How to Design a Controlling Religion
As atheists, religions look like organizations set up to control followers and gain financial reward and power from them. If we wanted to set up a controlling religion, here's what we would do: Tell our followers they don't have to think for themselves, we'll make their lives easier by thinking for them. Tell our followers that we have all the answers and that they don't have to worry about all the difficult questions in life. Make up a story about what happens after death and tell our followers that we hold the key to whether they go to a nice place or a horrific one. Tell our followers they are sinners and that we just happen to have the cure for it: morality. Tell our followers they are nothing without our religion. Ask our followers to not worry about any contradictions in what we teach because our god has a plan for everything. Tell our followers to believe things with no evidence, because our god is so powerful and mysterious we couldn't possibly know...