“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful”
— Seneca —
It is interesting to note that Seneca was a Roman philosopher born the same year as Jesus. Some current day intellectuals doubt the quote above came from him, but others say it is very much in line with his other quotes of the time. Even though Seneca lived during the same period as Jesus, he likely never knew about him and he did not write anything about him.
The last part of the quote is what I want to talk about here. I have said here several times that I think the Christian Church was deeply tarnished by its takeover by the 4th century Roman ruler named Constantine. After overseeing the assembly of the Christian Bible to make sure it was to his liking, he decided to make the Christian religion mandatory for all his kingdom. It is noteworthy that he was only baptized hours before his death and the lived a VERY unchristian life, including killing his son and throwing his wife into boiling water. There is a longer story associated with that, but I won’t talk any more about it here.
What surprised me about all of this is that kidnapping a religion for political purposes was pretty well known as a means of controlling his kingdom even before Constantine.
RJ's Corner 
I agree with Seneca regarding rulers, but I don’t regard religion as being either true or false. It’s a human response to the challenges, the problems, and the opportunities of life.
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I think the true/false is in regard to the Bible, not to a belief in the divine. But, to many, the two are too attached to know the difference.
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Seneca uses the term religion, not Bible. so that is what I responded to. Perhaps he was referring to the Bible, but out of context, that’s not obvious to me.
And of course it’s not just religion that’s kidnapped for political or power mongering purposes. There’s almost as many non-religious as religious people who have swallowed the “trans agenda” conspiracy hook, line and sinker, not to mention the false belief that “support for Palestinians is the same as antisemitism and support for Hamas”. Almost any situation where deep seated opinions exist there’s a good chance someone will try to manipulate differences for their own agenda. The Trump administration is a perfect example in my view.
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Constantine, One empire, one emperor and one god —He used the Nicene council to get rid of Arius, he used brutal military force (killing thousands of people) to get rid of Licinius, all to get political power to unite Rome under ”One empire, one emperor and one god”
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Thanks for the expansion of my thoughts.
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