God-business

The god-business is "organized" religion which supports a hierarchy, a clergy or an elitist isolationism. Selling your particular god and his mandates means big bucks and requires little education. If you are a jihadist, your god-business justifies having a mafia (Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas) which feels free to extort, maim and kill in the name of your god. If you are a fundamentalist Christian or Jew, your god-business justifies a convenient morality which elevates you to superiority, from which you may condemn and exploit others in the name of your god. If you are a Buddhist monk, your god-business allows you to live securely in a monastery upon a hill amid gold and jewels while you preach nonviolence and patience to the poor who live in the squalid valley below. 

The chief products on sale by just about all god-businesses are misogyny and homophobia. Ever wonder why?

An educated woman who can say "no" to sex and reproduction competes for social stature through sexual and economic independence. Misogyny eliminates about 50% of the competition in male-dominated god-business. Liberated gay men and lesbians are also potential free agents in society. Since homosexual men do not reproduce as matter of custom, they disrupt the chain of paternalistic/tribal control of property and money. Lesbian women compete for the emotional and intellectual influence of other women. They are sexually identified women. In societies where psychological and/or physical female castration is supported by god-business, lesbianism is a revolutionary element  to be feared by patriarchy.

Organized religion is not about fostering goodness. The evidence to support this statement is clear to anyone who reads the history of the human species for the last 10,000 years. Those in the god-business discourage broad reading and learning for this very reason. They steer young minds to The Prophet, The Savior, The Rabbi, The Lama, The Lord. Why? Because this accustoms young minds to submit to patriarchy, to go to war, to be good followers. Roman Catholicism has a particularly pernicious trick of beating up young minds with guilt-provoking patriarchy and then referring the bruised and traumatized to seek solace at the feet of The Blessed (and Docile) Virgin or at the feet of a statue of a happily lacerated martyr.

The god-business has had millenniums to perfect its patter. It has developed a learn-as-we-go psychology. It always pushes the masses to the wall of endurance for extortion and abuse. That's where the profits lie. You must have a wide following of impoverished people to expand the business. This explains the current alliance between fundamentalism and free-market capitalism in many quarters. It's a natural fit. They practice the same business model: "There's a sucker born ever minute."