Arbeit Mach Frei is the inscription written above the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp were millions of Jews were reduced to ashes. It means, "work will make you free." Like the Benedictines and other Catholics/Christians, this idea is similar to the concept that "work is prayer," which was an idea used by people like Dr. Rev. Charles Colecock Jones to convince black slaves that they should be happy to submit to their masters. Colecock even wrote a book about it, called "How to Make A Negro Christian," written in 1837, about "the religious instruction of the negro." But he was not the only one selling the idea that slavery was the road to salvation.
Along with other Christian ministers, like Dr Samuel Cartwright and many others, convincing Christians that their toil was simply a tithing that could be depended on to help them reach heaven (even though Protestants insist that people cannot obtain salvation through their own "works" - ironically enough), has allowed Christianity to seduce the religious with the secular religion of the "money lenders" (whose tables Jesus overturned in the temple, if you happen to "believe" in the bible) called Capitalism. And today, the strongest form of that secular religion comes in the form of political Conservationism.
In his 1921 book, A New Christ, Wallace Wattles discussed how Christianity has been used to seduce people into the industrial strength cult of Conservatism that has been used the world over by the pharaohs of finance. But this process has been going on for longer than that, and with the advent of propaganda and advertising (yes, that's redundant, but some people fail to realize this) such mass manipulation has greatly increased. And with it, the willingness of people to treat an economic and political perspective, more and more like a religious devotion.
In the same way that most Christians would never bother reading a book written by an atheist or a Muslim criticizing Christianity, so to would a Conservative never bother to read a book written by a Liberal criticizing Conservatism, or a Free Market Capitalist ever read a book written by a Socialist criticizing Capitalism. Or, if ever they did, it would only be to find errors in the thinking of their opponent so that they could poke holes in their argument. They would never read it, however, in an attempt to actually understand why some people legitimately see their "religion" as the sum of all of the evils it has helped to facilitate, instead of the bastion of virtues the "believer" often insists it really is.
But such is the nature of a confirmation bias that it convinces the "true believer" of any religion that they are only ever drinking "holy wine" divinely fermented and inspired, and that everyone else is drinking grape flavored Kool Aid laced with potassium cyanide and following Jim Jones to their early grave (those poor hapless fools). Ask these "true believers" how they "know" the difference, of course, and they will begin to explain "the mystery of faith," which is simply an infomercial, 2000 years in the making. Drink up and be saved!
Along with other Christian ministers, like Dr Samuel Cartwright and many others, convincing Christians that their toil was simply a tithing that could be depended on to help them reach heaven (even though Protestants insist that people cannot obtain salvation through their own "works" - ironically enough), has allowed Christianity to seduce the religious with the secular religion of the "money lenders" (whose tables Jesus overturned in the temple, if you happen to "believe" in the bible) called Capitalism. And today, the strongest form of that secular religion comes in the form of political Conservationism.
In his 1921 book, A New Christ, Wallace Wattles discussed how Christianity has been used to seduce people into the industrial strength cult of Conservatism that has been used the world over by the pharaohs of finance. But this process has been going on for longer than that, and with the advent of propaganda and advertising (yes, that's redundant, but some people fail to realize this) such mass manipulation has greatly increased. And with it, the willingness of people to treat an economic and political perspective, more and more like a religious devotion.
In the same way that most Christians would never bother reading a book written by an atheist or a Muslim criticizing Christianity, so to would a Conservative never bother to read a book written by a Liberal criticizing Conservatism, or a Free Market Capitalist ever read a book written by a Socialist criticizing Capitalism. Or, if ever they did, it would only be to find errors in the thinking of their opponent so that they could poke holes in their argument. They would never read it, however, in an attempt to actually understand why some people legitimately see their "religion" as the sum of all of the evils it has helped to facilitate, instead of the bastion of virtues the "believer" often insists it really is.
But such is the nature of a confirmation bias that it convinces the "true believer" of any religion that they are only ever drinking "holy wine" divinely fermented and inspired, and that everyone else is drinking grape flavored Kool Aid laced with potassium cyanide and following Jim Jones to their early grave (those poor hapless fools). Ask these "true believers" how they "know" the difference, of course, and they will begin to explain "the mystery of faith," which is simply an infomercial, 2000 years in the making. Drink up and be saved!
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