Religion is bad, M'kay?

[adn]

Why does Square-Enix consistently portray organized religion as evil?

Because for the most part, organized religion IS evil. At best it's a tax evasion scam that milks gullible people for money, at its worst in history it has been used as groundwork for genocide. The benefits of organized religion scarcely outweigh its negatives in most cases. Organized religion has been constantly abused by individuals and organizations throughout history for their own personal gain, to this very day (the GOP). [Please note that I'm not talking about religion in a general sense, only ORGANIZED religion.]

I'm not going to go deep into this but the Japanese have an ENTIRELY different perspective on organized religion than Westerners do, and there is a lot of history and culture you have to understand to see why it's set up as an easy punching bag in Japanese media. Cults are also a big problem in Japan (google Aum Shinrikyo; they're not the only ones, either.)

I mean if you want to get fussy about ideology, the Garleans are basically a caricature of a stereotypical EVIL TOTALITARIAN EMPIRE as well, complete with a hilariously evil looking emperor. What's S-E got against totalitarian regimes with comically evil-looking emperors?