Religion has always been a vital and central part of socialization and upbringing as well as existential alignment of the individual, regardless of the kind or which religion the social group has been following. The sum of the social life of this social group is coloured and shaped by the basic principles and basic messages determined by religion. It is therefore necessary to analyze the effect and impact of religion primarily and Christianity secondarily (as a key religion of the western type society) in society before we move on to the analysis of the general policy of Globalization and how it attempts to use the concept of religion in its own framework and towards manipulating the People.
It is therefore important and necessary to define religion and its comprising parts, primarily regardless of what religion it is:
Religion is the general term used to describe the field including the creed (i.e. the dogma), the sacerdocy matching it, the protocol and sum of anniversaries/ celebrations included.
The creed is what is often in the spoken word falsely we refer to by ‘religion’, with repercussions we will analyze below and which are highly undermining especially for the individual and often for the creed as well.
The creed is the dogma: i.e. the sum of the points demanding faith from the believers (hence they are called believers, the faithful) as well as the sum of the points determining the way of life and thought the believer must follow. The creed is the heart of every religion and that which differentiates it from all others. It is the answer every religion gives to the existential questions of Humans as well as the meaning it determines each Human’s life must have so it will be considered a successful existence and be different than the unsuccessful ones.
For example, in one of the versions of the ancient Greek religion (which maybe we could argue it is erroneously considered as one, but should be at least be considered modular) the creed dictated virtuous life, which was defines as life with faith in a group of ideals (for men to be good fighters and loyal to the ideals of glorious and honourable war and for women to manage to raise such men) which should be followed so that the follower would acquire the grace of the gods. Depending of the success of the follower, this translated into simple posthumous fame and a place in the Elysian Fields to an invitation of the follower to immortality in the form of a constellation. But that is not the sum of the particular version of the ancient Greek religion. To see all of the ancient Greek religion we would have to look at its priesthood and the sum of their protocol and official anniversaries.
The sacerdocy is the sum of the people possessing a religious office: they are the ones considered to be both representatives of god/gods towards the faithful and representatives of the people/ faithful towards the god/gods. The sacerdocy is in essence the reason why in general the participation of the faithful in the religion is mostly passive. They are considered (uniformally regardless of religion/ creed) as the penultimate specialists and only ones entitles to communicate with the god/gods and know the wishes of the god/ gods, as well as the only ones able to mediate for or against a person or group towards the god/gods.
Historically and up to now in all the religions the sacerdocy is characterised by an active attempt (almost always successful) to manipulate the sum of the faithful and distort/ twist the creed so that via the excuse of worship towards the god/gods they will be the ones worshipped in the place of the god/gods. It is also characterised by continuous application of psychological violence and blackmail which is completely different than the guidance and discipline it ought to have offered in the following points:
1. guidance and discipline are means to educate with emancipation as a goal, not subjugation and the inspiration of fear in the ones being educated.
2. psychological violence and blackmail are a means to blackmail which does not allow for any learning besides that, to momentarily assuage the fear inspired one must satisfy the assorted demands without checking whether there is logic or a reason why these demands must be satisfied (if they must).
3. guidance and discipline inspires enthusiasm and love, develops critical thinking and inspires the need for further learning.
4. psychological violence and blackmail inspires hatred and distancing which leads to fanaticism, led thinking and lack of actual logic coherence and capacity to argue. Also, every tendency to learn is smothered and knowledge is forbidden to be acquired by non-holders of a particular religious office and up.
In essence what Marx described as the opium of the People was erroneously defined as religion in general and correctly characterised as opium: it is the part of religion which is called the sacerdocy and which in the above manner of psychological violence and blackmail, which we will analyze in more detail, is such because it kills the capacity of free thought and awareness as well as the true effect of the creed upon society, whichever that may be.
Proof that the sacerdocy is that which at this moment and since forever has been what we falsely perceive at this time as religion is that regardless of the creed, the basic structure and form of society is the same across societies, from Hindu to Christian. Surface differences are not enough (i.e., manner of dress and folklore) to differentiate these societies following faithfully the pyramid structure of layering, with the sacerdocy always at the top and always important to state affairs, even if claiming the opposite.
Means to imposition and manipulation so that the sacerdocy is established as described are the protocol and manner of celebrating the religious anniversaries as well as the nature of these anniversaries. Particularly, in every mass of every religion there is a ‘show’, a protocol which, exactly as it is done in the royal/ imperial courts, must be followed or the protocol-breaker suffers a range of repercussions (from social decry of different levels to official repercussions such as disbanding from the group of the faithful officially by the priests, e.g. excommunication).
The standing on ceremony and protocol are designed in a way which raises the ministrant to the position of the lord and leader, the one who is primary and the only one able, since he stands at least one level above the congregation, to communicate with the god/gods. Also the design is such that the congregation/flock of the faithful declares submission and inferiority in relation to the ministrant in every opportunity (e.g. kissing hands, kneeling before the ministrant, respect/ headbending to robes and utensils even when the ministrant is not usingthem). Communication of the faithful with the god/gods is not possible, or if it is it is not as ‘strong’ as when the ministrant is mediating or it takes place in the official area of worship.
Also, we must say that with very few exceptions (usually idolatrous religions), this protocol does not exist in the scripture where the creed is described or, if it does exist, it is described in a manner including an active participation of the faithful and/or control of the ministrant before the god/gods. Almost never is there a description in scriptures that the god/gods do not listen to isolated prayer or other summons of non-ministrants or that they pay less attention or respond less to them (i.e., it is never mentioned that the mystery / mass is not going to take place if the one calling upon the god/gods is not of the clergy).
