Antiquity relates that all organized religions have been run by a corrupt body of people, whose scandalous acts have affected the concept of religion even today. According to the dictionary religion is, “The service and worship of God or the supernatural." It is true that all religions have involved the worship of some supernatural force. However, it is also true that no religion in history has ever stopped at that. For a more complete definition of the word religion, one must also examine two other aspects. How has it affected man over the centuries? And what is the true motivation of its leadership? Some would have the public believe that organized religion has brought peace and harmony to the world and that its leaders are motivated by the service of their God. Yeah right! A more accurate definition of the word may be as follows: Religion--a feudal system of government which uses fear, hate and sometimes lies to control and manipulate people for the betterment of a select group of individuals. This has never been more true than it is today.
To better illustrate this point, one must look at just a few of the countless examples that human history has to offer. The Spanish Inquisition is a prime example. The Inquisition was a judicial institution, established by the papacy in the Middle Ages, charged with seeking out, trying, and sentencing people guilty of heresy. To be a heretic, you didn’t have to be an evil person with malicious intents and plots against the Church. You need only be Jewish. Heretics were considered enemies of the state. The penalty for heresy was torture and death. Simony was another from of corruption in the Church during this time period. “Simony was the ecclesiastic correlate of contemporary corruption in politics.” (Durant) It was the selling of pardons from the Church. The Crusades make another fine example. The name Crusade (from Latin, "Cross") was applied to the wars against pagan peoples, Christian heretics, and political foes of the papacy. Both examples illustrate how man has used God to justify his greed and quest for power. When the leadership was challenged, it used divine decree to justify the murder and torture of the innocent. We are expected to believe that a non-physical being order the religious leadership to acquire riches and land, often at the demise of the poor and helpless. What kind of shit is that?! This system of inspiring fear into the denizens of the communities was common practice in the Middle Ages, and even remains true today. If you were to challenge the word of the Church, you would be threatened with words like, “Excommunication”, and “Heresy”. This fear is what compelled the people to conform to whatever rule set forth by the corrupt Church without question. Although the penalty is not so harsh now, there are still the socially outcast people who are condemned for their atheism. Woody Allen once said something to the effect of--Organized religions are just clubs; they’re people that get together to hate other clubs--or something like that, you get the point.
Again, the misuse of God isn't limited to the Middle Ages. We have yet to put the stupidity behind us. Even today, society is affected by the scandalous acts of yesteryear. Society still sees the same type of corruption dictating the actions of some so-called “religious leaders”. In the present century, our culture has seen people like Adolph Hitler, Louis Farakahn, and David Koresch, who have used God to propagate racism and hate, thereby giving them the power to unite and control a given segment of the population. While the people of present day do stand up for their opinions, and are not as timid to articulate their concerns about these sinister individuals as they were in years past, we still are faced with this continuing problem.
Maybe it’s just because 90% of the world’s people are stupid. This theory may not be too far off when you think about it. Einstien once said, “I know of only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity . . . and I’m not so sure about the former.”
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