Thinking...

I went outside into the cool, overcast morning and enjoyed a couple of fags. While I was there I got thinking. Earlier on I read something about religion in the Middle East. My thoughts went like this:

Some centuries ago religion was the law in my country. It would not tolerate anyone who did not conform with its requirements, and those who did not conform were treated with the utmost brutality. Religion is currently the law in the Middle East, and those who do not conform are treated with the utmost brutality. My conclusion is that when religion is the law, those who do not conform are treated brutally.
Political systems can behave in the same manner, when the political ideology is elevated to the point where it becomes the state religion. Nazi Germany (Hitler is quoted as saying that there was only one religion in the Nazi state, and that religion was Christianity), and Soviet Russia (which was an atheist system) both had state ideologies. These ideologies had their rituals, monuments and important buildings, and edicts that were to be complied with in the minutest detail. These systems, too, would not tolerate those who would not conform, and also treated dissent with the utmost brutality.
My conclusion overall is that my innate revulsion at religion is based on historical fact. My conclusion that religion, while it says it preaches good, is actually evil. Wherever religion is in control, there is a Dark Age for mankind. I won't put up with any more of the old flannel from religion's apologists.