The sum of the religious celebrations, though it seems to the faithful and those of different faiths as irrevocably bonded to religion as much as the creed is, is in essence a creation of the sacerdocy of a specific era or eras serving or having served specific socio-political needs irrelevant to the creed.
The celebrations reflect much more the need of Humans to herald certain points in time ( midwinter, midsummer, harvest) as well as specific points in the history of each religion serving this religion and mostly its sacerdocy.
Today our topic revolves around the extremely important celebration of Easter of the Christians, so we will use the Christian religion to give an example to the above fact of the sum of the religious celebrations:
If one reads the New Testament, he/she will see in “Acts of the Apostles” that primarily, in the period when there was no organized sacerdocy, the creed was the one that had the central role in Christian religion and actually one basic idea: that of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this first period, everything revolves around Jesus’ teaching and the fact that He Rose. No focus is given to His crucifixion except as a point of shame and a stage/ eve of the Resurrection alone.
That had a huge impact in the fathful since it was basically hope-bringing and a powerful message of God’s supremacy over all aspects of creation, giving to daily living the impression of a school class from which we are going to graduate to true adult life. Thus, the first Christian was (contrary to what is projected) a strong and aware social rebel, completely fearless and completely positive, and therefore without any capacity to be fanatized and thus manipulated by third parties.
With the passage of centuries and in particular the coming of the Byzantium and Constantine the Great this changed drastically: from guides needing to constantly display their attunement with the creed so they could be trusted, ministrants turned into arbitrary religious lords with a protocol that never existed but was established and made to look like older and mostly idolatrous religions. Also, the anniversaries and festivals changed from constantly commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus to reminding of the Crucifixion to the point that it is what comes to mind by association when the name “Jesus Christ” is mentioned, instead of having the Resurrection come to mind. This was sought after so actively that even in the depictions of the Christ where He is not crucified, there is the cross in the halo around His head, even as an infant. (most often in Byzantine icons)
The difference is massive because while in the first period Christ is, in the awareness of the faithful, the living victor of death, in the current period He is the victim that was consumed and is not present. The reference to the Resurrection is not enough in the way it is done since officially it happens for half a day of the entire year and inofficially for forty days, while the image of the Crucifix is part of daily living for the Christians. The image of the Resurrection is very rare and often non-existent. So, from childhood when humans learn more easily the tangible and concrete lessons, the faithful learn that the Christ was crucified, end of story.
In essence the faithful are pushed to believe either in a wild and cruel Father-God without love who allowed His son to die, or to a dead God. Therefore, what the Christian learns at this time is to be desperate and that what he/she has to look forward to is a sea of sorrow without any triumph counter-balancing these sorrows. That is to say, he/she is being trained to be actually a professional masochist and a victim. Many children being raised Christian know that if they sin “God will strike them down”, that “Christ was crucified” and that there is the Resurrection on Good Saturday, but they do not know what the Resurrection means or that it is at all relevant with their reality or with Christ.
Also, they are aware that Christ is God’s Lamb and that at the night of the Resurrections (i.e. the Resurrection of the Lamb) we butcher and eat the entrails of a lamb (in mageiritsa, the traditional dish, fried liver, roast entrails/ kokoretsi, etc) we will roast on a spit next day, in Easter, with singing and dancing. These associations which we are now listing are made subconsciously and are the source of psychological pain and aversion to the Christian creed, which, of course, never gave out these rules of celebrating and time allocation to anniversaries.
A classic example of the twisting of the scriptures by the clergy exactly as we described regarding all religions is the scene of Holy Communion during the Last Supper where, while giving our bread and wine Christ calls the twelve apostles to “eat and drink from His Body and Blood” which is applied at face value during the Mystery of Holy Communion in Mass, when it is said that the Holy Spirit turns the wine and bread in Blood and Body.
If we read the entire teaching of Jesus Christ as it is given through the scriptures we will see that the verbs “eat and drink” are used by Jesus metaphorically to refer to the acquisition of knowledge and the answering of questions. It is typical that often when His pupils falsely believed he was referring to real food He corrected them saying he was referring to the food of the soul (in the case of His discussion with the Samaritan woman as well as when he spoke regarding the need of man to live with more than bread: “man cannot leave on bread alone”). Of course that is not taught by the priests except schematically and in archaic language without applications to everyday life, exactly as the Resurrection.
Therefore while we have a full enactment of the Crucifixion and the Deposition and the Epitaph we have a simple reference to the Resurrection without visual aids where we would need to see the Christ standing and alive as a cut-out exactly as we saw him Crucified and Interred via cut-outs. Instead of that, there is a small and hard to discern because of the flowers round icon in the middle of a big banner. Also, the liturgy of the Resurrection actually lasts for just 15-30 minutes for most people (although officially it is around three hours) and it begins at midnight while all the liturgies around the torture, the crucifixion and the death/interment take place in the afternoon hours, easy for both children and adults to attend, unlike in the case of the Resurrection.
That is a basic but not singular example of the abuse that has been done to the Christian creed by the sacerdocy and has turned the Christian religion into something that doesn’t match the creed. In this manner analogous abuse has taken place in all other creeds of the matching religions, resulting in having all religions uniformally produce fanatic, desperate and/or frightened, passive believers and angry, enraged and frightened ‘atheists’.
Having the same exact impact in religious life as there is in social/ political one we analyzed last time, the derailment of Humans is coordinated, preparing them for the policy demanded by Globalization which is the goal not of the current society but of the ‘modern society’ as it is defined sociologically: that is, society as it was shaped since at least the medieval age if not, as we can successfully argue, since Roman times.