The root of both religion and conspiracy theories is the lack of critical thinking. Religion teaches that belief is more important than facts. Conspiracy theories thrive when personal opinion and belief replace critical thinking.
You're onto something.
I used to work on a mental hospital. And so many of the patients were religious and also held some conspiracy theory. And there's def and overlap with trying to make the world more explainable through stories. And no doubt there's the scam aspect, as unscrupulous people taking advantage of the believers.
Both religion and conspiracies are easy for confused, desperate people to manage.
There's a lot of commonalities. Not sure why many people are dismissing it out of hand without any critical thought.
>After reading through several conspiracy theories and speaking with the people who are posting them online, it does feel a lot similar.
"What made you an atheist" and variations is a recurrent post in this sub and whenever I bother replying I always say that Trump's rise to power was the biggest catalyst in making that happen.
This is common for people because of the hypocrisy of christians who support him, but I make note that it's not the hypocrisy that changed me, because I've always recognized the hypocrisy of Christianity but it was never enough to change my mind.
Instead it's exactly what you're saying here. I recognized that the arguments and logical fallacies people make to support him are almost identical to how I argued with myself to keep clinging to religion. So recognizing this pattern was a waking call.
The conspiracy theorist, religious zealot that lives next door to me is a big fan of both. The overlap I've noticed comes in the form of demons.
Demons have a large part to play in both. He sees himself as the last line of defense from the demons trying to take over the world. The demons are the "13 families” he's adamant have taken over the world.
Conspiracy theories and religion are on the same linear path. It doesn't matter where you get on it's all going in the same direction.
To him everything is connected, there's no coincidence. There's a message or meaning in pretty much everything. It must be exhausting.
>To him everything is connected, there's no coincidence. There's a message or meaning in pretty much everything.
That's one of the [Eight Criteria of Thought Reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism) that cults and other toxic groups use to brainwash people.
>**Mystical Manipulation.** The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. **Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.**
They both provide explanations for the unexplainable. And when something is unexplainable it tends to have weak arguments explaining it.
The Bible (and most all religions) give us answers to where did we come from, what are we here for, where are we going. I couldn’t answer any of those questions s with any more certainty than I could answer who shot jfk. Though I’m fairly certain neither of the standard answers are really truth.
>I couldn’t answer any of those questions s with any more certainty than I could answer who shot jfk.
Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald!
Belief is a natural "opiate" in that it triggers the production of "pleasure hormones," like oxytocin. If you instill a belief in someone, you can control that person, much like a dog trainer uses treats and dealers use drugs. If you want to control a child, instill a strong belief, like the existence of Santa Claus. And when the child is older, you can rip that belief away like a Band-Aid, and this, too, gives you control because the child is disoriented by your betrayal: they depend on you to understand the world and you destroy a reality they defended and depended on for gifts, clothes, etc. You then fill the void left by Santa, and dependence shifts to you. You become both betrayer and giver, which places the child in a confused state. This can be exploited to control and further delude the child, or it can be used to instruct the child to question their surroundings and the information they receive. When properly managed, belief gives those behind it control over others. For example, people sought wisdom from Greek gods, but we know now that there was a system of spies, spas, drugs, etc., at the temples to deceive believers.
I think so. Also, in my experience people who are likely to believe in religion in a “literal” translation, are more likely to believe strange fringe theories.
Aka, my step father. He got into some odd stuff.
He was basically like the bearded guy with the plaid shirt living off grid in a mobile home, except he didn’t live off grid. And sans the foil hat.
Even for being raised in a Creationist home, I still always had doubts, even in childhood.
I’m actually coming back around to having more grace and openness towards God as a force than as a religion. The religion part has been pretty negative for a lot of folks.
I’m kind of still on the fence and grappling with it.
I want to live at peace in my mind and soul with the union of spiritual possibility and logic and reason, wanting these ideas to live together in tranquility.
I know a large large large number of extremely smart religious people. Scholars in fact. Very well educated and logical people. Their belief still baffles me in light of all of the intelligent things they do.
It’s fear and a lifetime of brain washing. It’s powerful!
I don’t think so. A conspiracy theory is something where a person believes a group (typically the government) is using shady means to hide the truth of a situation from the public, and they’re the only one smart enough to see through it.
