In Islam, how many Muslims are encouraged to read about Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism or any other religion? None. In fact, it would be dangerous and undesirable since all books about other religions necessarily contradict the Koran. Science and philosophy contradict the Koran, so these too are rejected. Islamic universities are barely worthy of the title since the vast majority do not permit any serious scientific or philosophical study. There are virtually no prominent Islamic philosophers, scientists or mathematicians. It's not because there's any Western conspiracy going on: it's because the "sanctity" of the Koran makes any challenge to it unacceptable and forbidden.
No one in the Islamic world is allowed to publicly express any sentiments or thoughts contrary to the teachings of the Koran. This is complete mind control. To doubt the Koran is to commit a thought crime. To criticise the Koran is to court being executed. And yet Islam regards itself as a "good", enlightened religion. Rather, it is the most frightened religion imaginable. It is terrified of criticism, terrified of doubt, terrified of questions, terrified of new ideas, terrified of modernity. If it could, it would turn the world into the Arabian desert of 1400 years ago and nothing would ever change. Ever. The whole world would be frozen permanently and there would be only one book on earth: the Koran.
The people of present-day Afghanistan don't look as though they are living in the modern world. Women in burqas seem to come from a land that time forgot. You could never look at a woman in a burqa and think you were seeing a healthy vision of humanity's future. You can think only of a sad, grim and terrifying past that you hoped and prayed had been buried long before. But it's still here, and getting bigger. In some places in the world, the shadows are becoming thicker and casting themselves further than ever. In some places, it's as though the Enlightenment never happened.
How can any civilised religion do this to women? Is this liberation? Is this modernity? Is this the future? Or are these people stuck forever in the past? Would any woman who had not been exposed to Islamic beliefs ever of her own volition choose to dress this way? These women have had their identity negated. They are all the same. None of them is an individual. None of them can think for themselves. They are slaves who delude themselves that they are free. In Islam, the testimony of two women is considered the equivalent of that of one man. In other words, women have half the value of men. Judging by the above picture, even that must be debatable: they appear to be assigned no human value at all. And, of course, all Muslim men are entitled to have up to four wives at any one time. (Mohammed himself seems to have had at least 13 wives during his lifetime. Muslim women are only allowed to have one husband at a time.) How can any woman freely choose to remain a Muslim?
If Muslims could get away with it, they would burn every book other than the Koran because that's the only book anyone needs. Islam hates thinking, hates ideas. It's locked for all time into the mindset of the Arabia of Mohammed's lifetime when he conjured the "Word of Allah" into existence.
Islam is about closing your mind to other ideas, shutting down debate, narrowing your view of the world until it consists of only one thing - the Koran. Anyone who follows this formula will be an excellent Muslim and a hopeless and spectacularly ignorant human being. How many Islamic countries are renowned for their intellectual endeavours, for their cutting edge thinking, for their innovative art and technology? None. Thinking and creativity are incompatible with Islam. Progress itself is incompatible. It is unnecessary as far as Islam is concerned. Islam is anti-evolutionary in every sense. It wants the earth of a million years hence to be exactly the same as the earth of now. Because the Koran, supposedly, is never out of date.
Afghanistan physically looks like a nation 1400 years behind the rest of the world. That's what Islam does to a country. Can you imagine a single clever person living in Afghanistan? If you were clever, you would be on the first plane out. Would any clever person want to go there? Afghanistan, through its self-chosen religious beliefs, has turned itself into a wasteland where no clever thing will ever grow. No progress is possible in Afghanistan. It is beyond salvation. It should be allowed to make its way back to the Stone Age where it clearly wants to go, where the teachings of Allah can be most properly experienced. It is madness for the West to intervene in Afghanistan. It is beyond help. Islam has made it so.
Look at Africa. The same thing. In any African country where Islam is predominant, the country is backward and without hope. Islam is the religion of the Dark Ages, the religion of anti-enlightenment. It is one of the greatest of all tragedies of the human race.
The most intelligent people on earth are atheists, agnostics and gnostics while the least intelligent are the followers of the Abrahamic religions (particularly Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity). The more backward and primitive a nation is the more likely it is to turn to the Abrahamic faiths. There are virtually no atheists, agnostics or gnostics in the most stupid nations of the world. There are none in Afghanistan. Faith in Abrahamic religions and intelligence are inversely correlated. A vicious circle is activated. You need intelligence to escape the mind control of the Abrahamic faiths, but if you are under their mind control you will never acquire the necessary intelligence. These faiths have no interest at all in intelligence. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, declared, "Reason is the Devil's whore." That sums up the attitude of the Abrahamic faiths to logic and intelligence.
