Institutional Hypocrisy

There are various reasons why organized religion is currently the ultimate evil in our society. First and foremost, it is a hypnotic tool that is used to control the unthinking masses. Fundamentalist "holy" men in every religion prey on their subjects' primeval fear of death to create social groups that will listen to anything and everything they say to extend their existence into a mythical afterlife. The herd mentality is a very important piece of this equation. When a group of people gather together and celebrate a shared belief, an instinctual euphoria sets in. This feeling is construed by the peddlers of religion as the presence of god. The believers find themselves lost and happy in a crowd, willing to do anything and everything for their false god. As we see every day, even kill or die for their beliefs. They will do this without question, never realizing that the beliefs were never their own. They were merely cattle, programmed by a self-perpetuating class of religious zealots, and sent to the slaughter.

I have experienced institutionalized religious perpetuation my entire life. I grew up in the Bible belt, the breadbasket of the evangelical Christian nation. I went to church until I was 18, went to evangelical camps in the summer and witnessed the transformation of the "born-agains." I have to say that to this day nothing frightens me more than a born-again Christian. There is a vacancy behind their eyes and a well-veiled threat behind their conversion efforts that I imagine identical to German Nazis in 1939. If you have ever been to one of their functions, I warn you it will be a harrowing experience to the thoughtful mind. Their practices are reminiscent of a stereotypical cult, complete with mindless chanting and speeches by the beloved leader. Of course this defect is not unique to the Christian religion. All over the world, people are packing synaguogues, mosques, and churches every "holy" day, partaking in their mass hypnosis, forfeiting their minds to religion, and perpetuating holy wars that have raged since the beginning of time.

And the greatest irony is that the followers of all major religions despise each other. The texts of all the monotheistic religions advocate tolerance, abhor violence, and even describe identical gods. The first commandment of them all is "thou shall not kill." Even so, Christians, Muslims, and Jews are at the center of blood-letting that has lasted millenia. Modern fundamentalist religions have honed their hatred of all other faiths to an art form. In the Middle East, a number of youths far above the statistical norm for modern civilizations are willing to strap explosives to themselves and pursue a mythical afterlife by murdering people who don't believe their book. In America, the grand old party has fused thinly-veiled racism and "family values" to try and institutionalize the denial of rights to anyone they view as displaying non-Christian values. And they have the gall to call anyone who disagrees with them "immoral." Lets not forget that Christians and Muslims, who worship the same god, fought savagely in the dark ages over a scrap of land that was deemed "holy." It seems they have been at this a long time. In all this time, has no one really caught on to the hypocrisy of it all? Oh yeah, the agnostics and the atheists figured it out a long time ago.

The real danger is the damage that religion causes. Of course there are the countless lives that have been sacrificed uselessly in the name of religion. Most religions consider it an honor to die a martyr, perfectly willing to kill off as many sheep as necessary to inspire the next generation of dimwits. But the real problem is the control that religion allows those who lead worship over their followers. A whole group of people willing to do whatever one man says is always a bad idea. But more importantly, religion gives dumb people a really easy way out of thinking. If anyone takes an honest look, the evil of religion is readily apparent. And yet people constantly and relentlessly devote themselves to a set of illogical belief systems that hamper their minds and convince them to lead their entire lives guided by the whims of other men. They are the perfect constituents, hard-working, brain-washed morons who accept everything you say and will freely give you their earnings, even their lives if necessary. In the end they will give their life, believing to the end that the afterlife awaits, as you steal the last of their money on the medical treatments that give them one more month of time.

My last danger stems from a rather frightening trend I have noticed in fundamentalist Christian culture. They have become Armageddon worshippers, rejoicing and looking forward to the ultimate rapture. They don't care, or even welcome the ultimate doom of the human race. This has far reaching implications, from the outright advocacy of nuclear war to total indifference to global warming. And since it is ingeniously imbedded in their belief system, you can never change them. They will march happily to the ultimate doom of humanity, assuming that they are prepared for eternity.

Religion is nothing more or less than the subjugation of your will to a set of rules and beliefs designed to rob you of your identity, control your actions, and destroy the core of your humanity.