this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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I was rewatching Community again and got to the Starburns funeral episode. Basically, the study group manages to start a riot and destroy the school, yada yada yada.
Anyway, prior to the riot, each one in the study group is asked to say some words about Starburns, and they end up trash talking the school. We get to the Christian mom of the group Shirley.
When asking her to come up to say her piece, the Dean says something along the lines of "What about you, Shirley? I think we can all use a little bit of Jesus during this time."
Now I've seen this episode....countless times and I highly doubt that Dan Harmon actually meant this to be a critique of religion but it was the first time it really hit me that this must have been how kings and dictators use religion to placate society. How useful it would have been to use an invisible, all knowing, all powerful god.
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
-Edward Gibbon
TL;DR: Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
~~Lucius Annaeus Seneca~~
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.
-Voltaire
That one's by Edward Gibbon, in reference to the Roman Empire. Seneca is a common misattribution.
ah, thanks!