Regarding the church....do you remember where the words "witch-hunt" and "holy war" come from? Throughout history and not so distant past, pulpits-at least in my corner of the woods-were used to turn communities into a mob, and the mob would cook up a a conflict that turns into a genocide of people who happen to have the wrong name or confession. Germans also gave up their individualism to contribute to something bigger, which turned out to be the Holocaust. There's no such thing as a true community because it would require true equality which we failed to achieve so far. Read The Animal Farm and you might change your mind when it comes to collectivism.