Muslims rage against the West, but it's their own religion that's their biggest problem. That's the one conclusion they will never reach, of course. It's their religion that holds them back, that prevents them from developing and prospering. Does anyone seriously imagine that the True God desires that people should be stupid fanatics whose entire knowledge of existence resides in a single book composed in the Arabian desert 1400 years ago? Would the True God reward someone who has laboriously memorised the entire contents of this one book until they were word perfect, but didn't know a single thing about anything else?
Islam is beyond the touch of modernity and progress. It is a roadblock to advancement. Anyone who follows this religion has placed themselves outside of the upward rise of humanity. It's a time machine whose purpose is to take you back 1400 years and strand you in the desert.
Who wants to hold humanity back? The Demiurge. Who wants people to be ignorant and close-minded? The Demiurge. Who inspired the writing of the Koran?
If there are any Muslims reading this who profoundly disagree with everything we've said then defend your religion with reasoned arguments. All too often Islam issues crazed fatwas against anyone who dares to disagree with it. What kind of God is afraid of debate? What kind of God is sensitive to criticism? The True God is not a hypersensitive neurotic. But Islam is.
Muslims are secretly ashamed that their nations are so backward. When they finally struck back against the American superpower, what did they do? - they hijacked American planes and used them in suicide missions. How primitive can you get? They had to be sneaky and suicidal. They didn't stand up as men. They can't compete with Western power so they have to resort to the most shameful tactics to try to make an impression. That is the will of Allah.
Suicide bombers were proving quite successful in Israel until Israel built a huge wall and shut them all out. Now that's smart. Why can't Muslims do smart things like that? Why don't Muslims have pilot-less drones similar to the ones the West uses against them? Because they don't have the technology. Why don't they have the technology? Because they don't have any scientists. Why don't they have any scientists? Because science contradicts the Koran, and that is not permitted. Islam cannot compete with the West and the reason it cannot compete is that there is no free-thinking in Islam, no exploration, no innovation, no invention, no new ideas. Everything is sterile and outdated. And the gap can only grow wider.
Muslims will never abandon belief in Allah, not because of the strength of their faith but because of how desperately they cling to their Islamic identity. No one will sacrifice their identity if they are incapable of creating a new one, and all followers of Abrahamic religions are incapable of that. They have been rendered so by the brutal brainwashing and mind control to which they have been subjected by these religions since birth.
A boy born into a Muslim family is circumcised to brand him as a Muslim. He is immediately the victim of Islamic brainwashing. As soon as possible, he will be learning the Koran, praying five times a day, wearing Islamic clothes, going to a mosque and prostrating himself like everyone else around him. He will never be allowed alcohol or drugs, he will not be permitted to have sex outside marriage and he will have to eat halal food and never touch pork because (somehow) that's dirty. The 9/11 suicide killers shaved off all their body hair, ritually washed themselves, recited the Koran and then set out to commit mass murder. They cleansed themselves in order to do the dirtiest work. Perhaps they thought that was logical. The Koran frequently uses the phrase, "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate..." What was merciful or compassionate about the 9/11 suicide/homicide gang? The Abrahamic religions are full of double talk, double dealing and doublethink.
When Christianity wanted to carve out a non-Jewish identity (despite the fact that Jesus Christ was a practising Jew), it had to repudiate Jewish signifiers such as circumcision, the Jewish Sabbath, Jewish dietary laws and kosher food, and Jewish clothes.
Even before a "Christian" baby can speak, it is baptised to mark it as Christian. Not exactly a well-informed, free choice, is it? And Christianity, like Islam, threatens you with hell if you disagree with anything it teaches.
As for Judaism, this is a religion with only a few million adherents. It is an absurd and pointless religion, but it is sustained by the fact that Jews have an exceptionally strong identity forged in adversity. Because of all the persecution they have endured down the ages, each new generation of Jews feels duty-bound to maintain their Jewishness. If they didn't, it would be as if the historical suffering of the Jews was all for nothing. It is not Judaism they are preserving but their identity as Jews, an entirely different thing. If they had the wisdom to create a new, healthy, future-orientated identity for themselves, Judaism would simply fade away into the mists of time where it belongs.
