I think that most religions do not believe in what is written in their scriptures, but rather in what has been added to them. All religions advocate some form of charity, but in practice we fight against what is foreign to us because it is foreign to us. Religion is dominated by institutions that abuse the power of faith for the purpose of controlling people by not dealing with actual human emotional nature, but rather with a distorted version of it that serves mainly to justify hatred rather than love. As long as institutions have the material resources necessary to spread manipulative messages (propaganda), this cycle will probably not end. It makes no difference whether one is Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, because all these religions, and probably others as well, have been twisted by influential people to portray territorial expansion, ethnic exclusion, and material exploitation as something good that makes individual believers feel superior. Although this actually contradicts the logic of peaceful coexistence. However, I cannot yet fully answer the question of how to break this cycle, because history has shown that violent attempts often lead to an even more determined reaction from the other side. Perhaps it would simply help to take away the institutions’ material influence so that people would start thinking for themselves again and no longer need instruction from outside. I don’t know.

Sorry if this text sounds strange, I used machine translation, I wrote it in German.

  • Ronin_5
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    16 days ago

    It’s part of our super structure that forms our current material conditions. More specifically, it’s seen as a panacea to dull the contradictions from every-day life, but it blinds us to further questioning and analysis that would lead us to the formation of antithesis.

    As it is, we cannot simply ban religion. One of the basic human rights is to have freedom of religion. But ultimately we need freedom from religion.