Religion: Government Tools to Control the People or Not?

Couldn't help noticing that.

Anyways, I can see how a government can use religion to manipulate people, like in the U.S., if you don't believe in the bible, you don't get elected, but I don't really see where the government uses religion to control the poor. Would you elaborate on that?

I think that's very reductionist. Religion can to some degree (and is) be used to exert control over people, because it provides a very rigid and static set of rules.
However, religion is much more than that; it is also a social and psychological catalyst.
I don't respect the bible, but I think you ought to give religions (Christianity is not the only religion, people!) more credit than Marxism does.

Roman catholic instutes as been controling Quebeckers for over 300 years and not in a subtule way. Not for nothing that all the quebec swears are based of religion (caliss, criss, tabernacle...). Absolutly every organisation (school, hospital, banks, gouvernement...) had one to severals religious men/women looking after them, particulary the schools, were children were mostly brainwashed.

Quebeckers were somewhat a slave people :(

What about people who believe in the Sruti or the Qur'an or the Tanakh or any other religious texts? What only Christians are right?

On topic sure religion was born as a way to control the people since the beginning of religion it was used to make people follow rules. It's a great way to control people say your "soul" will rot in everlasting torment if you don't follow the law. Religion is a great way to teach morals, but religion has a dark side to it's used to fuel shit head agendas. It's not the religions fault though it's the Shitheads that control it.(I'm not calling all religious leaders shitheads only the ones who are shitheads).

If you really care about what it says, then edit the OP to say this:
"while I have concluded that religion is false, I still respect those who are religious."
In that case, no one should bitch.

I agree it hurts to say with rbz I just named the ones on the top of my head and man this thread seems off topic.

The argument that religion is used to control the masses is a pretty well know and tired one, but by governments? Governments don't create the religions. Christianity and Judaism were persecuted by various governments for being too revolutionary. The current Chinese totalitarian state is very anti-religious because they fear religion will strengthen ideas about human right and human dignity that make the government's past actions seem even more appalling.

Governments have in the past forced everyone to be the same religion in order to encourage national unity, or have appointed themselves to important religious positions in attempts to control people, but saying that religion was solely created and used by governments to control the minds of their sheeple blatantly ignores large portions of history. Certainly it can sometimes be hijacked by governments and used in that manner, but religion has also inspired much hope and altruism throughout history, so it's a mixed bag.

All of these are true statements. But the opening post holds some truths. Religion was created for non-political reasons (to answer the questions of life before science was able to answer everything), but you can't deny the fact that at times, religion was used to control the multitude and it did involve the government.

For example, Christianity was very prominent during the Dark Ages in Europe and was pretty much the government. The kings or emperors couldn't rise to power without the blessing of the church. If they didn't, they would be excommunicated and their lives were made hell. We also know of the famous Crusades which caused pointless deaths of many. Even before that, Judaism was used to govern people's thoughts through religion which gave more power to the government because of blind fanaticism.

I would be more worried about patriotism as a form of control.

How many fucking religion threads need to be going on at any given point?

This made me laugh.