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Comment by VvR-Ox | Hacker News Reader

Maybe they are just smarter in some way. Religion is one of the greatest evils of mankind. Stop using it as an excuse. Start taking responsibility for your own thoughts and actions.

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Religious flamewar is not welcome here. Please don't post like this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

China's Orwellian social credit system is among the most evil and insidious things I've ever seen. It's mental slavery.

Exactly the same as most religions, fear of punishment if you don't obey and behave according to the rules of the government/book, one delivers punishment here and now and the other delivers eternal pain in hell. Both are mental slavery. Both are used to control the population by the powerful.

Was tempted to flag you or downvote you, but even if you present it in a very one sided way you have a good point, so have I'll instead just add some nuance:

Yes. Religion has been used to control populations, but for me and many others they've been a tool for empowering individuals and for many it has also been a uniting force to stand up to oppressive regimes.

It has also been a powerful tool to unite and bring peace.

I'd be happy if we as a community of what I think of as mostly reasonable people could manage to be a little bit nuanced.

I think that's a stretch. That's not the teachings of Christianity, for example, where "sins are forgiven". Yeah there's fire and brimstone types but it's not typical. And no one compels you to continue going to the same church. There may be social pressure to, but people switch churches as often as people switch relationships.

They just replace it with state ideology though.

Another kind of religion. No god but the same message , the rulers/bishops order and you obey.

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