If you think the centerpiece of the church's agenda is a bearded God living beyond the Big Bang, you're mistaken. The foundation of every religious cult, whether Christianity or Jainism, as well as every subscription company, is the formula even more important than eternal life, meaning every soul is priceless which, properly translated, means suffering is necessary, and leaving is a moral crime. The genius and cruelty of the system creates an immovable, self-justifying trap. You are in deep shit.
Perseverance is framed as the ultimate moral achievement. This is not about endurance; it is about locking energy where it can be taxed indefinitely. The Church (and similar institutions) does not just tell people to endure, it morally enforces their entrapment. Leaving is treated as betrayal, the sin that outweighs all physical or emotional suffering. The cross, the family, the parish, poverty, the exploitative husband all become chains sanctified as virtue. This is why millions endured decades of misery without revolt. Obedience is the reward for structural impossibility.
The effect scales with deprivation. The poorer you are, the fewer options you have, the longer you are forced to internalize pain. In Bangladesh, in slums, in any environment where exit is literally impossible, moralization becomes the only survival mechanism available. Suffer and persevere becomes both shield and cage. The deeper the poverty, the more absolute the moral claim to stay. Pain is no longer even a signal of a problem; it becomes the proof that you belong where you are.
Notice the double bind here. The system creates suffering, teaches you to endure it, and punishes you morally if you try to escape it. Structural violence is recoded as ethical duty. The Church did not invent poverty, but it perfected the moral leverage of immobility.
The ultimate perversion is not that people suffer but that suffering itself is turned into the reason to remain enslaved. Liberation becomes the sin.
