Essentially, Brihaspati was a rebel. He was against superstition, ritualism, caste, scriptural authority, and Brahminical hegemony. Religion, he said, is an instrument in the hands of the priests to exploit the common person, and god is only the invention of the rich. It is this injustice and oppression that we need to fight in our present lives, instead of condoning matters by believing—as the priests would want us to do—that our miseries are due to deeds done in past lives.
