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4.16
Universal religious negative instruments of power
 
  One of the greatest assets and distinctions of the human species from other resident species on the planet Earth is our ability to remember and to associate concepts- memory and intelligence of classification. This gives us our ability to remember stories, to remember written symbols to word concepts to oral sounds.  
  We remember significant events even though we may desensitize ourselves on a day to day living to these critical moments such as death. But just as we remember, farewell and celebrate the death of people we love with funerals, burials and prayers, our ancestors also understood the significance of such moments.  
  Most fundamental to all species with memory is the abhorrence of the sight of death of their own. Something deep within the collective mind of the species cry's out at the lessening of the chance for the species to continue to sustain itself. We see it more as the loss of a blood line, a family, a dynasty, a tribe's ability to have any more children, to live. Therefore we dread the death of others.  
  Our own dread of death or illness  
  More so, it is our own personal apprehension of the feelings of pain and ultimately of death that lurks deep within all of us. Whether our mind can overpower our fear of death, or pain (as it sometimes can), most of us at some point in our lives fear or have feared pain and death.  
  The extension of the concept of life and the concept of death  
  Religions too understood the power of such moments as the giving of birth and the ending of physical life (death). They took control of the concepts and their potential beyond the physical cycle of life and death of nature into a realm entirely different to that of the consciousness of other lower developed species. The human being is able to conceptualize the extension of life beyond the physical (heaven) as well as death beyond the physical (hell, hades).  
  This is where religion has played and continues to play a significant influence on our sense of self, destiny and final destination- in the concepts that alter our beliefs on where we might be heading after death, to eternal life, new life or eternal death/pain, or nothingness.  
  The development of negative instruments of power threatening physical death, pain and eternal death, pain.  
  Religions not only developed concepts that extended our thinking to the possibility of life after death or eternal pain after death, they developed instruments of power along with them.  
  Through the rituals of magic and the power of objects and concepts, religions have influenced to the illness and death of many millions of people.  
  The most crude of these instruments of power have been:  
 
direct physical injury/death
indirect physical injury through magic
direct physical fear of danger and thus control
 
