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Why I Cannot Abide Organized Religion

PureX

Veteran Member
OK, so I'm thinking it's time to change the debate subject a little. ***MOD EDIT***

I am a theist, but I am not religious. I am not one of those religion-haters that think religion should be erased from the face of the Earth, but I both understand and can identify with their objection to it, nevertheless. Though it's not because I blame religion for man's inhumanity to man; as that would be stupid. Religion, if it does anything, tries to mitigate man's inhumanity to man, not inflame it. (Though it clearly fails at this in a collective sense.)

My main objection to religion is in the fact that it keeps trying to become "organized" into a one-size-fits-all, top-down, authoritarian, semi-cultist subculture intent on controlling people's thoughts and behaviors instead of helping people individually relate to and express their best selves through the ideology of "God". I'm going to repeat that:

My main objection to religion is in the fact that it keeps trying to become "organized" into a one-size-fits-all, top-down, authoritarian, semi-cultist subculture intent on controlling people's thoughts and behaviors instead of helping people individually relate to and express their best selves through the ideology of "God".

And it's main means of creating this sort of spiritual abomination, as I see it, is organized religions obsession with confusing and conflating faith with belief. Turning what should have been an open-minded and skeptical personal experiment in spiritual practice into a dogmatic mandate from 'on high' that one must follow stupidly and blindly because "God said so". Just writing this hacks me off! Mostly because it's so completely antithetical to the beauty and value of the actual practice of faith at work in our lives. And also of the amazing gifts of imagination and clarification that the mere possibility of a 'God' affords us. All that swept right off the page by organized religion's blind, stupid, authoritarian threats.

No thank you! I'll have none of it. And to those of you who find that sort of thing somehow useful, all I can do is shake my head in mystified confusion.
 
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sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
My main objection to religion is in the fact that it keeps trying to become "organized" into a one-size-fits-all, top-down, authoritarian, semi-cultist subculture intent on controlling people's thoughts and behaviors instead of helping people individually relate to and express their best selves through the ideology of "God".

All too often, but to me not universally, that is the case. Human egos are behind that - people think they know how things should work, build organizations that propagate their thought (like Mao and Xi) and insist that everyone do things their way.

I know personally some in religion that are not that way but all too often I see what you denounce.
 

PureX

Veteran Member

All too often, but to me not universally, that is the case. Human egos are behind that - people think they know how things should work, build organizations that propagate their thought (like Mao and Xi) and insist that everyone do things their way.

I know personally some in religion that are not that way but all too often I see what you denounce.
I suspect that there is a very large number of theists out there that have left organized religion because of it's authoritarianism, and are walking their own spiritual path, now, without it. The polls and pundits don't seem to be focusing on them at all because they're hard to categorize and identify and put in a box (and sell things to). But I think the number of them is significant, and is growing.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
one-size-fits-all, top-down, authoritarian, semi-cultist subculture intent on controlling people's thoughts and behaviors instead of helping people individually relate to and express their best selves through the ideology of "God".
Why only through the ideology of 'God'? That again is what I underlined in your post. Why is that so necessary?
All too often people think they know how things should work, build organizations that propagate their thought (like Mao and Xi) and insist that everyone do things their way.
Why just Mao or Xi, why not Jesus or Mohammad too?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
All too often, unfortunately for the OP, what religious leaders give to their flocks is precisely what their flocks want. And when they fail to deliver, the flock will eventually replace them with someone who will.

(This seems less true in the Catholic world, which is very much a top-down organization, but that was what the Reformation was for, after all.)
 
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PureX

Veteran Member
Why only through the ideology of 'God'?
Because the possibility of that kind of all-encompassing ideal provides us with maximum breadth of idealism, within ourselves. We can imagine and contemplate what perfection would mean, to us. (I use the term "God" to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. Not to any religious depiction or label.)
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Because the possibility of that kind of all-encompassing ideal provides us with maximum breadth of idealism, within ourselves. We can imagine and contemplate what perfection would mean, to us. (I use the term "God" to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. Not to any religious depiction or label.)
Do we need a mystery source, sustenance and purpose of all that is?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
All too often, unfortunately for the OP, what religious leaders give to their flocks is precisely what their flocks want.
Yeah. I've noticed that heroin dealers do the same thing. :)
And when they fail to deliver, the flock will eventually replace them with someone who will.
Once hooked, they gotta have it. Delusions of divine (self) righteousness are a very powerful drug. I agree with you. But that doesn't make any of this any more acceptable, or palatable to me. And I've already had my battle with addiction. I have NO desire to go THERE ever gain!
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Do we need a mystery source, sustenance and purpose of all that is?
The idea of it gives us an amazing realm of possibility for our imaginations to explore. A lot of people seem to need that, yes. Organized religions, instead of encouraging that exploration, turn around and try to shut it down by imposing their own fantasies and excluding all others.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Because the possibility of that kind of all-encompassing ideal provides us with maximum breadth of idealism, within ourselves. We can imagine and contemplate what perfection would mean, to us. (I use the term "God" to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is. Not to any religious depiction or label.)

