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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Religion is, and probably always has been a means of control. That's not to say that it is that at every level, or that it's only that. Religion is designed to bring you comfort and assistance in your times of need, while charging you a fee for the service. The business has to run, the staff and bills have to be paid, the top officers need to be fabulously wealthy. Not all religions are against Women, Children, BIPOC, and LGBTQ, but if you're trying to exert control, they make easy scapegoats. White men make all the money, Let us hold down all these minorities so you can smother them to make yourself feel better, now pay us.
One of my friends attends and assists with a great little church. It's a small, modest community church. The pastor is gay, and drag queens come to read stories occasionally. The place is just kept up with. They're not squeezing 30% out of the community. I'm not one for church, but I approve of what they're doing wholly.
Religion takes the best parts of human nature, and convinces people that these things come from some big other, who is always watching and judging us. It turns us inside out, and the world upside down. I don't get mad at god or judge people for being religious but anything that convinces good people that they are fundamentally evil is itself the opposite of goodness.
It is absolutely a method of control, its no coincidence that the emergence of basically all the major religions coincides with the rise of class domination.
"With or without religion, good people would do good and bad people would do evil. But to make good people do evil takes religion."
Right, because it would be like getting mad at Santa Claus.
I also try not to judge people simply for being religious, but it's pretty damn hard when it's the direct cause of their affirmative stance on things like anti-vax, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-science etc.
Of course there are people with those stances who aren't religious at all too, but they do seem to be in the minority.
I know a couple people who swear that religion turned their life around. I swear they're the nicest most pleasant people I know. They claim that when they were teenagers they were consistently stealing things and breaking into places and it wasn't until they found God that they stopped.
The one guy was a little more analytical than the other guy. He looked me dead in the eye and said I don't know that God is up there watching, But I do know that in the time when I needed somebody to be watching, I felt he was and I made better decisions.
Now, I think that this is an outlier case but I'm apprehensive to just completely discount religion even though I know in all cases it's control. A lot of churches do have reasonable positive outreach for the money. Of course for each one of those you've got another church out there really everybody for 30% in no matter what their situation is.
I really understand that it is a nuanced issue, people are extremely intricate and surprising creatures. People have a way of taking the worst circumstances and making them wonderful. If a little God makes your life better, fucking go for it. My granddad, one of the sweetest most caring men I ever met, his final words were, "God in heaven..." And then He passed. At which point it doesn't matter if heaven is a "real" place, it is real because it is real to people who believe in it. On the other hand, many atheists are insufferable and just as ignorant and entrenched in their negative belief as the worst religious people can be. I've studied religions and was deeply Catholic until I was about 30, so like 15 years ago. I love to discuss theology. Personally I read the Tao te Ching and it helps me connect with my spirit, and I want others to have that, whether it comes from religion or music or just other people.
But the parts that are a mechanism of control are just too ingrained into it. I believe in freedom and human self-creation. If religion helps you accomplish that, go for it: praise Jesus, God is Great. But if it doesn't, then to the extent that it actively prohibits this then it is to that extent that I oppose it. Sometimes its a little, sometimes its a lot.
Religion also conditions you to out source your moral judgements. This allows someone to use their authority to convince people of immoral things.
Very well said
Totally agree, but why is your username the noise made by my old 28.8k modem?