It’s always been curious to me that many followers of religions (like Christianity) who supposedly profess love, compassion, and various kinds of nonviolent morality, still also often support completely different agendas, up to and including fascism. We see this in some Western countries even today, so it’s surprisingly common. How could that be?

I think this comes down to a combination of factors. For one, there’s the cognitive dissonance. The teachings of the religion by itself are sometimes self-contradictory or simply makes no sense, yet you’re asked to just accept it. Worse, you might have grown up in a community that holds right-wing political values, even though the values of love-focused religions (including Jesus’s teachings) are inherently left-wing (from a modern perspective). Once you’re forced to hold contradictory views, it causes a rift in your thought process, often called “compartmentalization”. That, in turn, makes you fundamentally unable to think rationally about certain things, which, for example, makes you more susceptible to believing bullshit. (Even worse, compartmentalization makes it easier for you when you do become a fascist who’s willing to kill millions of people you don’t like, because when you compartmentalize, it’s still possible for you to think of yourself as a good person who loves your own family and stuff. It’s how you’re able to live with yourself.)

Another factor is what kind of god followers are actually asked to worship. For example, in the USA, they use the term “god-fearing” to mean devout, which is a clear symptom of the problem. If your god was truly good, you shouldn’t fear it. Yet you are expected to love and worship something that you have reason to fear (something which, ordinarily, would be called an abusive relationship).

Which brings us to the next factor: among humans, what kind of person wants to be worshipped? I think we can imagine some, but when we study e.g. the Old Testament, it paints a picture of a god that’s just as moody, petty, violent, and narcissistic as any power-mad human. In this way, the Christian Church actively asks people to embrace something very, very dark, and tells them that this is a condition of God’s light. And if you accept that, then perhaps it’s not such a big leap to also embrace some crazy fascist leader on Earth, too. Even one that, by all accounts, would be better described as an Antichrist.

This darkness is apparent when we ask how these religions became so widespread, anyway? Did people just convert because the new religion made more sense? No, people were usually indoctrinated by force. Followers of the new religions were willing to kill those who would not convert, and actually doing so was considered a great honor. Books were burned, witches and shamans executed. Those were dark times indeed, until the age of science, which finally made it possible to push back.

Now, not all the teachings of Christianity (and related religions) are bad, of course, and not all Christians are bad people. But I personally don’t see a good reason anyone should stick to these religions anyway, because the teachings which are actually good, also exist in other religions. In particular, the old nature religions had more democratic and less violent perspectives, while also having a loving “Great Spirit”. I also know of certain Eastern religions with good teachings, but they tend to be more mysticism-focused and less practical. Thus, if I had to pick a religion (and couldn’t choose “spiritual but not religious”), I’d rather choose the old Sami religion or something. There’s certainly no way I could choose Christianity or anything, because I’m personally not willing to toy with anything that unnecessarily takes you that close to fascism. But that’s just my choice, I suppose.