ARE YOU BEING SAVED FROM THE NECESSITY OF THINKING?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that many religious sects are nothing more than an “elegant incognito to save a man from the necessity of thinking.” Emerson wasn’t right about a lot of things, but I think he was exactly right about this. Religious sects like this can rise up within any religious denomination, and within churches that still retain the legitimate name of “Methodist,” "Presbyterian,” "Baptist" or whatever. Good churches have been and can be transformed into hideous, oppressive, mind-warping sects, usually by ignorant, insecure, egomaniacal, sociopathic types of men who masquerade as pastors.