My friends, welcome to the Sheep Gets Sheared
podcast. I'm your host, Austin Creed. And my
friends, I have a question for you today on the
show. Do you think religion benefits society?
Now you might wonder, Austin, where did you get
this question from? This is a very. Unnormal
question. And I would argue, well, I would say
it's actually very important. Number one, religion.
It's done a lot of good, in my opinion, and it's
also done a lot of bad. First of all, we have
to define what we're talking about. What is religion?
Well, religion you could say is defined by spiritual
beliefs. You could say it's defined by the rites,
aka the actions, the ceremonies that people undertake
in the name of their belief system. But when
you look at how religion has affected the world,
atheists argue that religion is a problem. In
fact, one of the most notorious atheists, Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, they went as far as
to say that religion was an opium or a painkiller
for the masses to numb themselves. Now, you know,
as weird as it might sound, I don't agree with
Karl Marx or Frederick Engels on a whole lot,
and I don't agree in so much as I believe that
that is the truth. I would say, though, that
there's an interesting case to be made for such
a thing. Now, I won't tell you immediately where
I stand on the issue because then it's going
to turn the whole conversation into a bias. But
what I will tell you is in my opinion, religion
is incredibly important for children. Now, when
I'm not a parent myself, I have some friends
who are parents and new parents, fledgling parents
who are newer. I know with young children and
I've noticed that if you look I'm not an anthropologist
by any stretch, but when you look at how religious
beliefs, spiritual beliefs, whether it's paganistic
practices, an Abrahamic religion, East Asian
religions, whatever have you, there's some kind
of overall moral code, a code of ethics, if you
will, that people are supposed to follow. As
adults, it's usually the law that people follow,
whether it's the law of their country. But a
lot of people build upon that. in so far as religious
law is concerned. Now, when it comes to religion,
we have two different kinds of religion. One
is religion incorporated. What is religion incorporated?
Religion incorporated is, well, it's what it
sounds. Incorporation is a business. So religion
incorporated is just what you might surmise.
It is a business. It is about money. You look
at, for example, the Mormon church. Mormon Church
is one of the most rich institutions in the world.
Why? Because money is kicked up to the top. It's
like a Ponzi scheme, in my opinion. In the same
way that the Catholic Church, you look at the
Vatican. The Vatican over the last 2 ,000 years
has aggrandized quite a bit of power and money
and influence in the Vatican. You could argue
that Rome itself never actually died. It just
converted from a monarchy to a theocracy. I could
argue that case, and some people do. But when
you look at religion itself, there is the religion
incorporated part of it, and then there is the
actual physical beliefs that people hold on an
individual level. For example, there are so many
different sects, and when I say sects, I don't
mean sex, S -E -X, I mean S -E -C -T, as in different
denominations or branches of the overall trunk
of the tree of the religion. That is how the
system works now. There's a lot of different
kind of shoot -off beliefs on an overall different
There's fundamental core values and then there
are other things that people say are not so essential
and they argue over it, but Religion is complicated
because its effect on mankind is equivalent to
a drug, which is why I bring up Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels. I am NOT a communist. In fact,
I'm one of the most anti -communist people you'll
ever meet in your life. I despise communism.
Everywhere that communism has ever been tried,
a mountain of skulls is not too far behind. I
grew up in Cambodia when I was in eighth grade.
I lived there for a year, and I got to see how
the effects of Pol Pot, if you don't know who
he is, look him up. He was the dictator of Cambodia
who tried communism and what he left behind was
a mountain of skulls. And I got to see its effect
on the nation. You can look up Vietnam, the Vietnam
war. The reason we were there was to prevent
the spread of communism. You can look at China
and how its effect on the world is not, is not
one of prosperity and the positioning of the
individual's freedom. It's more about the collective.
the people's party under the guise of rubber
stunning the people when all it's about is every
other civilization or government on the planet,
which is for the rich by the rich and to benefit
the rich. That's every government ever. I know
you don't want to think that. I know you don't
like to hear that, but that's the truth. In fact,
if you read the federalist papers, one published,
I, oh gosh, I don't remember the physical one.
It was the one by James Madison. where he argued
that governments would not be necessary if the
individual were one of virtue. If people were
virtuous, there would be no need for government.
And the purpose of government was to prevent
marauders, aka raiders, rapists, thieves, etc.
from stealing and taking what was belonging to
the rich. So the rich aggrandized their power
with other rich people and they said, hey, you
know what? We can either fend off these brigands
individually or we could consolidate a certain
amount of our wealth together and prevent others
from taking it from us or competing against us
in plain English. That is what a government was
designed and is still designed to do. Now, it's
not as obvious as it once was, meaning that back
in the day there were the people on top and there
were the peasants. The modern equivalent today
would be the fact that you look at places like
Palestine, for example, where the guys who run
that are like the bears, the princely class in
the Arabic world. And then there's the peasant
class of people who ride around in Lamborghinis
and fly and golf streams. And then people who
ride on donkeys and barely have one goat. But
in America, what separates us is the male class.