We appeal to all members of all Abrahamic religions to think for yourselves. Make up your own minds. Don't obey pointless rituals just because someone told you to, or because it's written in a book. Study other religions, other ideas, other cultures. Take yourself out of the ghetto. Become part of the human race and not a member of a violent sect. Broaden your horizons. Look to the future, not the past.
Look at the difference between being told to get down on your knees and bow to "God" (to place yourself in a posture of absolute submission) and hearing the good news that you yourself can become God, that you yourself can enter into full union with the divine. Why would you bow down to yourself? In one mindset you are made to be the worthless, grovelling slave of a grotesque tyrant who wallows in blood sacrifice; in the other you are given the maximum possible self-esteem through the knowledge that you contain the divine spark and can be one with God. Which version of religion do you think is healthier for humanity: being a slave of God, or God's equal (in fact being God yourself)?
The Illuminati greatly admire the atheist philosophy of Nietzsche because in his concept of the self-created, self-mastering übermensch (the Superman), brimming with creativity and passion, he comes remarkably close to the central Illuminist doctrine that we can all become God. Better a Nietzschean atheist any day than a slave of the Abrahamic religions.
The biggest question of our time is that of identity. Who should be allowed to shape the identity of a child? Should parents, who are often themselves the victims of brainwashing, have the right to fill their children's minds with poison, junk, division, sectarianism, anti-science and ignorance in the name of some ancient prophet or "holy" text? When are children ever consulted regarding their parents' choices? Shouldn't every child have the right to make up their own mind? Isn't that an absolute right? Doesn't that imply that no one, especially their parents, should be allowed to brainwash them? The state should ensure that every child is presented with all relevant ideas, each given parity of treatment, and the child can then freely decide which ideas appeal to them. The child should not have to fear any retaliation, ill-effects or sanctions if they disagree with their parents.
Religions would fight to the bitter end to prevent such a right for children. Their power comes from brainwashing children from birth and they will never relinquish that power voluntarily.
The state should stand up to mainstream religion for once and put an end to the mind control of vulnerable children. Is there any more heartbreaking sight than a young girl or boy dressed in the clothes of an Orthodox Jew? Such a child is marked out for the rest of its life. It will never be able to integrate with children of other communities. It will be permanently alien, different, other, shunned, ostracised - all because of a choice made for it by its parents who are supposed to love and care for it. Isn't that child abuse? Do parents have the right to destroy their children's future?
Here is the issue. Should you be in charge of your identity, or should your parents or the leaders of your parents' religion have that power? Should you create your own identity, or have it imposed on you by others? The Nietzschean formula of creating yourself is the opposite of what mainstream religion preaches. The Jesuits used to say, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." In other words, if you have the chance to brainwash a child in his most impressionable years, you've got him for life. Therefore, no Jesuits, or anyone else with brainwashing intent (including parents who want to brainwash their children with their beliefs rather than helping them to find their own values in life), should be permitted anywhere near young boys and girls.
Many people write to us to say how unhappy they were with the religious indoctrination they received when they were growing up. Many have fallen out with their families. All of these people should applaud themselves: they had the strength and courage to break out of the box, to forge their own path, to take the Nietzschean route.
Once your identity is set, it is astoundingly difficult to change it. If your identity is set as Islamic, Orthodox Jew or Christian Fundamentalist, the chances of your escaping from that identity are slim.
Muslims can't stand criticism of their religion not because Allah is frightened of debate but because criticism challenges their fragile identity. They are not strong or intelligent enough to create their own identity, so their whole sense of self is invested in what they were brainwashed into believing by their parents. If they turn against their religion, they relinquish their identity, and that would leave them utterly lost, abandoned and in existential despair.
Every Muslim, deep down, knows this is true. But they are trapped. Their identity has been set and they can't escape. There is no mechanism of escape. One must almost admire the brilliant and ruthless brainwashing tactics of religion. They are staggeringly effective. They lock you in for life. They promise you paradise if you obey and eternal punishment if you don't: they maximise the incentive for being a fanatic, and equally the penalty for not being one. This is operant conditioning (using rewards to encourage the desired behaviour and punishments to penalise undesired behaviour) taken to its absolute extreme, turning humans into Pavlovian dogs. You need to be incredibly mentally tough and sure of yourself to be able to swim against that tide.
