Historically, how successful and stable have theocracies been, especially when compared to monarchies...

omg finally anime grills with historically accurate clothing.

Fuck you Fate/bullshit

both

A junta that followed the bible as much as they could, and thus had no issues with dynasties or corruption or lack of discipline in general.

Not to mention the vows of poverty and celibacy that its members undertook. Despite all their wealth and power, the actual members of the organization saw almost none of it, and they didn't even get a lot of sex despite their sexy armor. To join such an organization you pretty much had to be an ISIS tier fanatic, not swayed by petty materialistic desires in your devotion to God.

And that shit worked! It took an actual genocide to finally end the crusader culture, and even then it left a permanent ">le efficient ordnung germans" mark

Conclusion: we should force all our statesmen to take vows of poverty and celibacy and religious devotion before being qualified for office.

Conclusion: You're a meming retard who doesn't give a solitary shit about history and instead want your opinions on how states should be ran verified.

Conclusion: You're an idiot who takes Veeky Forums way too seriously.

You're both right.

...

this is Veeky Forums. someone needs basic shit explained to them so they can reach an opinion on it in the next few minutes.

The absolute state of Veeky Forums

Terrible, did more intra religious wars than inter, ruined Yuurop.

Malta was cool though

Isn't any state under sharia law technically a theocracy?

While your suggestion is a bit excessive, some suffering would do Washington a world of good.

Used to be, being a Congressman was seen as a shit job, because they met in summer, and since the Capitol had no A/C in the 1800's, it was like a sauna. For the most part, only those who legitimately wanted to make America better would run for election, especially a second term.

Nowadays, the Capitol is nice and cozy. People run for election just to bulk up their resumes. Ever wonder why we haven't had any statesmen on par with Clay or Webster for a century?

Maybe dont fucking post in the thread of you don't even know what the main subject of thread means?

Rome, and Italy at large during the middle ages, were Oligarchies, the difference is the ruling class in Rome was made up of clerics while in other city states it was made up of patricians. Economically and militarily speaking, Rome fell second to other Italian city states - due to their lack of tolerance trade suffered greatly and they mainly gathered money from the clergy of the catholic world, as well as the nobility on certain occasions. Militarily, they relied on mercenaries(like all other city states) and holy orders to wage war and keep the peace.

>Compared to monarchies
Rome's influence on the Christian world varied depending on the time period. They were a dominant factor in every christian's live, but slowly the nobles, monarchs and burghers gathered more authority and the church fade into near obscurity.

In the Islamic world you get the Caliphate, which, similarly was at it's peak early on but lately they fell short as the warrior classes gained more strength. This made sense in that time, soldiers win wars, they keep the peace, they hold the sword thus why should the priests or burghers hold he power? The nobility grew to be dominant in Europe due to the nobles being the warrior class.

Religion is a powerful tool, but it's also limited, and when ideas like Nationalism emerge, religion stops being that much of a factor.

No, not necessarily. If the ruler is a Muslim who institutes Sharia law but is not an actual member of Islamic clergy- just some random Muslim- then no it's not a theocracy. If the ruler institutes Sharia law and is a member of Islamic clergy, then that would arguably be a theocracy. That is assuming I'm not missing any core aspect of Sharia law that requires leaders to be clergy or something.

I too cannot recognise jokes.
I think its autism.

well theocracies existed in the holy roman empire in the form of bishoprics and higher titles which were successful in weakening the power of secular dukes and lasted hundreds of years
though one would question whether they were more dedicated to the religious or secular parts of their role

I seriously think a bit of pariahism for those in office should be a good thing. If you've got a powerful position in society, ideally you want it to be held by the most selfless. When a position of power is conflated with the ability to accrue personal wealth and power, you attract all the wrong people.

Therefore, those in government should be equal to the most lowly citizens of their state, and their time in office greatly limited. Every move on their part should be watched, and their personal and professional life while in office should be a complete open book. Serving the nation should be something one does because they wish to serve the people, not because it's a career choice.

>"Deus Vult" war cry.
Trash.

The problem with this question is that many governments blended elements of monarchy and theocracy. Vatican City does it to this day.

The trouble is that Islam doesn't really have the clergy/laity distinction, at least not traditionally. The person who read the Qur'an was elected from the congregation for this learning, and didn't have to belong to some special order.

Technically, every single little catholic or a orthodox monastery in the world works as a little theocracy.

It does work very well usually, though we talk about a hundreds of person, not more. I don't think a whole society could live by the rules that are established in them. Only the madman savonarolla wanted to transform a whole city into a monastery-like organization. It worked pretty well in the beggining at least.

Technically speaking, this is true, but they don't really wield any judicial or political power. And in modern times, getting people to recognize the authority of priests is pretty difficult. Doesn't help that a lot of priests are pretty retarded when it comes to actually running shit as well, I blame the church taking care of most of their worldly matters so they never get a real good grasp on common struggles and empathy for man.

Its pretty hard to judge the success or failure of theocracies because 'pure' theocracies are fairly rare.They're almost always connected to monarchies or oligarchies, which come with their own issues.

Tibet's system was a recipe for disaster, I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did. Though to be fair that may have more to do with unique doctrines about reincarnation (guaranteeing long regencies, with all the possibilities for infighting that implies) than being inherent to theocracy.

Why are these memes so unfunny?