That's what makes us unique. And so when we get
to religion, you have to understand that religion
and politics, you can't really ever pull them
apart. They're very glued together. They're tied
to the same post, if you will. So when we talk
about religion and how its effect on people is
measured, it's measured in every facet of their
life. It affects their thinking, which it affects
their actions. See, the problem is when you take
atheism, which people say that atheism is not
a religion. Of course it is. It's the religion
of the individual. It's the aggrandizement of
the self, the esteem of the self in the place
of God. Or in a case of communism, the government,
because government takes the place of God and
totalitarian regimes, whether it be fascism,
whether it be communism, whether it be Nazism.
But the Jewish, by the way, Nazism is not a fascist
bird by definition movement in case you didn't
know. It stands for national socialism, but I'm
not going to go down the the Nazi rabbit hole,
please. And thank you. I don't want to get sidetracked
by that. It's not the theme of the show. The
topic of the show is is religion beneficial to
society? I would say in general terms, it depends
on the religion because. When you look at religion
and how it's practiced by a lot of fundamentalist
Muslims. Now let's make one thing perfectly clear.
I don't hate people who are Islamic. Okay. I
hate I don't quote Winston Churchill. It is the
influence of the religion is as dangerous as
hydrophobia in a dog. And if we're not for the
fact that the West is nurturing the strong arms
of science. Western civilization would fall.
As did ancient row. That's what Winston Churchill
wrote back before he was. Thrown aside by the
UK, speaking of the UK, oh my God, I cannot believe
what the United Kingdom has become. The United
Kingdom went from being the empire of, you know,
the Sun never sets empire to a laughing stock.
Basically, Saudi Britannia is what Britain is
today. Britain is so. backwards they've gone
through an entire life cycle as a country they
went from an imperialistic power to now they're
imploding by importing a bunch of illegal legal
and illegal aliens who will never adopt the British
values never adopt the history and learn the
history of Britain they care only in the sufficiency
of the Quran and they'll ban people like Michael
Savage from the country for free speech and they'll
let people who say kill the king remain in Britain
because they're scared of them. And if you don't
believe me, go ahead and look it up for yourself.
Because my friends, I know that a lot of people
are very hyperbole, and they say that, oh, if
so and so wins, I want to leave the country.
America's over. There is no freedom of speech
anywhere else on the planet. I don't know if
you know that. In case you didn't know, freedom
of speech is not common practice in any other
country on earth. That's what makes America unique
is that we have freedoms. And in other countries,
they don't allow such things. They'll allow it
as so much as it doesn't threaten or is not a
perceived threat to the social order. They will
not, they won't care. But free speech is not,
you will have to protect, you know, benign speech.
The whole free, protecting free speech is about
protecting offensive speech. You don't need to
protect speech that everybody agrees with. What
do you need to protect about that? That's, that's
normal. That's not, there's no need to defend
that. So when it comes to religion, religion
can have a positive effect on the human being,
but can also be as Winston Churchill said, like
hydrophobia in a dog in that it can distort your
viewpoint. The part where you no longer think
rationally, you think religiously, you don't
have the mindset. of somebody who thinks with
rational thinking and logical faculties you instead
of focus on what somebody else said what somebody
else's interpretation of the Bible or the Quran
or the Torah is and instead or the religious
teachings of Buddha or Hinduism or anything else
it's or any other religion for that matter you
forfeit your right to your own humanity in my
opinion because no longer Are you focused on
rational thought, which separates you from a
monkey or a worm? You are instead focusing on
what you think should and that is not accurate.
I'll give you an example. One of the, one of
the reasons I have, one of the reasons I don't
like the modern Christian church is because they
preach what should be instead of what actually
is. I'll give you an example. You have pastors.
Let's see. What's a good example. Oh God, the
guy in Arizona, I'm blanking on his name. I'm
blanking on the guy's name in Arizona who runs
a church in Phoenix. I actually went to this
guy's church. I forget his name. I went to his
church while I was in college for a little bit.
Anyways, these types will tell men, oh, just
get married. Oh, just do it because you're sitting
otherwise without giving you any context as to...
how marriage has changed in the last two thousand
years how marriage is not what it once was how
the government now has its beak in the has its
beak dipping into the saucer of marriage they
won't tell you that because it's not convenient
for them it's not convenient for their business
practices because they must make money which
is why i bring up religion incorporated you see
how this all ties in Like I said, the individual
believes can be totally fine. But when you go
take a step farther and it's about money, you've
lost me because now it's not about making people
better or making society better. It's about making
you money off of old school practices that don't
hold up in the modern day. That's where you lose
me. And I think that I'm not alone. I know, in
fact, I'm not alone. A lot of you. However, they
read my book or other people's books and you've
come to realize, hey, religion is good. The influence
of the religion is good sometimes, but a lot
of times people will use borderline propaganda.
And in pursuit of profit and in doing so, they
forfeit their integrity. They forfeit their right
to be seen as a rational man or rational woman
in a. Instead, they are seen as somebody who
was just there to make money. My friends, I got
to head out. I will continue the subject at length
another time. But for right now, I got to head
out and I would just ask you to comment. What
do you think about religion and its effect on
society? I think it's incredibly pregnant when
it comes to a question and it can birth a lot
of different opinions. And you let me know what
yours is in the comments below. or you can go
to my ex page at sheep get sheared and leave
me a dm or comment on any of my thousands of
posts i've left on there take care i'm out of
here peace