What is this about making things "harder for real power interests"?
If religion didn't exist then powerful people would have a harder time being powerful? Are you serious? Cliched as it may be to bring up the nazis and communists again and again, they had a pretty easy time of it masking their "power interests" without seriously pretending to be religious.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Machiavelli
Everyone sees what you seem to be, few touch upon what you are, and those few do not dare not contradict the opinion of the many who have the majesty of the state to defend them
Ordinary people are always deceived by the appearance and outcome of a thing; and in the world there is nothing but ordinary people
And men are so simple-minded and controlled by their present needs that one who deceives will always find another who allows himself to be deceived
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The powerful don't need religion, useful as it can be to them, to deceive people. People can be deceived by any pretense to morality. Environmentalists, human rights advocates, social workers, government functionaries and freedom fighters, you name the secular do-gooder, and they can and often are ambitious, selfish assholes using popular conventional ideas about morality to mask their self interest. Religiosity is only one of the five qualities Machiavelli mentions as being useful for masking ones power interests. And in case you bring up how much Machiavelli reccomended the use of religion to mask interests, read the rest of chapter 18 and see why Machiavelli thinks a prince is justified in being such a great hypocrite and a liar.
And what would be so great about living on Mars? Is the Earth not good enough for you? In the words of Henry Rollins, fuck Mars.