Genuine Religion: Proofs of a Conspiracy pp. 28-30

We left off last week discussing Robison's complaints that irreligion has been infesting Masonry. According to him, this is the source of the rot within Europe as the Masons are extremely influential. They've been pushing liberal ideas concerning religion and new ideas that run in the face of orthodoxy. This is why it is with great confusion that I introduce this week's section. 

Robison ended last week discussing the need for religious instruction as the only means to morality. Religious instruction he writes, "if the public instructors should add all the motives to virtuous moderation which are suggested by the considerations of genuine religion, every advice would have a tenfold influence."

I've underlined the phrase "genuine religion" because Robison is going to, ironically, "no true Scotsman" all religion. I've seen this phrase before though, it appears in various writings from this period but it is only used as an insult to whatever religious doctrine the writer doesn't agree with, even if their target is of the same religion. Robison could use it to describe the irreligion of the Papists, or the Papists toward the Anglicans, a Sunni to a Shia, etc. The point is that there is a true religion, a genuine one that has become corrupted by people and fooled the rest of them into following a religion but not the religion. Robison is doing the same thing here: the new Masons aren't atheists--at the least they are deists--but they are all lacking in moral instruction by the genuine religion. 

This is important because while society creates laws and civic institutions to restrain the impulses of the multitude, the great many are not the only sources of discontent. It is not merely the poor, he claims, that is the source of all the evil of society it is also the rich. They are greedy, they despise those beneath them, and they feel entitled perceiving any inconvenience as a direct attack. I am not in disagreement here. Just look at the current situation in the US...any attempt to make someone like Elon Musk pay more taxes is met with derision and the specter of Communism. One way that the system is able to maintain itself is because roughly half of my country thinks that the class system must be there for a reason. They think that poor people are either too lazy or too stupid to not be poor--and this is from other poor people. How did this get into their heads? Well, socially it would seem that 40 years of indoctrination by political and religious leaders. That's my observation from reading books like this (both past and present). 

So, I'm very confused when Robison spends an entire paragraph discussing how religion has been used by the upper classes to bind the lower classes to their place, "Therefore they encourage superstition, and call to their aid the vices of the priesthood...They are encouraged to the indulgence of the love of influence natural to all men, and they heap terror upon terror, to subdue the minds of men, and darken their understanding." 

What!? Religion makes it easier to subdue the lower classes? I agree, but isn't Robison supposed to be arguing that religion is necessary for the morality of the state? The great Napolean once observed that religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Voltaire penned the line, "those that can make you believe in absurdities and make you commit atrocities;" Diderot said that mankind "will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." In each of these three quotes by famous Frenchmen (well, ok, Napolean was technically French by actually Italian) the idea is the same and reflected by the Robison claim. Religion, especially the Abrahamic ones, are used by those in power to keep the rest of us in our place. Suffering, especially in Christianity, is a virtue--the poor are blessed by their station. 

Now I want to highlight this because the goal of the Illuminati, the actual one, was to divorce religion and the state. Robison does not seem to be disagreeing with the goal, his problem seems to be that people are actually working toward it. Let us remember "genuine religion" though. The problem is that men are men, kings are men, and priests are men; given any kind of power or authority, they will abuse it. Therefore such a powerful tool as religious instruction will always end up where it has ended up--being used by those in charge to stay in charge. The race of men desires, above all else, power...as Galadriel noted, and religion will be used to maintain it. 

The corruption in France, for instance, can be laid at the feet of the divinely appointed Royalty. This is not according to me, but our author. This is because the French didn't follow genuine religion they follow a religion. As France descended further into crisis, the Masonic lodges began distributing opinions dangerous to the establishment and thus became political societies. Which...was bad according to Robison for reasons I'm not following.

The argument that Robison has laid out is: 

1] Religion is a tool for moral instruction

2] That instruction must be run by people (men in his words)

3] The nature of men is that they will abuse such tools for their own ends

4] When tied to the state this tool will lead to oppression

It would seem that the obvious conclusion is that this tool should not be allowed to be used since abuse is the necessary result. When the Masons and the Bavarian Illuminati tried to illuminate people's awareness of this fact Robison claims that they are in a conspiracy to overthrow the world. Perhaps if we all followed genuine religion this wouldn't be the case. The issue with that claim is that we don't know what genuine religion even means. Robison probably means whatever Scottish Christianity he follows but that would inevitably lead to tyranny by his own logic.