If Orthodox Jews, extremist Muslims etc could step outside of their existing identity for a day, they would see why they are viewed with such revulsion and horror by most of the world. But these people are incapable of escaping their identity; they will never see themselves through the eyes of others. They will always perceive themselves as victims rather than the authors of their own misfortune because of their exclusive, isolationist, fanatical behaviour. They never blame themselves. They never blame their religion. They never blame their God. But why not? Shouldn't Yahweh be blamed for all of the misfortunes of the Jews? Shouldn't Allah be blamed for all of the misfortunes of the Muslims? After all, it's the will of Allah that Muslim nations are far behind Western nations. Shouldn't that be a sign to Muslims that they have incurred Allah's displeasure by following Islam and that they will find favour with Allah if they follow a different religion? But they never think that way. They always conclude that they must redouble their faith in Islam, become even more extreme and fanatical to win their god's favour.
People cling to absurd beliefs because they have nowhere else to go. Better to believe in nonsense that gives you an identity than to lose your identity and have nothing.
Other Identities
Religion is not the only force that shapes identity. Nationalism/patriotism, bowing to the flag and putting your hand over your heart while you sing the national anthem, the glorification of your national history, is all about forcing a particular identity upon you. Us and Them.
America excels at creating national identity. You will find Irish Americans, African Americans, Polish Americans, Italian Americans, Chinese Americans etc. They are all different types of American. In a country such as Britain, people of Hindu, Islamic or Sikh ancestry typically refer to themselves as British Asians, not as Asian Britons. An Irish American is an American with Irish ancestry i.e. the American part of the equation is paramount. A British Muslim is a Muslim of the type that lives in Britain i.e. the Muslim part of the equation is paramount, not the British part. Religion trumps nationalism. Britain has no national identity.
Facebook is increasingly instrumental in shaping identities, but what kind of identities are these? Facebook is about social conformity. There are no real individuals on Facebook. It is not an environment for "characters".
The propaganda of "freedom", "democracy", "free market capitalism", "choice" is another route to creating identity. You are brainwashed into thinking that your political leaders are on your side, that the rich deserve to be rich, that markets will solve every problem, that there is no alternative to the form of government imposed on you.
The whole world could be changed in just one generation if parents were prevented from brainwashing their children. The caste system of India would collapse; the Abrahamic religions would collapse; racism, sexism and nationalism would collapse.
To have a New World Order all that is needed is to give children the right not to be brainwashed. How could anyone object to that?
The fall of the Berlin Wall was an astonishing event because overnight it destroyed the Communist identity. Now we need another wall to fall: Wall Street. If Wall Street were closed it would signify the end of free markets and unregulated, unconstrained capitalism. But who has the guts to close it?
And the Abrahamic religious Wall that divides the "Holy Land" must fall too. When it does, the wicked age of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed will finally be over. The world can then look forward to a new era free of the Demiurge.
We applaud the Green Revolution in Iran where young Muslims are taking the first steps towards freedom. The internet is opening their eyes to the world. They are starting to discover a new identity.
Nothing is more important than identity. It determines everything you do. Heraclitus said, "Character is fate," but it's even truer that identity is fate. If you are given an Islamic, Orthodox Jewish, Fundamentalist Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Hindu identity, your course in life is largely set. Hinduism inflicts the catastrophe of the caste system on you. If you're unfortunate enough to be given the identity of an "untouchable", your life is over before it has even begun. In Britain, there was a recent story of an "untouchable" woman working in a shop. A woman of high caste came into the shop, bought something then refused to accept the few coins in change because it would bring her into physical contact with the untouchable, making her "dirty" and impure. Should Britain, an advanced country, allow this kind of discrimination to exist? Why doesn't Britain remove this "caste" identity from Hindus living in Britain? Those who don't like such a policy are welcome to leave.
A female Muslim teacher in Britain was dressed in the long black robes of fundamentalist Islam while she was teaching a group of children of all faiths. Is this acceptable? When a male teacher entered the class, the Muslim female refused to shake his hand (because fundamentalist Islam forbids it) and immediately put on a face veil so that only her eyes were visible (the implication being that the male teacher was an uncontrollably lustful monster who wouldn't be able to take his eyes off her face). Why should anyone in Britain tolerate this? If that female Muslim teacher wants to behave that way, shouldn't she be invited to go and teach in a Muslim country and be banned from teaching in any British school?
