Religion = Control freaks

Are these two works synonymous; religion and control freak? Well not quite, but they have a lot in common.

Religion has, as an essential part of it a desire to control other people, to force them to "believe as I do". This is not right; it violates the do unto others as I would they do unto me concept. It is wrong to force belief of something on others. It violates human freedom, human equality, and will cause alienation once the concept slave recognizes the situation. It leads to shunning of ancestors, and separation of  families. This is really apparent when the religion is not rational, as most religions. There are a few that are logical, or partly so; Buddhism, Stoicism, Unitarianism - sort of. Stoicism is the most logical that I have encountered yet. Live in accordance with Nature as a place to start, and builds on that, one concept at a time, with reasoned beliefs, values, principals, leading to attitudes and behaviors. At any concept our personal judgement must be relied upon, and it is our choice, our life, and our beliefs that control our development, not some rules of a long dead control freak.

Mohammad was a general and he needed people who would follow into battle without question. He developed a belief system that developed such young war ready minds.  The Jews were of a similar bent. Now we have the middle east conflict, with two stone age religion control freak philosophies at the root and as the root cause of these peoples. They deserve each other. Christianity grew under these conflicts, and was the religion of women and slaves in a mixed group. The Stoics and other logic based belief systems developed in Greek and Roman culture during times of conflict, and became the foundation for secular ethical behavior of today.

In any group, today we know the numbers, over half of a standard deviation of psychopaths and sociopaths in society, many of them who have been very successful in business. It is the "do it, damn the feelings" attitude that allows success without feeling, without conscience, without concern for those they trample. We Canadians are a nation under the control of a bunch of  psychopaths and sociopaths. Most countries are. Oh well, shit happens.

The desire for power over people, the desire for control of the money, is the root of politics today. People without virtue, rigorous honesty, and reason run and ruin countries. It takes a sales job to get elected, first sell to the wealthy to get the money to campaign, then sell a conflicting story to the people to get elected. It is a conflict, cognitive dissonance, from the start. We do not even have a word for the desire for power, for control of people. The desire for money is greed, and some will say it is another form of greed, but it is control freakisum.

But what do I know, being a free thinker?