The Martian has a post on his blog called Religion: A Force For Good?. There, he questions the usual defense of “oh, religion (or Christianity, or…) would be a good thing if people actually followed its tenets, instead of using it as a cover to gain money or power”. He says that, instead, the flaw is with religion (or, in this case, Christianity and Islam) itself.

I completely agree with him – the Abrahamic religions, at least, are creeds of death – and the problem is not that people don’t follow them perfectly, but that they follow them to the logical conclusion. Please go there, and read it in full – it’s long, but worth it. But don’t forget to come back here.

Oddly, I had already read something similar, but about Communism, and collectivism in general, by Ayn Rand. According to her, when Communism in the Soviet Union make life there a living hell, the leaders would always say that the ones before weren’t really Communists, but “were out for themselves”, or that the “bourgeois” mentality of the people was preventing “true Communism”, and that, once people really adopted the ideals of Communism, life would become paradise.

And, of course, the next leaders would say that these ones weren’t really true Communists, but now, things would be different, after just a little more sacrifice, more “brotherly cooperation”, and less individualistic “selfish” ideas.

Rand argued that the problem wasn’t that people weren’t “Communist enough”, but that they were were following Communism to the logical conclusion – the “devaluation” of the individual, the irriationality of making people believe that, by wanting to improve their lives, they were “selfish monsters”, the equating of suffering and sacrifice with virtue, the idea that no individual was really important, only the “collective”…

And, again, I have to agree. Communism is a creed of death, just like any philosophy or belief that says that my life is not my own, but belongs to “God” or “the people”, or “the state”.