The Important Thing to Realise

There is only one important thing to remember about all religions – especially the big three sects – Judaism, Christianity and Islam; they are and always have been about power. Since humans first settled in villages and towns, religions have shared power with strongmen. Kings, chieftains, lords... used armies, hit squads and secret informers to threaten dissidents with dreadful torture and death. Religions used armies of priest spies and hit squads who punished wrong thoughts and actions with unspeakably horrible tortures and murder in this life, and threatened eternal torture after death. Both used their powers to gain great wealth at the expense of even greater misery. Witchdoctors and heartless bullies have ruled in various guises for millennia; sharing power and profits.
The fact that for nearly a century some citizens in a few societies have been able to criticise their government and even the state religion without fear of torture and death is an extraordinary blip in the history of human civilization that has never occurred before, and will probably never happen again. We were extremely lucky to have been here when it happened – although it makes its passing doubly sad.
Religions are keen to regain their lost power and are willing accessories to plans for world domination organised by money men, the politicians they sponsor, and the media they control. [Check out www.zeitgeistmovie.com for some alarming facts – have patience... it is worth sitting through to the end.]
Human societies have always been controlled through fear – never through reason. Fear of the lash and sword, god’s wrath, hell, excommunication, different races, different sexual orientations, other creeds, different values, poverty, the ‘enemy’, illegal immigrants and of course the latest and cleverest fear – terrorism; an enemy as amorphous and elusive as any god – and as impossible to pin down and eliminate.
There will be reprisals if atheists come out of the closet and publicly rebut religious ideas and practices. We have to restrict ourselves to reacting when religion interferes in politics, and to pointing out the inappropriateness of such behaviour in a purportedly secular democracy. This is, unfortunately, a rearguard action as the battle has, in fact, been lost. In Australia over the last fifteen years religions and their natural allies, big business [people forget that religions are very large enterprises with tax-free profits in the billions], have gained control of all education, most of the health budget, and virtually all social services. Our government has been corrupted by large corporations and appoints ‘scientific experts’ to justify decisions in the same way as despots have always used religion to justify oppression. Scientists who publicly disagree with the results required by governments are sacked – as happened recently with the introduction of GMO crops. The government-appointed puppet chief scientist is the only ‘expert’ whose advice they take after restricting his terms of reference. Government appointees to the High court of Australia have resulted in a sharp reduction in dissident opinions over the last few years – making our last court of appeal merely the servant of government.
Stirring up religious ‘wars’ in our own countries would only serve the interests of those in power, just as the sectarian wars they’ve fomented in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are proving immensely profitable. Money is made out of conflict, and who is suffering is irrelevant to profiteers. If people who base their lives on faith accept that religion should only be practised by consenting adults in private, then let them.
Lay Christians and followers of other faiths are unwitting pawns in the game of global domination which has recently gained pace with the globalisation of trade and the removal of most of the hard-won freedoms and rights of democratic people in the name of ‘homeland security’. Religions keep people ignorant, trusting of ‘experts’, and unwilling [if not unable] to ask questions or challenge authority. For those who reject religion, governments have encouraged mindless consumption and the proliferation of inane television channels and internet sites that tell deliberate lies, numb the brain and divert attention from what is really happening to society and the planet. All mass media are now concentrated in the hands of a few fabulously wealthy individuals who are willing supporters and/or members of the cartel of financiers actually running things.
Recent deliberate manipulation of money markets and credit are destabilising the entire world, and paving the way for further encroachment on personal liberties and accumulation of wealth by those already astronomically wealthy. With the rise of poverty, landlessness and hopelessness, due to overpopulation, deliberate policy decisions and the aggregation of all wealth in the hands of a few, the numbers of disaffected with nothing to lose has risen dramatically and they grasp at the straws offered by religion and the media. Australia, like the U.S.A., has deliberately run down the education system to create a large, uninformed and ignorant class of citizen who will not rock any boats. Our new government panders to religion, but says they will reverse this dumbing down of education; however I doubt if that will be permitted.
The actual numbers of religionists prepared to fight and kill for religion is small, and they are mainly in marginal crazy cults. However, it is alarming that none of the major sects distance themselves in any way from the excesses of these madmen and women. They continue to include even the most bizarre of cults under the umbrella of Christianity or Islam or Judaism, because they benefit from the fear inspired in non believers who then remain closeted, leaving them to their power games.
I've tried for years to politely and gently convince religionists of the illogic of their faith, to point out that their beliefs and dogmas are as insubstantial as the emperor’s clothes – to no avail. They have learned as children not to think. Not to challenge. They are comfortable in the certainty that god will eventually take control and all will be ok. They have rejected the reality that planet earth is a single organism and humans are but one of millions of life forms – neither more nor less important. They refuse to accept that we have but this one life and how we live it is up to us. They are ripe for plunder – unless nature gets in first and ‘balances the books’. If it does, it will not be a pleasant time and power merchants will learn they are not immune.
We’re told that environmental catastrophe can be averted, but if it is, it will be the first time in history that humans have acted on a warning instead of reacting to calamity; not a likely scenario.
Clovis