Most people are afraid to critically dissect their religious beliefs because they lack the confidence to trust their own moral judgement. In many cases, it is the very religious beliefs with which these individuals have been indoctrinated since childhood that instills in them a distrust of any intrinsic inner truth. In fact, some religions go as far as to brainwash their adherents into believing that humans are intrinsically evil and bent on moral deviancy and the ways of sin, and so their individual judgement - by definition - cannot be trusted. Once the individual's will to question and challenge has been crushed into feeble submission, then a religious body can perpetrate tyranny over its base with impunity. Great power then flows to the elite who form the religious head who are then free to harness the body to prosecute any agenda that serves their interests. This pattern of abuse can be seen repeated throughout history.