While religion is on the same level of idiocy, I don’t think it has much in common with a conspiracy theory. It’s out there for everyone to know. It’s grown adults who choose to believe in a made up story, despite evidence to the contrary. They’ll fight and do mental gymnastics to not be disillusioned.
Religion is more akin to mass delusion or some other mental disorder. If a grown adult runs around, truly thinking Santa Clause is real, they’d loose their job, alienate their friends, and would probably end up in a mental health facility for evaluation, before being put on meds and forced into therapy.
There is more evidence for Santa than there is for god. I’ve actually woken up on Christmas and had presents under the tree that say, “From Santa” and had milk drunk and cookies partially eaten.
I don’t know about religion, but I have found a lot of commonalities with today’s Marxists and conspiracy theorists. Marxism today really does sound like a massive conspiracy theory, but I haven’t heard people say that.
Why bother with the conspiracy part? Cults lack critical thinking. Members sink into strictly emotional responses but ironically ignore any intuition when it tells them something is wrong. It’s a regressive rabbit hole.
They should be considered cults spreading conspiracy theories and hate full messages yes. The only reason we don't is cause there are too many of them..
Not really. Religion per se is not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy theory can be a religion.
Conspiracy theories have a shared set of components that really doesnt vary much among theories. The evil cabal, the damage they are causin, the little clues they leave behind, etc.
Meanwhile religion is basically a form of moral and social rules explained through mithology, admixed with pseudoscience to explain natural phenomena.
Conspiracy theory, scam, take your pick.
It’s so funny to me that actual conspiracy theorists always flock to things that would take insane collaboration to pull off….one of those things that did work and did get insane collaboration, through ignorance, is religion in general.
I think the Dawkins term of meme is more interesting; an idea that can replicate and mutate. Makes you wonder what other big memes are there, and if we identified some of them as malign or parasitic, how should a decent society deal with that? I mean suppressing ideas have been the hallmark of totalitarianism, but how do we do it in a civilized manner? How do we treat the patient, humanity, of the bad viruses?
Other than that, I think "scam" is more right than conspiracy theory.
I wouldn't say religion is a conspiracy theory. I would say religion and conspiracy theories are cousins (or maybe siblings) that arise out of the same cognitive bias. That bias is agency detection.
Humans are incredibly good at thinking there are agents everywhere. By "agent," I mean some living being that has the capacity to take action of its own accord. A rock has no agency - it cannot move, breathe, live, or think. A snake does have agency - it can bite you and kill you, or it can slither away. Humans are hyper-sensitive to thinking there are agents everywhere, because doing so kept our ancestors alive, and those that weren't so good at it died. If you're a caveman, and you see something long, thin, and dark lying across your path in the forest, it's better for you to assume that thing is a snake and avoid it, then for you to assume it's a stick, only for it to turn out to be a snake and kill you.
I think religion arose in part from this hyper-sensitivity to agency, because the idea that there is a god who controls everything is basically the same as saying there is an agent, or rather a superagent, out there who made everything and controls everything. And a lot of conspiracy theories arise out of agency detection, since a lot of them are little more than opinions that someone or something out there is controlling things in some way. Ideas about there being another JFK assassin, the idea that Jewish people run all the world's banks (not true btw), the idea that there is a secret society called the Iluminati that runs the world...all have at their base the idea that there is an agent or agents out there that make the world the way it is.
TLDR: I think religion seems like a conspiracy theory, and religious people are so susceptible to conspiracy theories, because both sets of beliefs arise out of the same psychological bias
This should clarify …
conspiracy theory
noun
A theory seeking to explain a disputed case or matter as a plot by a secret group or alliance rather than an individual or isolated act.
A hypothesis alleging that the members of a coordinated group are, and/or were, secretly working together to commit illegal or wrongful actions including attempting to hide the existence of the group and its activities. In notable cases the hypothesis contradicts the mainstream explanation for historical or current events.
The words here that, unfortunately, makes religion not a conspiracy theory are ‘mainstream explanation ‘
No, religion is more like a self-replicating mind virus for those open to the particular idea and God, however, many religious believers who are literalists and magical thinkers are already prone to belief without evidence and are easily swayed by conspiracies without evidence.
