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What is religion? Religion is a particular way of thinking and behaving. Everybody sees the world in a particular way, and has particular ideas about what they should or shouldn't do. Thus everybody has a religion of sorts. However a good formal religion gives people guidance which has been tried and tested by others. It is a kind of shortcut to tell them how the world works and what are the most important things to look out for. It saves them time working it all out for themselves. A Religion need not be 'A Faith' A religion may involve a belief in supernatural persons, or a faith that they will be helped by such persons. However it is quite possible to have a religion that is fully rational and compatible with people's own experience of the world. The idea that a religion has to be irrational, or is something that should be detached from normal life is just propaganda There are Godly and Satanic religions. Honest Godly religions tend to bring general happiness whereas Satanic religions bring power to a few at the expense of everybody else. A Good Religion confers Power. The better a person's religion - i.e. the better their religion tells them what is important about the world and what they should do - then the more effective they will be in life. Power in a society will always go to the group that has the most effective religion. We see that a typical 'modern man' believes that religion is outdated and that he has no need for it. Thus we see 'modern man' is quite powerless, and unable to have any influence over the direction his society is going in. According to some opinions the ruling powers of the modern world have a sophisticated religion which promotes amoral technocracy (Atonism). A Religion can be considered a political technology. We can see that a religion is a kind of political technology, analogous to military technology. In the same way that iron weapons are superior to bronze or mechanized tanks are superior to cavalry, so some religions are so vastly superior to others in effectiveness that those who possess them can outmanouvre those they come up against and their victims hardly know what hit them. People today suffer for lack of a good religion. We see today that most people interested in political affairs really have no idea how power is maintained and exercised. They just lack the understanding and the motivation needed to have any influence. They spend years struggling about in the dark supporting this party or that party, this movement or that movement, and none of it makes any difference. However few get to realise that their whole approach to life, their whole religion, is just no good and needs a radical change. This is not entirely their fault as all the time the Atonists are seeking to prevent them from developing and adopting the kind of religion they would need to challenge them. Sometimes they do this by making religion (i.e. overt formal religion) seem something that people should avoid. Other times they develop and propagate 'spiked' forms of religion. (i.e. religion tailored to suit the purposes of the Atonists) However the task of intellectuals of good will is to work against this trend and develop an honestly Good religion - a religion that helps people understand the world they live in and know what they should do to make it a better place. 4005, amended 4008 |
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