For many people in America, Sundays means going to church. They do so as almost second nature, for these people have been doing it since they were children. Unfortunately, many of these believers in the Christian faith will never stop look around and question the very ideals that they try so hard to shape their lives around. They don’t ever believe their faith could be a business scheme, that it may be a plague by nature, for some reason their religion could be prescribed for them, how it can create minorities, or how it can right any wrong. But the one thought that will never cross these good Christian followers is that, religion is one of man’s worst mistakes, because it is deceptive and excluding.

Originally, people sacrificed things to appease the gods. This was back when religion was used as a science of how and why things happened, using gods and myths to create logical reasons at the time. But as the monotheistic religions became more and more widely practiced, people started to have to pay to go pray in church. As a little boy, I remember temple officials outside collecting people’s temple fees, during the Jewish high holidays when most people go to pray. Back in the Renaissance, the catholic monasteries were paid entirely by the communities. In some Christian faiths, when people commit a sin they will go to and confess as well as pay the church to make up for what they have done. And even to the extent of giving gifts to the church will result in a special place in heaven. Some churches gained so much power that at a point in the middle Ages, if kings wanted to wage warfare they had to consult the Pope for fear of excommunication. The Catholic Church were the largest landowners in Europe at the time. And currently, the church still bring in 500,000 thousand euro. They gained this power and control, by manipulating and planting seeds in all of the major governments and corporations.
In the United States of America’s government, there is separation of church and state, meaning that religion and politics are not allowed to mix. Even so, religion has still influenced our government creating two different political ideologies: conservatism and liberalism. Conservatives believe in applying morals and practices coming from the Bible; While liberals believe in the people having the freedom to do what they want. This problem is as old as the American government; the politicians are promised religious freedoms like everyone else but, they can’t apply them in their work. The liberals argue that how can practices originated over 2,000 years ago still have the same meaning today. As long as there is a religion, this will most likely remain a problem for politics. In countries like have the ability to corrupt any corporation or government. With these religions expressing their ideals through their sheer influence, we have problems in the democratic nations like: abortion, gay marriage, and religious prejudice. A major way that religions can use this influence is to make government officials to shun ideas that conflict the ideals of their religion.

Throughout the Middle and Renaissance ages, the Catholic Church was at the extent of its power, and had probably more control over a select people than any other religion before, in Europe. With this absolute power, they could control the ideas emerging. Famous scientists from this time were Copernicus, Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Isaac Newton. Many of these men were true renaissance men; they were talented at multiple things. Galileo, was a remarkable astronomer credited with the discovery of the first telescope. He has been dubbed the father of modern science but, Galileo was also a man of the church. Galileo was charged with heresy after releasing his masterpiece, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”. He was first sentenced to jail but because of his connections to the church, his punishment was lowered to house arrest. The church didn’t approve Galileo’s book because it gave evidence that the sun was center of the universe, instead of the Earth. Throughout the Catholic churches control over Europe, the Renaissance, many discoveries were made. The scary part is that there may have been discoveries that were not made, and might affect us today. Why? The church had absolute power over the governments, the currency, and the people. This made it very difficult to lash out against the church with revolutionary ideas. But when someone like Galileo gave a compelling argument that the Earth was not the center of the universe. A statement of this magnitude might have made people believe that if we are not in the center then maybe God does not love of us. To stop this from ever happening they made examples, like executing Dominican Giardano Bruno. This man believed in the same ideals as the Catholic Church but, he had different believes regarding the nature of God and the holy trinity. The church successfully stopped scientists from making discoveries, by turning them into minorities who were hated by the people.

Religion has nothing to do with race. When someone discriminates another person for being Jewish, they are being anti-Semitic and not racist. Though as history will show us that if the powers at be, are trying to create a minority they will use religion to do so. Being Jewish myself, I have felt the cold bite of discrimination. It has gotten to the point in my life that I no longer identify myself with the religion, because it is easier to fit in and I don’t really believe in any religious view. I like most others in the world, like to have a sense of being normal and belonging. This is how turning it works, you make the thing you are trying to get rid of so not enjoyable that even its believers like scientists or Jews won’t believe in it themselves. This use of an exotic religion is your homeland is as old as religion, and is still being done today. In the Middle East, Sunnis and Shiites religiously discriminate and fight with each other. Smaller religions can easily be targeted by larger religions, because most religions only apply to select groups.

