God, Lies, and Billions: How Religion Became the World's Most Protected Crime Syndicate

 

God, Lies, and Billions: How Religion Became the World's Most Protected Crime Syndicate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH2OaZeBODI&t=97s

Hindi Version: https://rakeshinsightfulgaze.blogspot.com/2025/09/blog-post_13.html

There’s something profoundly broken when a religious institution spends billions, yes, billions, settling sexual abuse lawsuits instead of preventing the abuse in the first place. This isn’t a dark chapter in a long history. It’s the recurring plot.

Let’s be clear: priests abusing children isn’t a one-off scandal, it’s a systemic rot. When you need legal teams larger than congregations just to keep predator clergy out of prison, your religion isn’t under attack. It's under indictment.

And that’s just one side of the sacred coin.

In parts of South Asia, young girls are donated to temples under the guise of religious devotion. Families hand over their daughters, believing they are serving God. In reality, these girls are often trapped in cycles of exploitation and abuse, hidden behind the shield of “tradition.” This is not faith. This is organized abuse, ritualized and normalized.

Across the globe, we've seen terror justified by theology. Suicide bombers promised divine rewards. Militias slaughtering civilians in the name of some higher power. Entire genocides carried out under religious banners. From Bosnia to Myanmar, from ISIS to the Inquisition, religion has been used not as a path to peace, but a license to kill.

And still, we hesitate to confront it.

Why? Because religion sells hope. It packages dreams. It promises meaning, justice, paradise. Every religion markets its own brand of salvation. Some offer eternal bliss. Others promise rebirth. A few go so far as to dangle 72 virgins in the afterlife, effectively turning martyrdom into a perverse loyalty program.

Politicians know all this. That’s why they don’t touch it they exploit it.

In the 1980s, terrorism erupted in Punjab under the pretense of creating a holy land. Behind the spiritual slogans, horrifying crimes unfolded. Young girls were kidnapped and raped inside the most sacred Sikh shrine by “holy warriors.” These same militants stockpiled weapons inside the Golden Temple one of the most sacred places in Sikhism. The result? Operation Blue Star. A military operation that no one wants to talk about honestly because it exposes just how deep religious extremism had corrupted the narrative.

And now, the very same forces are reviving that rhetoric from Canada, Australia, and Europe spreading separatist propaganda under the same religious banner. What are the so-called defenders of democracy in the West doing? Absolutely nothing. They’re giving space, legitimacy, and silence to groups that have long abandoned peace in favor of political fire.

And still, this isn’t just history. It’s happening now.

These religious entities are thriving not because of faith, but because of money. Stolen public wealth, handed over to billionaire cronies, who fund temples, religious media, hate campaigns, and digital armies. This is a global playbook: used in the Middle East, refined in South Asia, now going worldwide. It's not spirituality. It's state-sponsored belief warfare.

And finally, we arrive at the present.

This Holi, a BJP spokesperson on national TV declared that Sanatan Dharma is the only religion on Earth where we can put life into a stone. Yes, you read that correctly. That’s not a WhatsApp forward. That’s the official message being pushed by the ruling party of the world’s largest democracy. In response, an opposition spokesperson from the Samajwadi Party rightly asked: Can you also put life into a dead soldier? But logic, clearly, is no longer welcome on the debate stage.

We have now crossed a new line where the absurd is not only accepted but proudly weaponized. Where religious fantasy is projected as national identity. Where the ruling government rides on gods carved from stone, while real citizens suffer in silence.

There is nothing sacred about this. It is not faith. It is fantasy-as-policy, superstition-as-strategy, religion-as-control.

This isn’t about mocking belief. It’s about asking: Who benefits from these beliefs? Who profits from the pain? Who gets protected while victims are silenced?

Religious freedom should never mean freedom from accountability. No institution, no matter how sacred, should be allowed to operate above the law, beyond scrutiny, or behind a veil of divine authority.

It’s time we stop being afraid to ask the hard questions. It’s time we separate belief from blind obedience.
And it's long past time we hold religion to the same standard we demand from every other powerful institution: truth, transparency, and justice.