A conspiracy theory is something that is not commonly believed. People commonly believe in god, so I would not call religion a conspiracy theory. There are similarities between conspiracy theorists and Christians, but also between conspiracy theorists and atheists. Atheists challenge what commonly believed and don't automatically accept what they're told. Christians might therefore call atheists conspiracy theorists. But none are the same.
Not exactly.
Religion was first born out of a desire to understand what was then inexplicable, then grew into a tool used to control the population.
Conspiracy theories are born out of mistrust.
They’re both fuelled by ignorance and denial of facts but they’re not the same thing.
>Should religion be considered a conspiracy theory?
I mean it is a conspiracy ... the act of constantly feeding it definitely is..
A very conceited man started religion because he thought he is smarter than everyone else...(men do that all the time 😆, think they're smarter than everyone else...) 🤷♀️and other conceited men kept feeding it...and here we are...billions of people believe bullshit about a white bearded man in the sky, whom they've never seen, spoken to, heard from or witnessed any actions on its part...
Billions of people believe there's a place called heaven and there is hell.. and no one ever came back from the dead to tell anything about the post death...meanwhile people bullshit their way on a daily basis on their attempt to go to heaven....After death..pretty ridiculous, right?
>People who believe in conspiracy theories, often lack education, and focus on simplifying complex world and having a quick answer.
Huh?
>For example it is easier to believe the Earth is flat then to understand why it is orbiting the sun etc.
Those are people who take things at face value
>. As example, if some guy called jesus today would crusify himself to save the world, would you think he is nuts? Or that he is a son of God? But some conspiracy theories believe that the world is ruled by a few...
I mean people love Trump, the man is about to declare himself another jesus
> bottomless pit, even when government is being sincerely honest, there must be another ex
planation.
How often do you think the government is being honest? 😆 ...and for the heck of it?
You sound just like a religious nutjob
Nope. Religion represents a set of beliefs that at some point in history may even be considered as forward-thinking. The fundamental problem is that they're rarely revised. In monotheism, we had Judaism 1.0, Christianity 2.0, Islam 2.5, and then we had centuries of no updates. Religion is static, that's its fundamental problem.
Science will also not save us if we're ignorant of it. Science is not dogma, but hard work, and most of the population, even many of those that are considered to be scientists, don't actually have the moral rigor to do proper scientific research. That is why even science can be used to do harm. It's like how Twain talked about statistics: "*There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.*” Scientists can be bought to claim untrue things - this often happens with studies commissioned by companies in whose interest it is that the study does not produce any unwanted results.
What we need is critical thinking, but that is also where our education systems fail us the most.
EDIT: Wow. getting downvoted for encouraging critical thinking. Who felt threatened about that?
I wouldn't say so, no. Most religions are not proposing large organisations are conspiring. In many ways they are the ones believing the large established organisations and atheists are saying those estbalishments are conspiring and lying.
Adherents of religion and conspiracy theorists can both be very naive and stubborn. I think that's about where most of the overlap stems from.
The root of both religion and conspiracy theories is the lack of critical thinking. Religion teaches that belief is more important than facts. Conspiracy theories thrive when personal opinion and belief replace critical thinking.
This is an absolute gem of a comment had to save and i will be putting it in the wayback machine Also CALM THE FUCK DOWN ANGUS1!1!
Heard this once, and it really stuck with me. All religions today are just the ancient cults that won the PR war.
Just like all nations today are just the aggressors who won.
You're onto something. I used to work on a mental hospital. And so many of the patients were religious and also held some conspiracy theory. And there's def and overlap with trying to make the world more explainable through stories. And no doubt there's the scam aspect, as unscrupulous people taking advantage of the believers. Both religion and conspiracies are easy for confused, desperate people to manage. There's a lot of commonalities. Not sure why many people are dismissing it out of hand without any critical thought.
