(Epistemic Status: An argument which should be made. I don’t believe everything I say. Stepping into the paradigm)
Religions represent evil, not good. We worship the beast. The greatest deception and the triumph of hell on earth.
The story goes like this. There is good and evil. God is good. He/it/they/we speak to what is best in us. They speak to who we should be, who we want to be. They ask for sacrifice and rejecting our worst drives. Even when doing so leads to suffering and pain. Even when standing against evil is thankless. Even when we’re the lone voice in the darkness, screaming against the injustice of the world as we’re drowned by the mob. On the other side lies evil. It tempts us. Hate. Lie. Steal. Do it and you’ll be rich and strong and loved. Being good will only cost you. It’s the voice in the back of your head that you never hear but that constantly whispers to you. Live and breed and spread.
Every Abrahamic religion traces this story. There is light and dark. Each calls to a part of our soul. Goodness carries a greater cost and evil is the shortcut to material success. Goodness is just. Evil is everything else. The struggle between the god and the adversary mirrors this struggle. God only offers salvation for our souls. The beast is master of the physical world.
The problem with our faiths is that we assume our god is the force of good in the universe. That the unseen, unheard adversary is the force for evil. Yet the Abrehamic god is evil, absolutely and irredeemably. Others have written about this. The actions of the abrahamic god are not just. They are savage and it’s not the savagery of a warrior or of righteous anger, it’s the savagery of an abusive parent who torments and dominates their own family. A god who kills those who refuse to obey is evil. A force which levels whole cities because some of their people have sinned is evil. The god of the bible is an abusive patriarch and like any abuser, no amount of obedience is enough. The beast is never sated. It demands and rewards obedience and punishes disobedience. It’s cause is not justice but power and dominance over others.
Whatever the being is, it’s followers burnt alive those who stood against them. They spread across Europe and the east and everywhere the pattern is the same. Where before people worshiped the gods of little things, they are forced into the new orthodoxy. Their cultures are destroyed. Their old temples torn down. Their sacred sites defiled and burned. What ISIS does today, Christianity, Islam and Judaism did for a thousand years. The physical institutions of our religions were built in no small part on cultural genocide. Fast forward to the middle ages and all are believers. Every institution of force is controlled by the abrahamic sect. To stand against it is madness. To say that a man who died on a cross is not a god is to be killed. To say that a warlord is not a good man is to be put to the sword.
The conclusion is obvious. We worship the beast. As our deep stories tell us, evil is fundamentally master of the physical universe. It’s no surprise that the great deceiver holds the majority of humanity in his sway, that our institutions of faith praise the usurper. That to speak out against the beast carries heavy costs. It would be too easy otherwise. To be righteous must be it’s own reward. If our world is a simulation trying to find agents which are moral, there can be no reward for faith or morality. True faith can only become known in the face of overwhelming opposition. Only in a world of utter darkness are the faithful revealed.
Deuteronomy 13:6-11 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
Chronicles 15:13 “But that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.”
Quran 4:89: “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah (to Muhammad). But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them.”
The beast is always the same. Kneel or die.
Dissent 