The Contradictions of Organized Religion

This post was inspired by a recent play-through of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and contains spoilers to the game.

In addition to the main plot, Three Houses contains a lot of subtle side-stories and hidden lore that players discover as they explore the monastery. For example, the game strongly hints that the official history of the Church of Seiros is a fabrication used to obfuscate the real history of Lady Rhea the archbishop.

Lady Rhea doesn’t just venerate Saint Seiros (pictured above); she is Saint Seiros disguised for countless eons. The game, especially in the Silver Snow route, also reveals her divine dragon ancestry, the real source of the holy relics (remains of her siblings), and hints that other saints, namely Seteth (Saint Cichol) and Flayn (Saint Cethleann) are still alive after all these centuries, hiding their identities even as they manage the church.

Rhea/Seiros fears a repeat of a terrible massacre of her loved ones by humans centuries ago. Thus, she uses the Church to keep the peace, obfuscate the past with false narratives, suppress dissent, manipulate the governments of Fódlan, and (in a less cynical sense) gives the masses something positive to believe in: the goddess Sothis, her mother.

Rhea’s actions, like Lady Edelgard‘s, are morally grey in that they are driven by sincere desires to address the evils of society, but through questionable means.¹ Good intentions lead to controversial decisions that nevertheless become church canon over the centuries.

It’s not hard to see the relevance of this toward real-world organized religions. 

Organized religion is not, of course, being manipulated by divine dragon beings (presumably). However, seeing as how church official history can obfuscate unpleasant aspects of the past, one can’t help but wonder how many such inconvenient truths that we’ll never know about have been smoothed over and polished for the sake of unity and peace.

Further, is an inconvenient truth better than a convenient lie? This answer isn’t so easy.

This is where the inherent contradictions of organized religion come into play: humans tend to manipulate and corrupt religious teachings in order to further an agenda, often with well-meaning (or at least benign) intentions. And yet, in spite of this cynical view, organized religion is necessary to preserve and carry on teachings across generations. Thus, followers often have to make the best of an awkward situation.

Everyone in their own personal religious path has to try to resolve these contradictions and try to put teachings into practice as best they can. Or, like Edelgard, throw them out completely and expose the hypocrisy. This latter choice entails conflict, and worse: the risk of simply replacing one convenient lie with another more suited to one’s preferences if they are not careful.

Anyone who says religion is easy is either wrong or trying to sell you something.

¹ Further in Three Houses, Rhea and Edelgard’s intentions are irreconcilable, mutually exclusive, and in the end one of them must destroy the other, hence the tragedy of the whole story.