Excerpt from Welcome to the Machine

Kill Them All, and Let God Sort Them Out (p. 85)

From chapter "Fear"

You may have heard the phrase, “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” Here is where it comes from.

The policy of the Catholic Church has been and continues to be Nulla salus extra ecclesium, which means “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” This statement manifests not only the eradication of diversity that characterizes our culture but also inadvertently suggests the misery our culture leads to: outside this oppressive culture there is no need for salvation. Although this is still Church policy, we can modernize this statement by saying, “Outside Science there is no knowledge,” or “Outside Technology there is no comfort,” or “Outside Capitalism there are no economic transactions,” or “Outside Industrial Civilization there is no humanity,” or right to the point of this book “Outside the Panopticon there is no security.”

When those in power say that outside the Church (or Science, or Technology, or Capitalism, or Civilization, or the Panopticon) there can be no salvation, they are lying. What they are really saying is that you better not escape, because if you are outside of this Church, your continued existence (and happiness) will shake their own belief in the notion that the Church is good for them. Thus the one who can be saved only if you remain in the Church is the Church itself. If you leave, it ceases to be the arbiter of all meaning and the source of salvation. The salvation of the Church requires not only your belief and participation, but if you leave it requires your death, and beyond that, your annihilation. In industry, science, religion, and other institutions, diversity must be eliminated.

Thus the constant violence done by the believers in the Church (Science, Civilization, Capitalism, whatever name the sickness goes by at that moment) against all disbelievers, whether they are indigenous peoples, heretics, or nonhumans.