Can you believe that the Koran & the Bible still have so much power?

[mopaul]

can you believe here in the 21st goddamned century that we are still fighting over these ancient tomes? can you believe that these accursed books still wield so much power over men, and have brought us no heaven on earth or wisdom or enlightenment?

ancient books written by ancient people from thousands of years ago, that have nothing whatsoever to do with modern contemporary life. can you believe it?

we should give up these silly old books, they have no supernatural powers and they are not guidebooks for modern man. we should write some new ones, that have to do with NOW, not thousands of years ago.

[Cerridwen]

1. My theory - well, actually, Marx's "theory"

It is not so much that religion, as expressed in these texts, has so much power, it is that "the masses" have so little power. The more people are oppressed and rendered powerless, the more they turn to something, anything which gives them "power," no matter how illusory may be that power. For some it is religion, some it is science, some it is "opium" (or a modern day derivative of), or politics, or, ... or ...

See Marx's quote below - part of which, is familiar to us, and always taken out of context.


"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/texts/Marx_Opium.html