>Religion is the ultimate tool of control, I need a lot of convincing to ever believe that.
organized religion has nothing at all to do with god, the bible or our eventual salvation or damnation. it is a serious fallacy to conflate in the same way that it would be a mistake to judge any of the classic philosophical positions based on how they are (or are not) treated in contemporary academia. corrupt institutions and organizations do not tell against the insights/philosophies that helped generate them (otherwise what should we say about the US constitution if it is to be judged against what has been done with/to it over the last 100 years).