pan6467

I actually agree with you 100%, and could not have said it better.

In my opinion the government has learned there's money to be made in politicizing and institutionalizing the personal.

And religions have learned the easiest way to control the masses and do what the religious leaders bid is to inspire fear, retribution and guilt by saying what you do now affects your afterlife and your eternity, instead of just your here and now.

When one of the religious tenets or canons are then challenged the religion has to strike out and inspire more fear, and use political control to keep the flocks in line. For if they don't and lose that particular tenet or canon or whatever you'd like to call it, they lose a certain amount of control over the people's lives, and fear vanishes even more.

While, not always a bad thing that religion uses this technique, it does hinder progress and it does at times send civilization back into a warlike conciousness.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"