Religion: simplifying the complex, complicating the simple

Today I realised how two completelly opposite techniques can be used together to manipulate people in a really consistent way. That’s what the Catholic Church (and religions in general) do: they make complex issues look simple, but they digress for ages about really simple stuff – overall turning the reality upside-down.

Today I read about a Polish catholic priest, who equates pedophilia with homosexuality and premartial sex, because it all stems from breaking the sixth commandment. Wow. Just wow.

Setting aside the fact that “the sixth commandment” only talks not about cheating on your wife/husband, and not, how the Church likes to interpret it: any sex-related stuff they don’t like you to do, like masturbation or porn... Setting that aside, and assuming that the commandment is indeed about any sex-related activity that doesn’t involve your lawfully wedded spouse, also if you don’t have any... You can’t possibly defend the claim, that all of those acts are morally equivalent. It’s a complex moral issue, not a black-and-white no-brainer.

And how about the origin of the universe or the origin of species? There is a complex explanation of how it all happened (complex and hard to find out, but also relatively easy to understand by common people). What does religion say about that? “God simply is, always was”. Really that’s it? And how did all the other things come to be? “God said so, and they appeared”. Oh, give me a break!

On the other hand, there’s teology – a master of spending decades on debating how many devils can fit on a pin.

The reality is simple: there’s not god. It’s a made up story. Enter a theologian: “But is it one god, three gods, or one god in three persons?”. Dude, you’re missing the point! You’re overcomplicating an issue that’s not an issue. “OK, but what is the exact relatioship between those three persons?”.

Man, chill. There’s no such thing. “OK, I hear you, but let’s think about how when a priest consecrates a host, is it literally or figuratively becoming the body of Christ?”. It’s simple. We can, and we have checked that. We’ve put the wafer under a microscope, did all the tests necessary on it, and we’ve concluded that not a single thing about it has changed during the “transformation”. It’s the same as when a child hands you a fist full of thin air, claiming it’s a cake – you pretend to eat it and you say it’s yummy, but it’s obvious to you that it’s not a fucking cake. “So you’re saying we should have a schism between those who think it’s literal and those who don’t?”.

It’s all so shamelessly made up...

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About the author

Hi! I'm Andrea (they/them). I tell computers what to do, both for a living and for fun, I'm also into blogging, writing and photography. I'm trying to make the world just a little bit better: more inclusive, more rational and more just.