The quiet rise of Babylon’s whore

The most dangerous voices don’t shout. They whisper comfort and kindness, naming it progress.

I used to look at religion like it was a trick. A weapon dressed in poetry. I saw war, shame, control. I saw people bruised and broken and called it faith. I watched hatred get baptized and called it holy. And I told myself, with a kind of righteous pride, that religion was the problem. That I was above all that.

But life has a way of softening arrogance…