From Greek αἵρεσις Meaning “Able To Choose”
Many great points, all explored ad nauseum by agnostics or atheists and all refuted ad infinitum by fundamentalists… though I hold no love for the clergy, I am far more concerned with the driving forces behind religion.
Yes, it is concerning that there are people willing to step in and guide their fellow man into deception and subservience, but their methods are merely deviations on the tactics of thieves, slave-catchers, and pimps which likely existed prior to the advent of clergy or a religious caste; clergy have generally eschewed physical violence toward their congregations in favor of inciting violence against the other (be they Muslim, Native American, heretic, et cetera).
It is the motive and construct (the universality and persistence of religious belief and order) which particularly concerns me and provides a basis for belief in The Operator as a thanatotic or entropic force which exists at the core of the human psyche.
Religious orders exist which do not materially reward their clergy in the ways that Catholicism, Scientology, and televangelism do – why do these orders persist?
The mechanism operates itself, as if by unseen hands.
