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1:13

(In »Everything is religion«)

In connection with this, one might argue – and indeed not without reason –that with the passing of time, religion turns into the story that those in power tell to the people in order to legitimise the prevailing order and thereby also, conveniently enough, their own privileges. Those in power promise abundant rewards in the afterlife to obedient subjects who pay taxes and without complaint accept their subservient places in this life on this Earth. In this way, the emperor gets his way without fuss and in practice at really no cost at all. In this way, religion becomes both the opiate that keeps the people asleep and the pretext with which one commandeers people into war whenever it benefits the interests of those in power. Whoever succeeds in usurping the office of God’s spokesperson here on Earth need not risk being contradicted to any greater extent, at least not within his or her own faith community. And what the others – the infidels – have to say by definition is of little or no value at all. For it is with them that one makes war, it is them one hounds from places that one considers sacred, it is them one plunders and torments the life out of with God’s clear blessing. That the infidels believe in the wrong god conveniently enough makes it possible to strip them of all humanity.