Means of control
New URL – not interesting. You’d notice by now, as you’ve been redirected. Guess my new E-mail. OpenID – interesting, but I don’t have anything particularily interesting to say about it right now.
This, however, is interesting: “10 things christians and atheists can (and must) agree on“, a nicely written piece over at cracked.com. But this isn’t blogspam, I’ll actually share my two cents. (or shnekel, if you like)
I have a serious problem with religion; It is my opinion that it is an overly powerful means of control. Whether it has evolved as such or not is hard to tell. But today it seems to pose a very serious threat to the world.
Now, don’t get me wrong – control of this type is very important and useful. Specifically, it manifests itself in a basic moral system which, many believe, has served mankind well. You know, “thou shalt not murder”, stuff like that. Some may even say that it was a central factor in overcoming our primal urges, and development into the ever-so-slightly more sophisticated society we are today.
However, there are other, more dangerous manifestations of this control. Specifically, it seems all-too-easy nowadays to get up and say “This-and-that god has spoken to me – we must kill those-and-them”. “God has spoken to me, we must, uh, enlighten these our-religious-character-rejecting other-religion-followers. There’s some oil in it for us, too”. “This land has been promised to us this-and-that years ago, we must kill all other-religion-dwellers”.
Of course, the link here is politics. When used as a series of anecdotes, morals, stories, hell – even as a way of life – religious is mostly harmless. However, when a religious leader becomes a political figure, the temptation is simply too great, and religion becomes used as a tool of the agenda. It doesn’t take a whole staff of advisors and a big media budget to convince the public now – it only takes a proper connection with arbitrary dogma to do that.
Throughout the years, the secular public has wished for separation of church and state. But noone has yet stated it better than George Carlin – “Keep thy religion [or, in accordance with the linked post, thy lack thereof] to thyself”.
4 Comments to Means of control
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You’re lucky to live in Israel which is mostly secular. In this country most people are devout Christians.
Perhaps. But consider neighbouring countries.
I pretty much agree with the article you linked, that the way atheists and religious people live isn’t that different. I do understand your fear of religious political leaders, but you also have to remember some of the most dangerous leaders in history were secular.
One thing I think that the article is wrong about is the subject of moral. The moral concept is a secular one. Religious people don’t need a conscience as they have god (and his prophets) to tell that what is right and what is wrong. For atheists, in the absence of any such authority, they have to look within themselves and in they’re society for these answers. Of course, this is a philosophical claim, and I don’t mean to say that religious people don’t think for themselves, but you can still today see how they are much more dependents on the guidance of their leaders.
And this dependence (as do all similar forms of dependence, including secular ones) is exactly what concerns me.