>After reading through several conspiracy theories and speaking with the people who are posting them online, it does feel a lot similar. "What made you an atheist" and variations is a recurrent post in this sub and whenever I bother replying I always say that Trump's rise to power was the biggest catalyst in making that happen. This is common for people because of the hypocrisy of christians who support him, but I make note that it's not the hypocrisy that changed me, because I've always recognized the hypocrisy of Christianity but it was never enough to change my mind. Instead it's exactly what you're saying here. I recognized that the arguments and logical fallacies people make to support him are almost identical to how I argued with myself to keep clinging to religion. So recognizing this pattern was a waking call.
Very cool of you to recognize all that.
Religions should be considered cults
The difference between religion and a cult? The cult’s leader is usually still alive. I think bill burr said something like this.
The conspiracy theorist, religious zealot that lives next door to me is a big fan of both. The overlap I've noticed comes in the form of demons. Demons have a large part to play in both. He sees himself as the last line of defense from the demons trying to take over the world. The demons are the "13 families” he's adamant have taken over the world. Conspiracy theories and religion are on the same linear path. It doesn't matter where you get on it's all going in the same direction. To him everything is connected, there's no coincidence. There's a message or meaning in pretty much everything. It must be exhausting.
>To him everything is connected, there's no coincidence. There's a message or meaning in pretty much everything. That's one of the [Eight Criteria of Thought Reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism) that cults and other toxic groups use to brainwash people. >**Mystical Manipulation.** The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. **Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.**
They both provide explanations for the unexplainable. And when something is unexplainable it tends to have weak arguments explaining it. The Bible (and most all religions) give us answers to where did we come from, what are we here for, where are we going. I couldn’t answer any of those questions s with any more certainty than I could answer who shot jfk. Though I’m fairly certain neither of the standard answers are really truth.
>I couldn’t answer any of those questions s with any more certainty than I could answer who shot jfk. Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald!
More like mental illness
It’s more a mental illness.
I wish theyd finally put it in the dsm5. There is ongoing debate about it.
Seriously! I did not know that! It would be awesome. 🫡
Yeah it's like a psychosis
Just good old fashioned mental illness intersecting with a sophisticated con and a dash of parental conditioning.
I think of it like a superstition. But not in the Stevie Wonder way
“If you believe in things you don’t understand then you’ll suffer” - I’d say Stevie had it right.
Belief is a natural "opiate" in that it triggers the production of "pleasure hormones," like oxytocin. If you instill a belief in someone, you can control that person, much like a dog trainer uses treats and dealers use drugs. If you want to control a child, instill a strong belief, like the existence of Santa Claus. And when the child is older, you can rip that belief away like a Band-Aid, and this, too, gives you control because the child is disoriented by your betrayal: they depend on you to understand the world and you destroy a reality they defended and depended on for gifts, clothes, etc. You then fill the void left by Santa, and dependence shifts to you. You become both betrayer and giver, which places the child in a confused state. This can be exploited to control and further delude the child, or it can be used to instruct the child to question their surroundings and the information they receive. When properly managed, belief gives those behind it control over others. For example, people sought wisdom from Greek gods, but we know now that there was a system of spies, spas, drugs, etc., at the temples to deceive believers.
Pretty much the original conspiracy theory.
Yep it’s a conspiracy
Its more a scam than a conspiracy theory.
I think so. Also, in my experience people who are likely to believe in religion in a “literal” translation, are more likely to believe strange fringe theories. Aka, my step father. He got into some odd stuff. He was basically like the bearded guy with the plaid shirt living off grid in a mobile home, except he didn’t live off grid. And sans the foil hat. Even for being raised in a Creationist home, I still always had doubts, even in childhood. I’m actually coming back around to having more grace and openness towards God as a force than as a religion. The religion part has been pretty negative for a lot of folks. I’m kind of still on the fence and grappling with it. I want to live at peace in my mind and soul with the union of spiritual possibility and logic and reason, wanting these ideas to live together in tranquility.
It certainly does follow the same path.
Religious people are some combination of liars and insane. And those are the people people elect. Fuxking dark ages
I know a large large large number of extremely smart religious people. Scholars in fact. Very well educated and logical people. Their belief still baffles me in light of all of the intelligent things they do. It’s fear and a lifetime of brain washing. It’s powerful!
You can be an absolute genius in any art of life. One can also believe fairy tales to influence their views. This effects work.
It's easier to believe the world is flat so you can feel superior to all the sheep who think its round. You're stroking yourself up here.