In world, there are two classifications of religions Universalizing and Ethnic. Universalizing can apply to anyone around the world, while ethnic to only people from where the religion is created. Okay now think about your typical Christian family, got a mental picture? I’m going to guess that you’re seeing an average white family, probably American. Whether I’m right or wrong about your Christian family, religions for the most part apply to select people. As you have probably seen by now, and what you are probably thinking is that I’m hellbent on tearing the Christianity to pieces. That as an angry Jew, I’m trying to take my aggression out on the church by convincing people not to follow the religions. This is not true. I am using many examples from the Christian faith, but not for revenge. Largely because, from being born and raised in America I have been mainly exposed to the Christian faith. Whether we like it or not, who we are racially affects who we are spiritually. As in how many white Hindu’s have you ever seen, the answer is most likely zero. Some of you are probably thinking that just because we haven’t seen any doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If you are thinking this, you are probably correct. Though it’s not the point, the fact that there are not many white Hindu’s just shows that religions universalizing or not apply only to the people whom they are situated for. Doing so to create as many believers as possible. This process makes the religion easier to create, because the issues that these people face can be written into the religion to have spiritual guidance for these select problems. The reason there was a Holocaust was because, the Nazi’s were able to create minorities. Hitler was able to use religion, handicaps, and some ethnicities to isolate people. Once he could create a negative image of these people, the majority of Germans followed his wishes. After rejected by the people, their only saviors, the created minorities would be pariahs and could easily be shipped off and exterminated. One Holocaust survivor said “After a while of being treated like an animal, you start to believe it.” The Nazi’s were able to do so because their misleading images attracted the common people.

Modern day religions are in a way used the same as governments. Most people only go to them in need or on select days, and they over order whether it is helping to run are daily lives or are spiritual lives. Being as is, all religions main purpose is to offer spiritual guidance. This being so, we have to trust the people giving out said guidance or else we’ll never take it to heart. The same is true with our government, we’re not going to truly follow it if we don’t respect the people in control of it. Being so, what happens if some of the people offering this spiritual help shouldn’t be trusted? What if a priest is a child molester, or an Imam is preaching fundamentalism? We all know that both things have happened or are happening now. If the teacher cannot follow his own teachings, how can the student ever be expected to do learn them? The qualities of men have bled through the virtues of these religions, because the religions preaching are only as noble as its leaders and prophets. The guidance is only as good as the person giving it to you. Even though there are probably not as many cases of bad priests and imams as there are good, how can people ever be expected to have the same trust in their leaders and guides? The most disgusting part about this is that many of these men can get away with there crimes, because religions give them the jurisdiction to do it.

Have you ever seen what man is truly capable of? When all moral obligations are taken away, and when people truly believe they have the power that whatever they do is truly right? Words can not describe what we are truly capable of because it is so atrocious, so repulsive, so appalling, it is just depressing to think of. It makes you wander how we ever became somewhat civilized. The worst part of all this is that what our fellow men did was in the name of an all merciful and just being, God. We know these events as the Holocaust, and the attacks on September 11, 2001. I’m not going to discuss what happened on this day and over those years. To this day I’m still deeply sickened when I think about the innocence that was robbed, the people who wronged, and the irreversible damage that was done. We must forgive but never forget. The part that utterly shocks and enrages me, is that how someone can dare claim that God would ever honestly reward such evil is enraging to me. The terrorists on the plane and ever single suicide bomber has been told that if they kill themselves for Allah, that they will go to the equal of heaven and live for eternity in riches and happiness. People believe this because religion gives people the power to right everyone of their wrongs. They can say that God told them to do such an act. If it is a divine interpretation. What God, who is the creator of us all, would ever inspire actions like these?

Religion has turned basically into makeup. Giving someone who is unappealing or not that attractive a touchup, so that they are perceived as beautiful. In reality, makeup obscures and deforms inner beauty. Makeup’s purpose is evil, to trick people so that they are attracted to a false image. But like religion it’s used by the majority of people who have access to it, never thinking about what they are doing. This is the saddening truth, of how religion, once a guiding force in everyone’s lives, is now as twisted and corrupted as those whom created it.