by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
When Marx made the statement about religion being the opium of the people he was very right indeed.
The reason people believe, and are taught to believe, in a beautiful afterlife (I am referring here predominately to the so-called Christian churches) is so that they do not fight against the awful situation on Earth.
The leaders see religion, especially the Christian one, as a nice way of keeping the common people quiet and controlled and they have always used it to that effect.
Napoleon Bonaparte is reported to have said: “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
The powers that be used to – and in many cases still do to this very day – hand in glove with the church, or the other way round, in order to keep the common people controlled and in their place.
When we look at the schools of Britain in the Victoria era we can see this in its entirety where children were punished if they had ambitions “beyond their station”, as it was called, like when, say, the son of a farm laborer aspired to become a doctor or a lawyer.
The child would then, as said, often be punished by the teacher and be told that he should not try to become anything like his betters and that his station in life was to be a servant. But that, if he would be a good Christian, his reward he would receive in heaven.
Children were condition by state and church schools and the clergy to accept their lot in life and that they were actually bucking against God's order if they aspired to be something else than what their parents and grandparents were.
This was the same in Britain, as in Germany, France, or Russia and everywhere in between and both church and state or state and church connived together to keep it thus and for that very reason the church was – and still is – against the Left and especially against Communism. Socialism and Communism threatens the power of the church and its influence over the people.
This was also very much in evident during the last decades of the last century when the Church of Rome, for instance, reprimanded clergy, including bishops, in Central and South America, Africa and Asia as to “liberation theology” which many, especially Jesuits and Dominican priests, practised; being on the side of the people and the revolutions.
Standing up for the people's struggle for freedom and justice was not, according to the Vatican, what the clergy and religious were supposed to be engaging in, especially not socialist and communist activities. They were to be concerned only with the souls of the people and to ensure that they did as they were told by the rulers.
Religion is used to oppress the people by lulling them into a state of oblivion to accept their lot because there is a reward waiting for them in Heaven and they they must not upset the system that God has ordained on Earth.
Sorry, run that past me again: God, who is this supposed loving God who is interested in each of us personally has it so ordained that there are people who die of hunger in some of the richest countries of the world even, who are homeless, etc. Then, I am sorry, that is not a God that I would want to have anything to do with.
In South Africa the Calvinists even rewrote the Bible to prove that God made the Black Man to be inferior to the White Man and that the White Man, thus, was supposed to be ruling the Blacks like they were children.
The worst aspect of (organized) religion is, however, as indicated, that through the indoctrination of the clergy the people are taught to accept their lot, not to buck the trend and system, and not to interfere with God's ordained order, for their rewards be in Heaven and the more they suffer now the greater their rewards. And a great many actually believe this claptrap.
No God will help us to overcome poverty and oppression. We have to do that ourselves and fight for our rights. The rights as free people. We are neither slaves to men, nor governments, nor of any God.
Sin Fein... Ourselves Alone! Only we can free ourselves...
© 2012
