Suckers and Clever People

It really amazes me that so many people invest so much of their thoughts and money into fairy tales. I know it really shouldn't, because people are very easily manipulated. I just hang my head in sorrow that most of the people I know are still incapable of seeing that there are explanations based in science that cover a good deal of the mysteries of the universe, and some deity didn't do it. We have been searching for the answers since humans were capable of thinking about things beyond just survival. Early man didn't have the tools to test the world around him, so a lot was chalked up to spirits or gods, and the rituals to appease these entities came with it. However, we have been improving upon the knowledge that started with primitive humanity, explaining the things which were inexplicable previously, and proving the natural causes of things once thought to be magical.

To me, it seems like a great many years ago in almost every tribe around the world, there was a conniving individual who didn't want to work like the rest of the tribe yet wanted to reap the benefits of the work itself. This individual claimed to know things that explained what the rest could not, and made up these mystical forces which only he/she knew how to appease. This individual would tell the tribe what it needed to give in order to keep these forces happy with the tribe, and that would end up being this individual's cut for being the conduit between the tribe and the mystical. Knowing that the mystical was really imagined, the swindler could enjoy the fruits of its tribe's labor and never have to lift a finger to actually gather any resources or defend the tribe from attack.

Now, this is just my opinion on how the whole religion thing got started, but that's because I'm basing my idea on the people who run churches now. All swindlers who live fat off the toils of those who work hard to eek out a meager existence themselves. I could be making a faulty parallel, but I know that people are pretty much the same as they have always been. Easily manipulated people get preyed on by those who think they are clever, and the clever ones either get enough suckers to sustain their scams or they fail and get replaced by another. History is rife with stories of clever people and suckers, with leaders and followers.

This is really how I see humanity, and I sigh when I look around. We start with the same ability to learn about the world, to become clever, to lead instead of follow. Somewhere along the way, though, most just stop trying to be great and allow others to propagandize them into submission. Religion, politics, and other traditions cause us to be lulled into a state of apathy, where the leaders think they're clever enough to keep screwing us, and all of us that are forced to follow just lay back and allow it to happen because the majority of us are the very suckers that believe the lies that are disseminated from them.

How do we fix it? How do we, the majority, the followers, change the way our leaders rule? How do we get the suckers to realize they're being screwed, and ally them to the betterment of the one world/life that we have?

Those are the big questions, and the answers aren't easily found. I have some thoughts on the matter, but they're unrealistic, because of paradigm shift necessary is beyond the grasp of a great portion of humanity due to the petty nature of all people (myself included). I would like to see the answers you come up with, and let's try to make the viable ones reality.