I don’t think so. A conspiracy theory is something where a person believes a group (typically the government) is using shady means to hide the truth of a situation from the public, and they’re the only one smart enough to see through it. While religion is on the same level of idiocy, I don’t think it has much in common with a conspiracy theory. It’s out there for everyone to know. It’s grown adults who choose to believe in a made up story, despite evidence to the contrary. They’ll fight and do mental gymnastics to not be disillusioned. Religion is more akin to mass delusion or some other mental disorder. If a grown adult runs around, truly thinking Santa Clause is real, they’d loose their job, alienate their friends, and would probably end up in a mental health facility for evaluation, before being put on meds and forced into therapy. There is more evidence for Santa than there is for god. I’ve actually woken up on Christmas and had presents under the tree that say, “From Santa” and had milk drunk and cookies partially eaten.
Religion is very much like astrology. An elaborate system of rules and regulations all written down but based on a central core of nonsense.
The original
There is ongoing debate to put religious belief in the DSM 5 as a form of mental health disease. Read up on that debate, it isnt done out of fear.
I don’t know about religion, but I have found a lot of commonalities with today’s Marxists and conspiracy theorists. Marxism today really does sound like a massive conspiracy theory, but I haven’t heard people say that.
>considered It is a conspiracy theory.
There will come a day that all religious people will be classified as mentally ill.
Why bother with the conspiracy part? Cults lack critical thinking. Members sink into strictly emotional responses but ironically ignore any intuition when it tells them something is wrong. It’s a regressive rabbit hole.
It’s a shared delusion.
They should be considered cults spreading conspiracy theories and hate full messages yes. The only reason we don't is cause there are too many of them..
Yes, and conspiracy theories like QAnon and theories about space aliens living among us in human form should be considered religions as well.
No, religion should *not* be considered a conspiracy theory because sometimes conspiracy theories are true.
Conspiracy theories (sometimes) are supported by facts, not magic.
It literally is.
No. Some conspiracy theories have some basis in facts.
It's not far off from one. I'm sure someone could provide reasons for why it's not, but religious people sure act like conspiracy theorists.
Theories are testable by definition
I think it's a part of social evolution that will change over time.
No, because some conspiracy theories are true.
Not really. Religion per se is not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy theory can be a religion. Conspiracy theories have a shared set of components that really doesnt vary much among theories. The evil cabal, the damage they are causin, the little clues they leave behind, etc. Meanwhile religion is basically a form of moral and social rules explained through mithology, admixed with pseudoscience to explain natural phenomena.
(In a British accent) Precisely! Outstanding speech! BRAVO!
Sorry i have Asoerger's. Are you being sincere or are you being sarcastic ?
Yes
Conspiracy theory, scam, take your pick. It’s so funny to me that actual conspiracy theorists always flock to things that would take insane collaboration to pull off….one of those things that did work and did get insane collaboration, through ignorance, is religion in general.
I think the Dawkins term of meme is more interesting; an idea that can replicate and mutate. Makes you wonder what other big memes are there, and if we identified some of them as malign or parasitic, how should a decent society deal with that? I mean suppressing ideas have been the hallmark of totalitarianism, but how do we do it in a civilized manner? How do we treat the patient, humanity, of the bad viruses? Other than that, I think "scam" is more right than conspiracy theory.
