Divide and conquer

I respectfully request that you put on your Imagination Hats, tinfoil hats, or whatever you prefer, and ponder a possibility with me.

Imagine that you feel you were horribly slighted or unfairly treated. For example, let's pretend you've perceived yourself as loyal to the CEO of a company for the last forty years. Now let's say that your hard work helped make the company incredibly profitable. Lastly, let's pretend you were fired suddenly from your job, with all retirement options revoked, for one serious mistake.

Now let's pretend that due to agreements signed during the hiring process, that you have no legal recourse.

What do you do?

Well, first off, no matter how philosophical you are, you're hurt and upset. And you're angry.

Now let's pretend a little more...

Let's say you have the ability to ruin the company, if you so desire. Perhaps you figure that since the company ruined your life, and you are now left with nothing compared to the pride you used to take in your job, you think you might as well take them down. Sure, the company is made up of a lot of 'innocent' people, but hey, you were innocent too, right? Why should you be the only one to suffer?

But just how do you go about ruining the company? Simply burning down some buildings is a bit rash, and after the dust settles, the company may be bruised, but it will still continue. As a matter of fact, it may be even stronger afterwards due to the usual success that follows adversity. Often the sympathy gathered from others observing a disaster is enough to revitalize those who have been severely harmed.

Back to the question. How to permanently ruin the company?

Well, to do damage that can't be recovered from, you have to be subtle, more discreet. You have to 'sneak up' on the company and dismantle it slowly from within, so that when your machinations are finally discovered, it's far too late to stop the overall effect.

That's where the title of this essay comes from. Originally the phrase was 'Divide and Rule,' but 'Divide and Conquer' has become more common. Wikipedia has a relatively brief page here:

Divide and Rule

Wikipedia lists four elements of the sabotaging technique:

  • creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects in order to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign
  • aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign
  • fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers
  • encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political and military spending

Clever, right? Through much less 'violence' than a full-on assault, you achieve even better results. Why do I say better? Because anytime you introduce oppression to a people, you inevitably foster rebellion. But who can organize a rebellion if the people can't even agree on whether or not they're being oppressed? How can they possibly hope to succeed when the very people they need to help achieve the goal are too concerned with their own distrust of each other? United we stand, divided we fall.

So, now you have a strategy. It doesn't even matter if you get caught, because by the time they figure out what you did, the damage would have been done already. And you're so pissed off, you don't mind going down with the ship, so to speak.

So... on to the real purpose of this essay.

Keep those Imagination Hats on, and pull them a little tighter.

Atheists often assume (and some publicly claim) that because God is a figment of the human imagination, and there are so many humans with their own thoughts and points of view, that it only stands to reason that there would be lots of different religions. And among those religions, there are tons of factions and denominations with often contradictory doctrines. After all, they're all just made-up nonsense to make the believers feel better, right?

Atheists also claim that because God is mere myth, then of course, as a corollary, a lesser entity known as The Adversary, or Satan, must certainly be myth as well.

But what if, maybe, possibly... what if God were real, and what if Satan were real as well?

Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if the reason there are so many religions is because that was the intention of The Adversary in the first place?

Okay, take off those Imagination Hats and come back to the real world.

After atheists finish laughing at this essay's rumination, they may be well instructed to dig a bit deeper than their own dogmatic explanations of the universe. Upon closer inspection of the above four listed Divide and Rule techniques, they will find:

  • Arguing about differing doctrines prevents acolytes from uniting as a whole.
  • It's long been known that despite a common human desire for fairness in the world, it's usually those who seek selfish needs first who are the most successful in terms of material wealth.
  • Church leaders' first responsibility tends to be their own congregations, and keeping them safe from 'the others.'
  • One of our most valuable resources is time. Why spend your time in the pursuit of spiritual truth when there is so much entertainment and luxury to enjoy?

Serendipitous coincidence, cheesy analogy, weak metaphor?

You tell me. Your answer will clearly designate your allegiance.