, who watches everything you do, everything you think and has a list of ten things you must never do. As far as I can tell, the modern western state watches everything you do, everything you say and think using satellites in the sky, and has a list of 19,000 things you must never do. Frankly, the former is more attractive, as far as authoritarianism goes.
Science is the priesthood of the modern Church. There can be no Truth unless a "scientist" blesses it. The Big Bang and Evolution are doctrine that very few question, nay are allowed to question, though at their base, they are nothing but theories built on 17th and 18th century metaphysics and alchemy without a whit of proof or observation. No one, despite all you've been inculcated with, has ever witnessed the Big Bang, nor has anyone ever seen one species evolve into another. Oh sure, there is the 3 micron background radiation and the observations of intra-species adaptation, but honestly, these are hardly proofs of bigger Truths. They are interpretations and over-wrought expansions on metaphysical concepts without solid and real examples.
A great example of the modern state taken to its natural extreme is North Korea. Though many Westerners will point to this hapless nation as the quintessential example of the State run amok, it is, in fact, the natural outcome of what most governments want to achieve. It is also the natural outcome of religion, though the two entities are diametrically opposed to each other.
God and the State are interchangeable. Both have as their raison d'etre the total subjugation of humanity. The former does it in the name of a fanciful Creator, the latter wishes to become the Creator. That is the sum total of their differences. In Western culture, the royalty claimed Divine Authority, stating that the sovereign derived his power from the Almighty. The modern State wishes to cut out the middle man and establish itself as the Divine Authority. We see this trend begin in ancient Rome with the deification of Julius Caesar. The king became god, and thus the State he established was divinely inspired and ordained.
The concept of Divine State continued under the Roman Church, with Jesus claiming divine Nature, and by extension, the popes were all-encompassing power to rule the Earth in God's name. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than with Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam, declaring the Roman Church's authority over all the Earth and all the creatures in it. In fact, this claim has never been challenged and is still positive law in the West today. We need look no further than the fact that modern administrative law is based on Roman Canonical law, and the Canon principles still reign.
In fact, it is the Church's doctrine of Collective Guilt in perpetuity for Adam's Sin that is the basis for the concept of a Corporation as a Person in Western law. You can follow the concept through Medieval theology and into modern court rulings on the concept. It is the very reason why a CEO cannot be jailed for the actions of a corporation (corporate veil), and so the entity (corporation) must be punished, rather than the individuals who made the decisions.
It is a short step from that concept to the corporate State assuming a form of divinity, because it is now a "person," sharing equally in the Divine Nature of the individual Human Being, but since the corporate State is a collection of individuals, it is therefore more powerful than any individual. And since the corporate State is now a "person," it can answer only to God for its crimes.
POOF! The Divine State. Replace the black frocks and celluloid collars of the priesthood with white lab coats, and viola!, the new priesthood. Question Global Warming or the Big Bang, and you will receive the same treatment as Bruno or Galileo - burned at the stake or imprisoned for life - even if you have empirical evidence, or simply point out the New Priesthood's lack thereof.
Though the wolf has changed clothes, the result is the same - an authority claiming Divine Status watching every single move and thought you make. Further, it claims Divine Right over all the Earth, regardless of who or what it must destroy in the process. And since the Divine Authority is claimed on behalf of an invisible and mute God, the only way to prove the authority is to fulfill the "prophesies" of ultimate destruction and reveal the Truth in the Final Judgement.
Thus, Western civilization has at its core the seeds of its own destruction. While attempting to conquer the Earth under its Divine Authority, it must also destroy everything to prove it is right to do so.
Roman authoritarianism was established by the divinity of Julius Caesar, who was replaced with Jesus Christ (JC2), which solidified the State's Divine Right, which became Unam Sanctum, which became Manifest Destiny. Original Sin established collective guilt, which led to Corporate Personhood, which led to Fascism (from many, one). Apocalyptic prophesies became justification for any number of horrific crimes in the name of "greater good," whose righteousness could only be proved by the ultimate destruction of everything in order to bring on the Final Judgement. In the process, we replaced Church Dogma with Scientific Dogma, neither of which is questionable, regardless of the utter lack of evidence in either case.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Millennia-old edicts and choices still infuse and surround the current events in your daily news feed. We see its proof in the Apotheosis of George Washington
(see illustration at top) and the architecture of Washington, DC (New Rome), and the Authoritarian subjugation of all humanity under one rule (NWO). God is Big Brother, and vice versa. There is no conceptual difference in either form or function.
Ultimately, in order to change the world, we must first change nearly all of our a priori assumptions. We must question the origin and authority of every single public institution and seek completely new alternatives.
Any bets on how likely that will be?