In Northern Ireland, the very wealthy wife of Northern Ireland's "First Minister" went on a radio show and condemned homosexuality as an "abomination", citing the Book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus also condemns adultery and this woman was recently exposed as having had an affair with a 19-yr-old boy when she was 59. She also arranged for two businessmen to give him £50,000 to set him up in business. The hypocrisy of this person - a fundamentalist Protestant Christian - is nauseating. She has now suffered a complete mental breakdown. That's what happens to you when your hypocrisy catches up with you.
In the Tsunami of 2004, a Buddhist woman lost two children in the disaster. She was asked what she felt about it and she said they must have been very bad in a previous life. What kind of ideology makes a mother regard her two innocent children as monsters? It's unacceptable.
A Sikh man in Britain was recently complaining about religious discrimination because a Sikh boy was prevented from entering a classroom with a five-inch knife known as a kirpan (which Sikh males are always supposed to carry for some bizarre reason). Britain is in the midst of an epidemic of knife killings and is clamping down on anyone carrying a knife. Why should Britain make any concessions to Sikhs? If they don't like it, why don't the Sikhs leave?
All over Britain, there are small communities of Orthodox Jews who cut themselves off as much as possible from all non-Jews. Is this acceptable in Britain? Why aren't such people invited to leave?
A tolerant people can be tolerant of everything bar one thing - intolerance, and towards intolerance the tolerant must adopt absolute intolerance, for to tolerate intolerance is to accept intolerance and thus negate any meaningful claim to being tolerant. Tolerance cannot co-exist with intolerance. It must eradicate it. In the name of tolerance, all intolerant aspects of all religions must be anathematised and abolished by any advanced, tolerant nation. The toleration of intolerance simply leads to more intolerance.
Class Identity
Another major force in shaping your identity is what class you belong to. The Western class system resembles the Hindu caste system. If you belong to the "underclass", just as if you were an "untouchable", forget it. You are going nowhere in life. If you belong to the Power Elite, you've got it made. You can look forward to a life of luxury and power. The "only" problem you have is that you will never achieve enlightenment because you will be so corrupted by the pleasures and vanities of the world.
The identity conferred upon the members of the Power Elite is that they are the rightful masters, the chosen ones, the elect, the saved, those favoured by God. They have the divine right to rule others. They are brimming with confidence. Every door opens for them. They pass through life effortlessly, without any of the struggles and setbacks that afflict others.
If you are not part of the Power Elite, your identity is that you are here to serve them, to respect your betters, to know your place, cause no trouble, to accept your lot in life, to go to work as a drone of the Elite and never complain.
It is common for people to be intimidated by another's identity, especially if they recognise that the other is of higher caste, a member of the privileged elite. They instinctively defer to them...unless they are someone like Diogenes the Cynic who couldn't have cared less about status.
A famous story is told about an encounter between Alexander the Great and Diogenes. Alexander stood opposite Diogenes and said, "I am Alexander the Great."
"And I, " said he, "am Diogenes the Cynic."
Alexander asked, "Are you not afraid of me?"
"Why, what are you, " said Diogenes, "a good thing or a bad?"
Alexander replied, "A good thing."
"Who, then, is afraid of the good?" Diogenes said.
Alexander said, "Ask of me any boon you like." To which Diogenes replied, "Stand out of my light."
Alexander said, "Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes."
We should all be like Diogenes. We should never be intimidated by another's identity.
So, if your identity is so decisive in shaping the type of life you lead, shouldn't you be the one who is allowed to choose it? Isn't it your fundamental right, perhaps the most fundamental right of all? Shouldn't it be the function of the state to ensure that you are able to make a free choice without any interference from your parents, religion, community or government? It should be determined by your own psychology, your own thoughts, your own personal preferences.
Identity Conflict
Muslims living in the West suffer a profound conflict between their identity as people living and working in Western nations (which have completely different values from Islam), and their Islamic identity. The two identities are mutually exclusive. You can't ride both horses. This tension invariably leads to extreme behaviour in certain people. Those who feel most tempted by Western values are often those who become the most fanatical Muslims. It's as though they're trying to cut out that other part of themselves that is attracted to the West. It's an alien identity that's threatening to engulf their Muslim identity, so they have to eradicate it or all is lost.
