In the beginning there were the gods and the humans marvelled at their majesty, trembled at their power and shat their pants when something unexpected happened. When we couldn’t explain something we blamed it on the god of this or the goddess of that. The early gods were simple primeval beings the sun, the earth, the moon and alike. Later on we gave them areas of responsibility, nice names and even made up little stories about their parents and how they seduced fit looking mortals. It was a loose relationship which seemed to suit everyone involved.
The root of all evil is of course money and the humans burgeoning desire for wealth and power was a real turning point for religion. When mere subsistence was the be all and end all, the ways of the gods seemed far removed from your every day goat herder or dung eater. The regional wandering vagabond zealot had very little to offer the man in the street. When the amount of gold in your cellar became important suddenly the god troopers had something for sale, the salvation of your mortal soul. This was a sweet operation; no stock issues nothing to go mouldy, nothing for anyone to nick and everyone needed it. For the right price a holy man could guarantee you entrance to heaven and the killer was no one could prove otherwise.
At about the same time people decided to start writing things down and this was really good news for your religious types. Once things were on papyrus people had something to reference and if it looked old enough and official enough then it became the truth. It even got mistaken for factual history from time to time and if you’re a Looney Alaskan governor/ soccer mum it still does. When it got really old it took on a mystical property and it became the word of god. The god squad now had a winning combo. No one could do anything without god’s say so and only the priests could give you access, but it would cost you. Usually a shed full of cash, posh frocks, somewhere nice to live with a constant flow of hot totty to keep you warm on cold starlight nights.
As life became more complicated so did the religions. They took all their little stories and put them into great big books. These books then became the corner stone of the religions. Now you would have thought that this would help make things more stable. Everyone would know the rules and following them would be a piece of cake. No such luck, there was no way this kind of power could be given to the masses so the priests pulled out their trump card “interpretation.” Only the religious big knobs could understand and interpret the word of god. Only those that were divinely blessed or who knew someone who knew someone were bequeathed with this gift. The scam was stronger than ever.
At this point in the story I think we need to clarify a few things. Faith is a beautiful thing, for someone to have absolute confidence that someone or something is looking out for them, be it a god, a friend or public body with no facts or evidence to base a reasonable decision on is both amazing and humbling. Religion demands that of its followers, but it’s run by human beings that more often than not fail the faith test with monotonous regularity. Power corrupts and absolute power is like having 12 blind men try to cross the M25 in thick fog. Impending chaos with wanton death and destruction thrown in for good measure. Science, while not a religion per say has all the characteristics of one. Flashy books, mantras and dogma, very impressive people saying complicated things that you don’t understand and a personal aversion to sexiness. The two sections of society that seem to repel the opposite sex the most are definitely priests and geeks. Science is an anti-religion but that Dawkins bloke (Not the one in the chair) is frankly the biggest plum ever. He doesn’t believe in anything unless he can prove it in an experiment. Get a life and live a little mate.
Back to the story, for the next two thousand years the world’s religions held the whip hand, wars were fought and people died on the back of warring faiths and hateful despotic leaders. Wars in general are fought for two reasons, gold and religion, both are the power to control others, the power to live in a big house and have people do stuff for you so you can get fat and get sexually gratified by whom ever and what ever you want.
The control of your mortal soul was supremely important and the religious leaders would go to any lengths to keep that power. Religions split and splintered as different factions grabbed as much power as they could. More Christians have been killed by their fellow Christians over the centuries than anyone else. The Muslims are the same, they have different factions and in Iraq and Afghanistan
Over the last century science has gone from strength to strength and now all bets are off when it comes to religious control. Okay science has invented ways to kill millions in a single press of the button, but we at least we don’t go to war because some bloke in Rome
Gods were in place to explain the unexplainable, the need for us to feel we were part of something bigger and better, to reinforce our need to be the centre of the universe and to give us something to look forward to when we die. Science has replaced or dispelled a lot of this and religion is becoming more and more marginalised.
Religion is just the god system that got out of hand crossed with the human desire to get rich and lazy as fast as possible. I admit that sometimes good people got entangled in this mess. They try to do selfless generous things but they are swamped by the mire of complete tripe and rubbish. Also contrary to what they tell you godless people are just as good as anyone else. They are two completely separate concepts and being holy doesn’t make you a nice person. Religion just complicates things. If you believe in a god and an afterlife then treat others as you would want to be treated, look after the weak, help others when you can. Do that and I reckon you should be all right.
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