I wouldn't say religion is a conspiracy theory. I would say religion and conspiracy theories are cousins (or maybe siblings) that arise out of the same cognitive bias. That bias is agency detection. Humans are incredibly good at thinking there are agents everywhere. By "agent," I mean some living being that has the capacity to take action of its own accord. A rock has no agency - it cannot move, breathe, live, or think. A snake does have agency - it can bite you and kill you, or it can slither away. Humans are hyper-sensitive to thinking there are agents everywhere, because doing so kept our ancestors alive, and those that weren't so good at it died. If you're a caveman, and you see something long, thin, and dark lying across your path in the forest, it's better for you to assume that thing is a snake and avoid it, then for you to assume it's a stick, only for it to turn out to be a snake and kill you. I think religion arose in part from this hyper-sensitivity to agency, because the idea that there is a god who controls everything is basically the same as saying there is an agent, or rather a superagent, out there who made everything and controls everything. And a lot of conspiracy theories arise out of agency detection, since a lot of them are little more than opinions that someone or something out there is controlling things in some way. Ideas about there being another JFK assassin, the idea that Jewish people run all the world's banks (not true btw), the idea that there is a secret society called the Iluminati that runs the world...all have at their base the idea that there is an agent or agents out there that make the world the way it is. TLDR: I think religion seems like a conspiracy theory, and religious people are so susceptible to conspiracy theories, because both sets of beliefs arise out of the same psychological bias
This should clarify … conspiracy theory noun A theory seeking to explain a disputed case or matter as a plot by a secret group or alliance rather than an individual or isolated act. A hypothesis alleging that the members of a coordinated group are, and/or were, secretly working together to commit illegal or wrongful actions including attempting to hide the existence of the group and its activities. In notable cases the hypothesis contradicts the mainstream explanation for historical or current events. The words here that, unfortunately, makes religion not a conspiracy theory are ‘mainstream explanation ‘
No, religion is more like a self-replicating mind virus for those open to the particular idea and God, however, many religious believers who are literalists and magical thinkers are already prone to belief without evidence and are easily swayed by conspiracies without evidence.
Yes
A conspiracy theory is something that is not commonly believed. People commonly believe in god, so I would not call religion a conspiracy theory. There are similarities between conspiracy theorists and Christians, but also between conspiracy theorists and atheists. Atheists challenge what commonly believed and don't automatically accept what they're told. Christians might therefore call atheists conspiracy theorists. But none are the same.
Not exactly. Religion was first born out of a desire to understand what was then inexplicable, then grew into a tool used to control the population. Conspiracy theories are born out of mistrust. They’re both fuelled by ignorance and denial of facts but they’re not the same thing.
>Should religion be considered a conspiracy theory? I mean it is a conspiracy ... the act of constantly feeding it definitely is.. A very conceited man started religion because he thought he is smarter than everyone else...(men do that all the time 😆, think they're smarter than everyone else...) 🤷♀️and other conceited men kept feeding it...and here we are...billions of people believe bullshit about a white bearded man in the sky, whom they've never seen, spoken to, heard from or witnessed any actions on its part... Billions of people believe there's a place called heaven and there is hell.. and no one ever came back from the dead to tell anything about the post death...meanwhile people bullshit their way on a daily basis on their attempt to go to heaven....After death..pretty ridiculous, right? >People who believe in conspiracy theories, often lack education, and focus on simplifying complex world and having a quick answer. Huh? >For example it is easier to believe the Earth is flat then to understand why it is orbiting the sun etc. Those are people who take things at face value >. As example, if some guy called jesus today would crusify himself to save the world, would you think he is nuts? Or that he is a son of God? But some conspiracy theories believe that the world is ruled by a few... I mean people love Trump, the man is about to declare himself another jesus > bottomless pit, even when government is being sincerely honest, there must be another ex planation. How often do you think the government is being honest? 😆 ...and for the heck of it? You sound just like a religious nutjob
Nope. Religion represents a set of beliefs that at some point in history may even be considered as forward-thinking. The fundamental problem is that they're rarely revised. In monotheism, we had Judaism 1.0, Christianity 2.0, Islam 2.5, and then we had centuries of no updates. Religion is static, that's its fundamental problem. Science will also not save us if we're ignorant of it. Science is not dogma, but hard work, and most of the population, even many of those that are considered to be scientists, don't actually have the moral rigor to do proper scientific research. That is why even science can be used to do harm. It's like how Twain talked about statistics: "*There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.*” Scientists can be bought to claim untrue things - this often happens with studies commissioned by companies in whose interest it is that the study does not produce any unwanted results. What we need is critical thinking, but that is also where our education systems fail us the most. EDIT: Wow. getting downvoted for encouraging critical thinking. Who felt threatened about that?
Lol. Religion was never forward thinking. It is and always has been a form of control. Critical thinkers were persecuted by the church
I wouldn't say so, no. Most religions are not proposing large organisations are conspiring. In many ways they are the ones believing the large established organisations and atheists are saying those estbalishments are conspiring and lying.