it is very sinister, but I don’t actually believe someone sat down and invented the whole thing from the beginning, although I do think priests and clerics have deliberately lied in the past to invent dogma and avoid facts. I also believe that the leaders of religious cults like Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses etc, are sinister and intentionally lie to their members.

But I don’t think religion initially started out as a controlling tool, although it did turn into that. I believe religion has gone through a process of natural selection, and perhaps it just happens to be those religions that make humans ashamed of themselves, fearful, and intolerant, that are the most successful.

Whether intentionally devised or gradually evolved, the doctrine of Original Sin is still a perverse and injust lie.

(That the big 3 religions are based on the same primitive barbaric text doesn’t help either.)

My upbringing tells me that there is no intent to deceive behind the formation of religion, that it was a natural extension of man’s inherent inquisitiveness, and that it was really serendipity that it took the form it did.

But, damn, E., when you put it that way, it sure looks sinister, as if someone in the beginning gave it a lot of thought and attention, in an effort to pull together an airtight scam.