Everything can be potentially used as a tool against the masses, including family ties, friendship, food and other undoubtedly good things. Religion may be on occasion a tool against the masses, but it is also a huge bulwark against evil, which is precisely why successive tyrannical governments have always tried to kill it (and are now trying in the West today).
There is some truth in what you say but, for example, I will never see the Catholic Church or prosperity evangelism as part of that truth. And the problem with Islam is that there's little integration into mixed community.
Happy Christmas Mike, by the way! Thank you for writing this - not everyone bothers with the turkey stuffing and present unwrapping malarkey and I for one am glad of the news.
Everything can be potentially used as a tool against the masses, including family ties, friendship, food and other undoubtedly good things. Religion may be on occasion a tool against the masses, but it is also a huge bulwark against evil, which is precisely why successive tyrannical governments have always tried to kill it (and are now trying in the West today).
There is some truth in what you say but, for example, I will never see the Catholic Church or prosperity evangelism as part of that truth. And the problem with Islam is that there's little integration into mixed community.
Happy Christmas Mike, by the way! Thank you for writing this - not everyone bothers with the turkey stuffing and present unwrapping malarkey and I for one am glad of the news.
I'm sure that some go straight for the vodka :)