Quote:
Originally posted by Kitsune
Why do so many religions have the "you shall dislike, with hate, X group of people"?
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Because organized religion differs from personal religious belief in one significant way -- one of its primary goals is to obtain and wield POWER. That's power as in influencing society through strength of numbers, through suppressing opposed groups (religious or otherwise) through various methods, and through maintaining a healthy level of zeal among its followers and receiving a correspondingly high level of donations and devotion to the church's goals.
It's so much easier to control people when you can present them with scapegoats and easy targets as to what's wrong with the world.