  The negative instrument of power- direct physical injury/death  
  The actual injury, illness or disablement of human beings via the power of Gods, or of the representatives of the Gods has been a feature of religion and society since the very beginning.  
  In tribal and aboriginal cultures, we see the central role of the Witch Doctor, playing the dualistic role of not only capable of healing, but injuring human beings through their control of the "spirits", or "gods".  
  In larger, organized religions we see the same thing- religions with their own military forces capable of seizing cities, countries and individuals in the name of religion and having them tortured, imprisoned or executed.  
  War and religion are two sides of the same coin when considering the launching of calculated aggression against nearby settlements of human beings. Just in the past one thousand years, in excess of 50 million human beings have lost their lives on religious grounds.  
  The negative instrument of power- indirect physical injury through magic  
  Religion through its absolute concepts and ethereal concepts also possesses powerful negative instruments of power in the belief that physical injury can occur indirectly.  
  A sword may not need to be used, a curse may cause you to fall ill. This "black" magic has been a powerful tool of religious practice for thousands of years and continues strongly in many countries, especially in Haiti with the perpetuation of the powers of Voodoo.  
  The negative instrument of power-direct physical fear of danger and thus control  
  Overwhelmingly, religion has the strongest instruments of power via the tools of fear and danger.  
  Fear  
  The word fear in its original forms are found throughout the ancient European languages, from Old English (faeran, faer=danger, ambush, peril), Old Saxon (faron= lie in wait), Old High German (faren, fara= plot against, lie in wait, ambush, danger, deceit) and Old Norse (faera= taunt, slight).  
  In the original sense, considering the earliest definition of"sudden ambush", the meaning of fear was "a state of alarm or dread." Thus the concept of "fearing" those things that may ambush our intentions precedes all other definitions of fear.  
  Around the late 14th C, the additional and more contemporary meaning appeared of "the emotion of pain or uneasiness caused by the sense of impending danger, or by the apprehension of evil (often personified)." (In Old German the word gefahr = danger.)  
  This additional meaning to the definition of fear is historically important, for it appears before the more modern definition of danger , therefore implies a link between (a) what people in authority can do to subjects (ancient definition of danger) and (b) what subjects feel about the threat of that power being used (fear).  
  Hence this second definition represents the birth of the concept of fear, expressed as the emotions of dread, anxiety, pain, uneasiness as a "weapon of the mind" of those in authority against those they wish to control.  
  Then around the late 15th C, the circular meaning was applied "the state of fearing something, especially a mingled feeling of dread and reverence towards God, or formerly any rightful authority."  
  It is one of the more bizarre definitions in the English language, considering the common usage of the word fear and the contemporary concepts of God being loving and kind. Here we see a reinforcement of the weapon qualities of fear, now expressed using the concept of God as a kind of "absolute fear".  
  Now those in authority could not only wield the weapons of the State against subjects in a state of fear, but could call upon the religious aspect of Gods wrath a religious and absolute fear.  
  The word fear in its original forms are found throughout the ancient European languages, from Old English (faeran, faer=danger, ambush, peril), Old Saxon (faron= lie in wait), Old High German (faren, fara= plot against, lie in wait, ambush, danger, deceit) and Old Norse (faera= taunt, slight).  
  In the original sense, considering the earliest definition of"sudden ambush", the meaning of fear was "a state of alarm or dread." Thus the concept of "fearing" those things that may ambush our intentions precedes all other definitions of fear.  
  Around the late 14th C, the additional and more contemporary meaning appeared of "the emotion of pain or uneasiness caused by the sense of impending danger, or by the apprehension of evil (often personified)." (In Old German the word gefahr = danger.)  
  This additional meaning to the definition of fear is historically important, for it appears before the more modern definition of danger , therefore implies a link between (a) what people in authority can do to subjects (ancient definition of danger) and (b) what subjects feel about the threat of that power being used (fear).  
  Hence this second definition represents the birth of the concept of fear, expressed as the emotions of dread, anxiety, pain, uneasiness as a "weapon of the mind" of those in authority against those they wish to control.  
  Then around the late 15th C, the circular meaning was applied "the state of fearing something, especially a mingled feeling of dread and reverence towards God, or formerly any rightful authority."  
  It is one of the more bizarre definitions in the English language, considering the common usage of the word fear and the contemporary concepts of God being loving and kind. Here we see a reinforcement of the weapon qualities of fear, now expressed using the concept of God as a kind of "absolute fear".  
  Now those in authority could not only wield the weapons of the State against subjects in a state of fear, but could call upon the religious aspect of Gods wrath a religious and absolute fear.  
  Danger  
  The word danger comes from the Old French word dangier, itself a derivation of the Latin roots domnus, dominus (lord, master). In its original sense, the word meant "The power of a lord, jurisdiction, dominion." However, later the word cam to mean "(Power of a Lord); power to dispose of, or to do harm."  
  It wasn't until the late 15th Century that the word came to have its general modern meaning "liability, or exposure to harm or injury; risk, peril."  
  Danger therefore is a strange word, given its historical attachment to the potential negative behaviour of those in Authority. It is also interesting that this underlying unconscious association with the negative aspects of authority ( e.g. warnings on power lines, mine fields, security installations) continues today.  
  The negative instrument of power-physical and spiritual pain from breach of trust- sin (guilt)  
  The word sin, comes from the word sons and sont meaning "guilt, guilty". Guilt in turn means literally "breach of trust." Therefore sin by definition can be considered a "breach of trust by a person in the divine rules".  
  Guilt also denotes a feeling of regret and lessening of self perception, two negative qualities that are also intimately linked to the concept of sin. All religions define the relative sins.  
  By definition, as administrations of religions largely control the books of rituals, behaviors and meditations that are considered pleasing and not pleasing, over the years the list of what is good and what is sinful has changed from religion to religion, from age to age.  
  Sin has also been a powerful negative instrument of power as religious administrations have been able to maintain control by determining what they considered is sinful and what is not. Currently, the Roman Catholic Church has used this religious negative instrument of power to effect new sins such as computer fraud, smoking, as well as older extraordinary sins such as contraception and priests having sexual relations.  
  The negative instrument of power- Evil  
  Apart from the influence of magic, religions have all had in some way or another the manifestations of powerful negative instruments of power in the belief of evil spirits.  
  Evil spirits are defined universally as entities that can move between dimensions or reality and unreality and physical form and influence the physical health, mind, state of an individual negatively.
  All religions in some way have identified evil beings existing and all have in some way identified negative behaviour as being under the influence entrapment of these malevolent beings.
  The fear of evil has in many periods of history caused large followings and support for witch burnings and the hunting of individuals who appear to have above-average skills. Many mid-wives of the 14th and 16th centuries suffered greatly at the hands of hoards of individuals egged on by religious leaders to torture and murder these people.
   
 
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