If you go back in history there has always been a power elite over the people , kings , queens , emperors , dictators, politicians , religious authorities .They think they are better than the people and the people are only there to serve them keeping them in a life style of privileges . In Jesus day it was the Jewish priests who were the only ones who could absolve people of their sins and how did they do that ? By the killing of animals in the temples ? I have read the history of that very shocking animals were lined up and one right after another had their throats cut and of course the other animals could hear their cries so they were terrified also crying out . Could you imagine the stench of all these animals being slaughtered with blood running everywhere that they thought this could please the Creator ? It satisfied their false god the one of anger , revenge, eye for a eye . Thats why Jesus Christ came to set the captives free Jesus taught peace about a loving God that , "The kingdom of God was within you " Luke 17:21 you didn't need a outside authority to stand between you and your God .When Jesus started gathering more and more followers having thousands at the gatherings he became a threat to their power .They had him crucified Jesus lived his message "Resist not evil " and by letting himself be killed he brought forth the judgment of this entire false hierarchy . It was latter inserted into Christianity that Jesus death " Washed away all sin" that was to get the Jews to join the Christian movement who believed in animal sacrifice that was their concept . As if a loving God could ever demand a blood ransom of his son . Then latter you had the leaders of the Catholic Church who taught " they " had the power to send people to heaven or to a fiery hell. What a way to control people by fear . Of course they did ruling the world for 1700 years. Also acquiring a mass fortune by teaching they could absolve people of their life of sin if only they gave over all their property to the church thats why the church today is the largest land owner in Europe . In modern times we saw with Stalin who killed 21 million people with his regime of terror. He would have whole families rounded up in the early mornings and taken away to his concentration camps for no reason , but to control the population through his " Red Terror " not knowing when they would be next in line . Of course Mao did the same thing even on a larger scale killing 71 million people .The power elites always find some way to instill fear in the population to control them. Its a lot harder in a democratic nations , but they still do it . After 9/11 they the politicians used fear to take away people rights with the spying on all citizens . They always use their owned media to drum up fear of some calamity where the world is going to end as we know it and of course they have the solution just had over your rights, power, money to them and they will fix it .