Look at the chilling example of Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit Christmas Bomber. His father was a former economics minister of Nigeria and a retired chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria. Abdulmutallab attended one of Britain's elite universities and lived in a luxury apartment in London. He had the world at his feet…if he were comfortable with a Western identity. But he wasn't. His Islamic identity was much stronger. Abdulmutallab was racked with guilt about his lustful thoughts. He talked of touching himself inappropriately, of sometimes failing to avert his eyes when an attractive girl walked past, of having impure thoughts. He was consumed with desire for sex, but his Islamic identity forbade it. So he became suicidally crazy. To be as blunt as possible about it, if Abdulmutallab had enjoyed a good, healthy FUCK, he would never have become a would-be suicide bomber. He was trying to channel his lust into something higher - martyrdom. Lust is a lot healthier than martyrdom, Abdulmutallab.
Jihad is about struggle. The struggle can be external ("holy war") or internal (spiritual struggle). Identity conflict makes it much more likely that jihad will express itself externally rather than internally.
Identity conflicts are always bad news for the individuals involved and for society. Much of Islamic terrorism is a product of a fatal identity conflict between Islamic and Western values.
Nothing is more important than identity, so the function of the state should be to ensure that everyone has a healthy, self-chosen identity that fits who they are and doesn't lead to unbearable tensions, neuroses and psychoses. Most mental illness is a product of damage to identity, failure to carve out a strong identity, or failure to embrace the identity that has been imposed on you.
The state should pay particular attention to identity conflicts because, one way or another, these lead to trouble. But the state always turns a blind eye.
A technical expert might be promoted to a management role, but his new managerial identity is completely different from his previous identity as a technical guru. Many promotions go wrong because an employee is taken away from an identity that suits him to one that doesn't.
Some people are natural managers: they easily fit that identity. Others (most managers) do not have any charisma, wisdom or natural authority. They are not respected by their teams. Conflict erupts. People get fired. The world is full of people with constructed identities, conferred on them by a hierarchy, but which simply do not fit them. Unhappiness and conflict is the result.
Nothing is worse than to have a fake identity, an identity constructed for you by others, an identity that simply doesn't fit you.
Make your own choices in life. Do not submit to anyone else. Do not submit to religion or "God". Have dignity, self-respect, strength and the courage to create yourself.
Are you human or a slave? Do you seriously imagine that the True God wants you bowing down to him, prostrating yourself before him, too scared to raise your head? What do you think he is? A monster? Get off your knees. Stand up. Be a human being.
You have to be comfortable in your own skin, to feel that you are fulfilling yourself, being all you can be, or at least having the chance to give it your very best shot.
Sikhism
"A Sikh is any woman or man whose faith consists of belief in one God, the ten Gurus, the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib and of the ten Gurus, who has faith in the amrit of the tenth Guru, and who adheres to no other religion."
Rahit Maryada
"Sikh" means a learner or disciple. Sikhism is a case study in how a relatively new religion seeks to control identity. Guru Nanak Dev founded Sikhism in Punjab in India in the fifteenth century. Nanak Dev was brought up as Hindu and was appalled by the ongoing conflict between Islam and Hinduism (which continues to this day). Sikhism was basically a well-meant attempt to reconcile the two opposing religions. It emphasises one God (as Islam does), but it retains the Hindu elements of maya, reincarnation, karma, samsara and moksha (mukti in Punjabi), while abandoning the Hindu caste system. The Guru presumably thought he had found a basis to bring the two religions together and end the conflict. He failed.
But look at how he imposed the Sikh identity on his followers. All Sikh males are expected to wear a turban and abide by the five outward signs required of a Sikh, the so-called five Ks: kesh (uncut hair), kangha (comb), kirpan (sword), kachh (cotton breeches) and kara (iron bangle). Sikhs, with their turbans and beards, are amongst the most instantly recognisable people in the world. But why can't Sikhs choose their own appearance? Why don't they reject the turban and the beard and all the rest of it? Why do they go along with this nonsense?
