No responsibility
2020 08 07 | journal
"Militant missionary religions can share this illusion of the proud past but few understand the peril to humankind, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions." - God Emperor of Dune
I think that's one of the things that's always bothered me about religions, about participation in any prescriptive action or group, that you ultimately take no responsibility for yourself, you never lean on yourself, you never really stand on your own two feet, you have no real independence or self-reliance. There's always an excuse. Religions make you lazy, dependant, and stupid, as other group memberships do.
Such as, as Herbert says earlier in the book, the "cults of youth and adolescence preserved in the military." By which he means the baser aspects of such, the so-called "boys will be boys" behaviour of adult men who never grow up and place themselves in positions where they don't have to. Our culture - Westernised culture - does not help this, by raising generations of men who are never held accountable for the home, for familial responsibility, for interpersonal emotional burdens. This is changing, but we still have to deal with the aftermath of what came before.
"Religious institutions perpetuate a mortal master-servant relationship. They create an arena which attracts prideful human power-seekers with all of their near-sighted prejudices."
"Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilise by teaching cowardice. You watered down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame."