Here is a quote from a great thinker:
This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other. They say in a single breath: “God and the liberty of man,” “God and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity of men” — regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if God exists, all these things are condemned to non-existence. For, if God is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. In vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, do they represent their God as animated by the tenderest love of human liberty: a master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire to show himself, remains none the less always a master. His existence necessarily implies the slavery of all that is beneath him. Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty — by ceasing to exist.
from the book God and the State by Mikhail Bakunin
What many people fail to realise is that we are not free. We have been fighting over the ages to become free but all we have accomplished so far is to replace our masters with other ones who claim to be better than the previous masters. In Democracy, we have the illusion of freedom because we have the right to elect our masters. We have a choice. But, does it really matter the manner by which people become masters? Does it matter if they are elected or they force themselves into a position of power? It does matter. However, the result is the same: we still have masters. Under a democratic system there is some level of control over the choice of those who govern and impose their will to the population but this choice can be greatly influenced by the media and other factors with special interests which support a specific candidate, often presenting fake information to change the minds of the people. The best example was the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., the worst possible person to lead a modern and advanced nation which is still tormented by humankind’s old sicknesses of racism and violence. Was he really the best person among so many to govern this country, a choice based on the rational and critical thinking of the majority of the population, the result of a celebrated and admired democratic process?
In work, we also have masters with the important difference that these people we cannot change even if they fail to do their job properly. I have always been amazed by the fact that we are glorifying the attributes of democracy as a system that ensures the freedom and well being of the people but this idea does not seem to penetrate the working environment which operates on the principles of an army: a strict hierarchy with a non-democratic selection of the people and the positions they hold, supposedly based on their abilities. We are told that we are free because if we do not like a working environment we have the choice to move to another one. And that means that we have a choice to choose our master. Is that real freedom?
Where is human freedom in today’s supposedly advanced society? It simply does not exist but we have been conditioned since birth to believe the illusion of freedom so that we do not complain about it. The best we can hope is the ability to choose our masters and that is all we can do.
From history, it is evident that the true purpose of organised religions was to train people to be subservient, to respect and fear authority. To make people behave like slaves of a celestial dictator represented by a privileged elite of priests. This form of conditioning is used even today by most of the world religions. The believers are taught to fear God and by natural extension his representatives on Earth, the Royalty and the Priesthood. The Royalty represents God’s secular state power while the Priesthood represents God’s spiritual power. This type of conditioning is designed to ensure that everyone respects the State and the Church and they never turn against them.
The God of the Abrahamic religions wants to be praised for the great things he has done for humanity, e.g. the killing of innocent children of a particular race, the flooding and destruction of humanity when he wants to do a restart and many other similarly noble actions. Since he is considered to be a personal God, one who interacts with human beings, he observes the actions of all people on a daily basis so that when they die he can judge them. He expects people to love, honour, praise, pray to and follow his wishes and commands even if they sound absurd. This God is therefore the supreme master of humanity, our whole universe and multiverse. He is the ultimate dictator because he wants people to think and behave in a specific manner with the fear of eternal punishment. What is his difference with human dictators? In a country like North Korea, if you are unlucky enough to be born there, there is one simple way to escape from this brutal dictatorship: you can die. But with the God of the Abrahamic religions even death is not a solution. There is no way to escape from this kind of dictatorship and therefore there is no hope. You simply have to obey and follow the commands of the master. And you’d better mean it because he knows if you really mean what you say or you only pretend to.
Under a celestial master, we humans are like the toy soldiers of a child who makes them fight with each other for his childish pleasure. The way a child is a complete and undisputed master of his toy-world, the same is God to our world. When such a powerful entity exists in our minds we are conditioned to be subservient to authority, to be for ever slaves. Even if God does not exist, what matters is what is inside our minds and not what is real or not. The relationship between a master and a slave is one based on fear and intimidation. The slave is afraid of the power of the master, and this is what makes him a master in the first place. But at the same time, the master is afraid that one day the slave will see through the veil of conditioning he has been subjected to since birth and rebel against the master. And the master knows very well that a rebellion must be crashed as soon as it happens without mercy and before it spreads like wildfire.
In the old days, when a King wanted to have more power, prestige and resources he sent his army to other lands to conquer. The soldiers had no choice other than to fight for King and Country. Being conditioned to respect and obey authority, they did as they were told. Today, if a group of rich and powerful men want their businesses to expand and make more money for themselves they exercise pressure or bribe a few politicians who can then influence or become the government. They invade a country using some excuse and they steal its wealth and resources while forcing the people to work for very low wages in order to survive. They use their power to ensure that a country they target cannot grow and take advantage of its own resources for the benefit of its people so that they can have cheap labour to build their products which they then sell at high prices in the economically rich parts of the world generating great profits. This is called globalisation. And who is going to fight this war for profits? The soldiers who are conditioned to obey orders under the illusion that they fight to protect their country when in fact their role is to protect the interests of a few and extend their profits. No surprise that most of these professional soldiers are also deeply religious because being subservient to an authority figure is part of their conditioning.
So, indoctrinating people to religious beliefs makes them obedient to all kinds of masters. And this is the problem of Liberty under the presence of a God. God is the ultimate master. His existence, even if this is purely an illusion implanted in the brain of a person, means that Man is a slave and Liberty is an illusion created by the masters of this world in order to keep the slaves quiet and obedient. The first step towards true freedom is for Man to finally grow up from his childhood and ignorance so that he gets rid of all ideas that imprison him to the service of a few.
Prometheus Unbound 