Christopher Hitchens critiques the 10 commandments

[Farmer-Rick]

10. It's all about control

If you're king, if you're the top capitalist oligarch, if your Putin or a dictator, forcing people to do what you want is an all day chore. People are always trying to get freedoms, be happy, have fun, eat, sleep and have sex in nice comfortable ways that they prefer.

They don't want to pay for the kings castles, the taxman's Porsche or the filthy-rich's tax give aways. They especially don't want to die to protect all the filthy-rich crap

But the kings and the filthy-rich want other people to do all the work and provide them with protection. So, a god is a very handy thing to have in order to bludgeon all those people who would rather be doing something fun or good for themselves.

Make those people feel bad and sinful for only doing what comes naturally. Then they will shut up and do as they are told. Threaten them with eternal punishment for a momentary sin. Make up all sorts of crap and feed it to them from birth. Then they will be easily manipulated and controlled ...all in the name of your favorite super daddy in the sky.

It's a very well developed con and manipulative tool. Without it, many people would be taking back all the wealth stolen from them. Without religion people would want justice today instead of waiting for a god to take its slow time in punishing evil only after death. If you know this is the only life you get, maybe you wouldn't jump at the chance to work for slave wages all your life.

This god idea is such a handy little tool for keeping the status quo that some people think it's actually real.