Cha-Ching

To me, one of the biggest tragedies of life would be placing hope, faith, and trust in a philosophy that guaranteed an eternal existence of incredibly great contentment and happiness on the condition that an enormous amount of money is paid and the qualities of empathy, honesty, service, and personal improvement are constantly emulated, and every rule invented by the philosophy remains unbroken. In other words, pay money and act in a manner that all humans are already naturally inclined to act. 

To me, an even bigger tragedy of life would be placing hope, faith, and trust in this philosophy then discover that it's promises are bogus and it's only true motivation is to control people and to take their money. 

There was a time once in my life when I broke one of the rules of the philosophy I embraced and should have been excommunicated but leniency was extended and I was only disfellowshiped. The other day, I came across the official letter that spelled out the terms of the disciplinary action. Essentially, it stripped me of all privileges like praying in church, singing in the choir, participating in any ordinances like the sacrament, exercising my priesthood like home teaching or giving blessings, and attending the temple. The tone of the letter was constructed in a manner to imply what a travesty it was for me to be denied such wonderful blessings. Interestingly enough, it clarified that I was to continue attending church, reading the scriptures, praying in private for forgiveness, and paying my tithing..!

I have suspected for awhile now that religion in general is only motivated by money. When you consider the amount of money involved (that we are allowed to know about), it becomes hard to ignore how lucrative that form of deception is. It draws us in and numbs our senses to the point that we relinquish complete control of our entire existence into its hands. We endow it as the purest form of goodness and benevolence in our lives while, in fact, it is the biggest deception making it the lowest of all thieves that preys on our greatest vulnerabilities.

I have tried to explain my suspicions to friends and family but they are so deeply caught in the trap and their reasoning has become so deluded that they believe that; even if it's false and costs them a lot of money, their belief makes them happy and causes them to do good and to live fulfilling lives and all of this brings them peace and contentment, so why change?

I wonder how many of them would hang on to a credit card that charged 500% interest based solely on the fact that it provided nice things in their lives and made them happy and content, so why not keep using it?