Lady Bird

At any given historical moment, you have powerful institutions, and powerful men and women who want to play roles within them, whether they be Jedi or Sith, whether they seek power to benefit the many or the few, the institutions exist and they need people to fill them up, in times of economic prosperity or depression, they just keep rollin', just keep rollin' on.

If religion dominates a culture, if a country's most powerful institutions are religious, Sith will be attracted to them, and will cunningly take on roles within to deviously feign virtue as they pursue oligarchic ends.

It's much simpler than launching a revolution, much less destructive, more palatable.

Thus it's men and women who pervert religious virtues for their own ends as opposed to those virtues themselves that are inherently corrupt, and if a cold hearted conniving megalomaniac seeks and gains power within a country dominated by religion, his or her tyranny would likely flourish just as it would within a democracy, assuming there were no checks and balances to restrain them, and they couldn't install loyal servants everywhere in a devout bureaucracy.

In a religious society you therefore wind up on occasion with a ruling elite who care nothing about generosity or goodwill, but are more concerned with holding onto the reigns forever, and acquiring as much personal wealth as they can meanwhile.

No matter what needs to be done to acquire it.

There are of course, other religious individuals, good people who recognize the fallibility of humankind and forgive their flocks for embracing desires that they don't encourage themselves but don't furiously condemn either.

They tend to understand that people are trying to live virtuous lives but can easily be swayed by enticing earthly passions, and spend more time trying to find constructive ends for those passions rather than condemning those who gleefully break a rule or two.

Finding religious people like this requires research and critical judgment on behalf of the curious individual, who may find a chill likeminded community if they search for it long enough.

Beware religious institutions who want large cash donations or think the world is going to end on a specific day or that science is evil or that war or racism or homophobia are good things, or that because someone saw a butterfly everyone should invest in bitcoin.

Perhaps consider the ones which argue that people shouldn't be huge assholes all the time and that communities flourish as one using science like a divine environmental conscience.

Or not, it's really up to you.

There can be a ton of associated bullshit.

But if it can stop you from being angry all the time, it may be beneficial.

In Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird, religious youth rebelliously come of age in a small moderately conservative Californian town, awkwardly experimenting with the will to party throughout, reflecting critically on wild behaviours from time to time.

Guilt and gumption argumentatively converse as a passionate mother (Laurie Metcalf as Marion McPherson) and daughter (Saoirse Ronan as Lady Bird) vigorously solemnize independent teenage drama, unacknowledged childlike love haunting their aggrieved disputes, while im/modest matriculations im/materially break away.

It's a lively independent stern yet chill caring depiction of small town struggles and feisty individualities, with multiple characters diversified within, brash innocence spontaneously igniting controversy, wholesome integrities bemusedly embracing conflict.

None of these characters are trying to rule the world, they're just trying to live within it.

Religion provides them with strength, perhaps because they live in region where it doesn't have the upper-hand.

Loved the "eager-football-coach-substituting-for-the-drama-teacher" scenes.

Not-so-subtle subtlety.

Out of sight.