Becker's Theodicy Explains Hostile Relationships

Becker's anthropodicy can explain hostility between people on many differet levels of severity. Whether it's a declaration of war all the way down to just a heated disagreement at the dinner table, there is no official due process to mediate that situation. No wonder we see otherwise perfectly reasonable people so willing to dehumanize and silence another group of people whose beliefs threaten their symbolic identity. To some people, it starts to feel like a matter of life and death to put a gun to the head of my illusions and to pull the trigger becomes an act of murder.