Because Guru Nanak Dev is controlling their identity from the grave. The True God has no interest whatever in what people wear, so why are so many religions obsessed with appearance, with specific clothes such as turbans and burqas and tassels and skullcaps? Because appearance is a main determinant of identity. By controlling appearance, a "prophet" puts a brand on his tribe; he divides them from others, raises barriers between them and others, causes conflict between them and others. This is all ideal for locking people into a particular identity. If Sikhs stopped wearing turbans and beards, Sikhism would be dead in a generation. If every Muslim woman wore Western clothes, Islam would be dead in a generation. If all Orthodox Jews wore regular Western clothes, Orthodox Judaism would be dead in a generation.
So, any state that wishes to free the people of the malignant identities that mainstream religions impose on people simply has to ban all religious signifiers and identifiers. But what state would be brave enough to do that?
Any religion that demands control of your appearance is evil and all decent people should reject such religions. Your appearance is for you to decide, not some long dead prophet.
Wake up! Don't let them control you. Don't let them impose an identity on you. Don't obey them. Never submit to a prophet, a holy book or a god. Think for yourself. Wear what you like. Eat what you like. Pray when you like. Don't you want to be free rather than a slave? Create your own identity. Create yourself. Because only those who do can become God. Nietzsche, an atheist, came far closer to the True God than any follower of any mainstream religion.
Read Nietzsche. Reject all mainstream religions. Your objective is not to worship God, but to become God. Only God has all the answers to the mysteries of life. Therefore if you truly seek those answers then you are seeking the ultimate secret: how to transform yourself into God. The Philosopher's Stone and the Holy Grail - it is precisely with this quest that these are intimately involved. That is why they have supreme spiritual power, why they command such enduring fascination.
Other Religions
How many people of any religious allegiance have a) a detailed understanding of their own religion and b) any sort of understanding of all the other religions of the world? How can anyone fully commit themselves to one religion without knowing anything about the others? Isn't that crazy? If the fate of your soul is at stake, with eternal punishment as the possible penalty for getting it wrong, shouldn't you at least put in some effort to making sure you belong to the right religion? Why assume that your parents raised you in the correct religion? Virtually all Jews, Muslims, Christians etcetera are completely clueless about other religions, so how come they place so much faith in their own religion when they have such a lack of inclination to study other religions, and complete ignorance of other religions? (They barely even know much about their own religion.) It's because they have been brainwashed. It's because their identity has been fully invested in this religion of theirs. People follow the path of least resistance. They even allow their identity to be shaped by others, such is their laziness and apathy.
Here is a good summary and comparison of the world's main religions:
http://www.religionfacts.com/big_religion_chart.htm
A dangerous religious extremist is someone who blindly follows one of the religions on this list while knowing next to nothing about the others. Isn't that almost all religious believers?
The state can curb religious extremism by the simple expedient of ensuring that all religions, as well as atheism and agnosticism, are taught to all children. Then children can make a free choice of which they prefer.
Can anyone but a fanatic say that is not reasonable?
The Family
Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing believed that society, and particularly the family, could induce madness in people. In a famous experiment, he removed a group of mentally disturbed people from all contact with their families. Their symptoms dramatically improved and they were deemed "cured". As soon as they returned to the family environment, their psychosis erupted again.
Within the family context, an identity had been imposed on these people with which they were deeply uncomfortable. It wasn't them, but they couldn't escape from it unless they escaped from the family.
Families are rife with psychological stresses and strains. There are well-known phenomena such as oldest child syndrome, middle child syndrome, youngest child syndrome, only child syndrome, identical twin syndrome and twin syndrome. The dynamic of a family with only male progeny (a sea of testosterone) is completely different from one with only female progeny (a sea of oestrogen). Every family is dysfunctional in one way or another. A community is big enough to smooth out this dysfunction; a family never is.
The family - the basic unit of every society on earth, society's most scared cow - is invariably toxic. There is no perfect family. It's simply not possible. A "successful" family is one that manages to contain the degree of dysfunction to a manageable level.
Not only do individuals and nations have a "shadow", so do families, and the dark contents are continually being drip-fed into the family home and the family members. No one escapes.
The ordinary urban home breeds neuroses and sometimes psychoses, yet this is the crucible in which the self is forged. Is that healthy?
The poet Philip Larkin, in his bleak poem This Be The Verse, expressed the inherent dangers of family life:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
*****
Society needs a whole new approach to family. The family cannot be allowed to be a swamp of dysfunction, breeding damaged, disturbed human beings with a warped sense of identity.
