Date:   5/30/2007 3:14:17 PM ( 18 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=883263

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Religion stopped being the mass murderer when religion lost power.

Wherever the power is centered, that's where the mass murderer seeks to place himself.

Religion is often a convenient tool to get people to buy into it. Then again, so is patriotism.

But it isn't "religion" that causes it. People cause it. Particularly evil people gravitate toward the power center and, once power is acquired, they use it to inflict harm and suffering on others.

That's the pattern that the author of the original post is missing.

Because religion has lost power in much of the world, evil is not drawn to invoking the more unsavory aspects of religion to create chaos and destruction there (instead just heading straight for the seats of government), but if you look at the parts of the world where religions still hold the power of government over a population, those "religious" governments are still tyrannical and/or are at war with other populations whose governments are also (but differently) "religious".

Religion is a tool used to divide people. The chosen and the heathen. The saved and the unsaved. Trash and treasure. The faithful and the infidels. Whatever. It's that action of getting people to think that they are better than and more worthy than some other group that is the basic breeding ground for war. If you can dehumanize a group, if you can make them less than human, less than you are, then it's OK to kill them or enslave them.

And that's what religion brings us. But it's not the only thing which brings us these things. Religion is just one aspect of human existance which helps reinforce this mindset. Patriotism, as I mentioned, is another such tool for ensuring the right war-manifesting mindset. "My country is better than your country." In fact, fill in the blanks: "My _______ is better than your ______." Whatever kind of system that grows up around such a thought, its only purpose is to ensure that war amongst the followers and non-followers will continue.

Play the game if you want, people, but please wake up to the consequences. We all could be having so much more fun here on Planet Earth if we could just give up our desire to think ourselves more deserving than others.
 

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