I won't respond to (ii) its not my argument to make.
With regards to (i) you misunderstand me a little, but that has a lot to do with what I use the word religion to mean. There are people with the christian faith and people who subscribe to a christian religion and they not always the same thing. A religion is the organisations, the rules and the rituals designed and created to bring about social control. As history is shown social control isn't always used for good either. The problem is religions dilute faith, they take it and clarify it as it suits them, and what is remembered is the clarification not the situation that the clarification involved in. In the same way they those that make up the heads of the religion use it to enforce certain, often necessary, rules and ideals but those very ideas become part of the religion and why they were introduced is forgotten. Take kosha (sp?) the Jewish religion insists that you may only eat certain things, 5000 years ago it made sense some things were not safe to eat (pork couldn't be kept in any way), nowadays theres no reason for it, but its part of the religion so people do it.
My personality is such can not feel comfortable joining a religion unless I agree with everything it stands for.
To take the pub analogy, if you choose a pub, you can drink however much or little you want of what they provide , only when they are open . The pub of course isn't a great anology and I see the point you were trying to make. I just tried to clarify what I mean when I say religion.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Two things
Date: 2004-01-22 07:35 am (UTC)With regards to (i) you misunderstand me a little, but that has a lot to do with what I use the word religion to mean. There are people with the christian faith and people who subscribe to a christian religion and they not always the same thing. A religion is the organisations, the rules and the rituals designed and created to bring about social control. As history is shown social control isn't always used for good either. The problem is religions dilute faith, they take it and clarify it as it suits them, and what is remembered is the clarification not the situation that the clarification involved in. In the same way they those that make up the heads of the religion use it to enforce certain, often necessary, rules and ideals but those very ideas become part of the religion and why they were introduced is forgotten. Take kosha (sp?) the Jewish religion insists that you may only eat certain things, 5000 years ago it made sense some things were not safe to eat (pork couldn't be kept in any way), nowadays theres no reason for it, but its part of the religion so people do it.
My personality is such can not feel comfortable joining a religion unless I agree with everything it stands for.
To take the pub analogy, if you choose a pub, you can drink however much or little you want of what they provide , only when they are open . The pub of course isn't a great anology and I see the point you were trying to make. I just tried to clarify what I mean when I say religion.