***MOD EDIT***
You think, somehow, that you are "teaching" us something that we refuse to learn? Or that we have nothing to teach you? Well, maybe you are not listening, either, have you thought of that?

You talk about "God" referring to "the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is." Yet, not only do you know absolutely nothing about any of that, you don't even know that there is a source or a purpose for all that is -- or even that it needs sustaining.

You see, you can't conceive of the notion of a purposeless universe, nor us as just one of billions of species that have existed (and a very few still exising) that have no purpose at all -- other than any that the decide to adopt for themselves.

You're not teaching us anything -- you're trying to take away our ability to wonder about all of that, by making us accept something we can say nothing about, and are enjoined not to inquire about too deeply.
 
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mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Do we need a mystery source, sustenance and purpose of all that is?

Well, we have it, if you read some philosophy. We in Western culture have been at it for over 2500+ years and we have yet to solved what objective reality is without using axiomatic assumptions. In fact there are more unsolved problems than that one.
 

anna.

but mostly it's the same
My main objection to religion is in the fact that it keeps trying to become "organized"

This kinda jumped out at me, PureX. Speaking only for Catholicism although understanding there are other ancient religions out there: "trying" to be organized? Catholicism has been organized for close to 2 thousand years. How is it still trying?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
This kinda jumped out at me, PureX. Speaking only for Catholicism although understanding there are other ancient religions out there: "trying" to be organized? Catholicism has been organized for close to 2 thousand years. How is it still trying?

Well, I do think it has had its splinters and fractions. But of course all of Christianity is uniformly a totally united version of Catholicism.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
The idea of it gives us an amazing realm of possibility for our imaginations to explore. A lot of people seem to need that, yes.
Oh, I absolutely agree with that. I have always thought that the ideas are great to explore; both as an atheist, and previously as a theist. I guess I just don't see the need to consume the idea in anything more than the hypothetical.

Organized religions, instead of encouraging that exploration, turn around and try to shut it down by imposing its own fantasies and excluding all others.
They do seem to tend that way.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
This kinda jumped out at me, PureX. Speaking only for Catholicism although understanding there are other ancient religions out there: "trying" to be organized? Catholicism has been organized for close to 2 thousand years. How is it still trying?
It is constantly trying to keep itself from splintering. And only partially succeeding
 

PureX

Veteran Member
You think, somehow, that you are "teaching" us something that we refuse to learn? Or that we have nothing to teach you? Well, maybe you are not listening, either, have you thought of that?
When people respond just to respond, without even the slightest consideration for the logical coherence of their response, it becomes clear that the response is automatic, and completely unconsidered. There is no real exchange going on. Just the ego doing what the ego does when left to itself.
You talk about "God" referring to "the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is." Yet, not only do you know absolutely nothing about any of that, you don't even know that there is a source or a purpose for all that is -- or even that it needs sustaining.
Yes, that's why it's such a profound mystery. And the interesting thing about our not knowing is that it's the one thing that is self-evident to us. If we can formulate the question, but not the answer, then we can be sure that there is something we don't know. We don't know WHAT we don't know. But we can know THAT we don't know it. Because we were able to ask.
You see, you can't conceive of the notion of a purposeless universe, nor us as just one of billions of species that have existed (and a very few still exising) that have no purpose at all -- other than any that the decide to adopt for themselves.
You'd be AMAZED at what all I can conceive of! What that has to do with the question of source, sustenance, and purpose, though, is pretty debatable. The point is that the question stands unanswered. And pretending it's an illegitimate questions isn't an answer, either. It's just a way for people who fear questions that they can't answer to pretend there aren't any. (They know who they are.)

:)
 
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ppp

Well-Known Member
Well, we have it, if you read some philosophy. We in Western culture have been at it for over 2500+ years and we have yet to solved what objective reality is without using axiomatic assumptions. In fact there are more unsolved problems than that one.
Arguably that might be a mystery source. But it is hardly sustenance in anything but a metaphorical sense. And a source, no matter what it might be, is not, and could not be the purpose all that is.
 
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