Tonight I watched V for Vendetta. Good movie, but this isn't a movie review. One of the lines in the movie, (please excuse if I paraphrase.) is:
"Is that what you think? Or what they want you to think?"
It is basically a simple statement that sums up the movie and ironically our world, which is technically what the movie metaphors. (Yes I'm aware of the Nazi and 1984 undertone too.) What got me thinking was exactly how brain dead people are. How incredibly brainwashed America, or for that matter most people in the world are. Obviously the beauty of this statement is that most people who watch the movie, read this statement, or come across similar observations in conversation will be incapable of even understanding what it means.
Do you really think the rat knows it's in a maze? The rat knows that he can smell the cheese. If the rat would take a moment to stop and analyze his life, perhaps look whats above him, or behind him & to recognize the hand of the human who had put him in the maze, then he might not be so quick to get to the end and the reward. He might wonder what does the hand want from me?
So it is with many who are religious. Religion has its good and bad. But its primary function is oppression and control of those people who would otherwise be problematic for a system that takes advantage of the rats, I mean people, who mindlessly stroll through life, concentrating only on the end goal of the afterlife.
Yes, promise a person a great prize for good behavior and they won't get in the way of the privileged few who can attain fortune and fame. Parents do it with kids? Eat your dinner and get desert. Good behavior is rewarded with a pleasure.
So is religion, or for that matter, our culture simply a construct to keep society under control? Is it merely an elaborate hoax played upon all of us? When we're dead, do we die and go into nothingness? Perhaps. It all depends on your faith. But imagine for a moment that heaven doesn't exist. If the cheese wasn't there at the end of the maze? Wouldn't you do anything you could to explore every dead end, looking for an exit? Of course your would.
This usage of psychology seems to find its way into every portion of our lives, not only in religion, children, and metaphorical rat mazes; but also, in politics. Take for instance the recent terrorism fear following 9/11. Was an attack prominent? Or more likely was it an idea suggested upon those who are suggestible to give the president the power to do what he needed to do, in order to make himself wealthier?
It is time people begin to question things. For people to start living by their own minds, rather than mindlessly live for other people. It is important for religion to become moral again. It is important that we have government who supports its people, not abuses it, and most importantly we should never ever forget the power each one of us has to guide our own lives, govern our world, and eat our cheese before we die.