Obama, during his election campaign, never stopped talking about "change". Yet he hasn't and won't deliver any real change. He doesn't understand what change actually is. You don't change society by tinkering with taxation policy, by juggling budgets, by spending a little more here and a little less there, by making speeches that are never acted upon. There is only one way to change society - by changing people. You change people through family, education and the eradication of mind control from whatever source. You change people by replacing unhealthy identities (imposed on them) with identities tailored for them (chosen by them). Psychology is the key. Never in the history of the world has psychology been applied to an entire nation to understand each and every citizen, to direct them into areas where they will prosper and away from those where they will fail, to cultivate everyone as a unique and valuable individual.
World-Historical Figures
Hegel said:
"These contingencies realise themselves in History: they involve a general principle of a different order from that on which depends the permanence of a people or a State. This principle is an essential phase in the development of the creating Idea, of Truth striving and urging towards [consciousness of] itself. Historical men — World-Historical Individuals — are those in whose aims such a general principle lies.
"Caesar, in danger of losing a position, not perhaps at that time of superiority, yet at least of equality with the others who were at the head of the State, and of succumbing to those who were just on the point of becoming his enemies, — belongs essentially to this category. These enemies — who were at the same time pursuing their personal aims — had the form of the constitution, and the power conferred by an appearance of justice, on their side. Caesar was contending for the maintenance of his position, honour, and safety; and, since the power of his opponents included the sovereignty over the provinces of the Roman Empire, his victory secured for him the conquest of that entire Empire: and he thus became — though leaving the form of the constitution — the Autocrat of the State. That which secured for him the execution of a design, which in the first instance was of negative import — the Autocracy of Rome, — was, however, at the same time an independently necessary feature in the history of Rome and of the world. It was not, then, his private gain merely, but an unconscious impulse that occasioned the accomplishment of that for which the time was ripe. Such are all great historical men — whose own particular aims involve those large issues which are the will of the World-Spirit. They may be called Heroes, inasmuch as they have derived their purposes and their vocation, not from the calm, regular course of things, sanctioned by the existing order; but from a concealed fount — one which has not attained to phenomenal, present existence, — from that inner Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which, impinging on the outer world as on a shell, bursts it in pieces, because it is another kernel than that which belonged to the shell in question. They are men, therefore, who appear to draw the impulse of their life from themselves; and whose deeds have produced a condition of things and a complex of historical relations which appear to be only their interest, and their work.
"Such individuals had no consciousness of the general Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting those aims of theirs; on the contrary, they were practical, political men. But at the same time they were thinking men, who had an insight into the requirements of the time — what was ripe for development. This was the very Truth for their age, for their world; the species next in order, so to speak, and which was already formed in the womb of time. It was theirs to know this nascent principle; the necessary, directly sequent step in progress, which their world was to take; to make this their aim, and to expend their energy in promoting it. World-historical men — the Heroes of an epoch — must, therefore, be recognised as its clear-sighted ones; their deeds, their words are the best of that time. Great men have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not others. Whatever prudent designs and counsels they might have learned from others, would be the more limited and inconsistent features in their career; for it was they who best understood affairs; from whom others learned, and approved, or at least acquiesced in their policy. For that Spirit which had taken this fresh step in history is the inmost soul of all individuals; but in a state of unconsciousness which the great men in question aroused. Their fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders; for they feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied. If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, — we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but their master-passion. When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar; transported to St. Helena., like Napoleon. This fearful consolation — that historical men have not enjoyed what is called happiness, and of which only private life (and this may be passed under very various external circumstances) is capable, — this consolation those may draw from history, who stand in need of it; and it is craved by Envy — vexed at what is great and transcendent, — striving, therefore, to depreciate it, and to find some flaw in it. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones; in consideration of which the possession of a throne is tolerated, and men acquiesce in the fact that not themselves but the personages in question are its occupants. The Free Man, we may observe, is not envious, but gladly recognises what is great and exalted, and rejoices that it exists.
"A World-historical individual is not so unwise as to indulge a variety of wishes to divide his regards. He is devoted to the One Aim, regardless of all else. It is even possible that such men may treat other great, even sacred interests, inconsiderately; conduct which is indeed obnoxious to moral reprehension. But so mighty a form must trample down many an innocent flower — crush to pieces many an object in its path." 
