Let us see, in the Bible, it was said that Israelites felt threatened by their neighbors and to organize themselves for war, to protect themselves, they needed a secular/military leader. Apparently, they could no longer trust their divine leader, God, to protect them in human affairs. God granted them their wish alright and had them appoint Saul as their first King.

Beware of what you ask for, for if you get it, you might regret it. In addition to helping the Jews defeat their enemies Saul turned around and oppressed the Jews. Saul became the Jews worst nightmare. We ask for governments but governments can be tyrannical hence our worst nightmares.

Let us try another track, this time, secular. Why do we have government? Logical positivists, empiricists who eschewed reference to God, responded to that question with several philosophical treatises, including those by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, Jean Jacque Rousseau and others. Whereas in the past someone might have said that we have governments because God gave them to us, in the age of Cartesian skepticism it was no longer permissible, certainly not acceptable to rationalize any thing with sacerdotal arguments; one must provide a rational, read, secular rationalizations.

So why do we need governments? English empiricists gave us answers. The most important of English political philosophers, Thomas Hobbes gave us enduring answers. Let us briefly review his mythology, his story of the origin of governments. Please take this story very seriously for it is what is behind the behavior of governments, at least, those in the Western world.

In the beginning, all stories of origin begin with “in the beginning”, don’t they? In the beginning, human beings lived in the state of nature. That means that they were like other wild animals. They were predatory, kind of like lions and tigers. They roamed around the Serengeti Veldt. (I am assuming that man began his journey on earth in Africa, as Paleontologists tells us.) These predatory creatures were each concerned with personal survival and could care less for others survival.

As Charles Darwin told us in his seminal book, The Origin of Species, and Herbert Spenser reinforced in his book, Ethics, all we do is struggle for survival. We forage for food in search of survival. (But survive for what? Why do we live? Ah my beloved epistemology is useful after all? But let us not go there; let us concentrate on secular reductionism for a while.)

Animals, human beings included, search for food to enable them survive. At some point they discovered that it made sense to take the food other animals acquired. Why work if you can take the food other animals worked for? Better still, since we must work for our food, why not kidnap some persons and use force to compel them to work for your survival? Why not have slaves and threaten to kill them should they disobey you and since they fear death and they would work for you and make it possible for you to survive and survive in luxury?