Request! A Post on Organized Religion
Mar. 13th, 2008 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanAs per request by tijuana_pirate from that meme thing.
I've got nothing wrong with organized religion, just religious institutions. Of which I believe there is a vast difference. Organization can be simply a handful of people hanging out at each other's houses. An institution in inevitably corruptible and hard to maintain a level of humanism. In fact, institutions are the bodies in any arena which I have the most problems with in areas besides religion. Am I just trying to be cool and anti-establishment? Not really. But the level of personal responsibility is something that oftentimes diminishes in an institution, and especially in the case of religion, I believe that it is a matter of personal responsibility.
You really can't honest believe something if your only incentive to believe is that you've got some authority figure telling you to. They might be able to point you to the path, but it's your job to take it.
Maybe I have too much faith in people but the only religious people I've ever trusted have been the type that make their beliefs their own responsibility. This doesn't exclude wanting to inspire people to their mode of thinking or talking with them, but it does exclude them being wholly responsible for someone else's faith. Which I don't think any human being has the right to do. Institutions discourage autonomy outside of their structure, and I don't know, maybe I'm just hippie enough for that to bother me on a fundamental level. I don't include advisers because for them to truly be labeled as such means they were asked for their expertise. Mentoring and the like should not be a matter of control, and if it is, then it's warped into something else. Nothing gets my goat more than abused authority.
In short: I don't care if you get together in prayer circles and even hand me fliers about my damnation, but the instant people within your group feel the need to govern my life, I have issues. I don't care if you're a prophet, my connection to or disconnection from god is my own. I'll extend the same courtesy.
~Cendri
tijuana_pirate from that meme thing.I've got nothing wrong with organized religion, just religious institutions. Of which I believe there is a vast difference. Organization can be simply a handful of people hanging out at each other's houses. An institution in inevitably corruptible and hard to maintain a level of humanism. In fact, institutions are the bodies in any arena which I have the most problems with in areas besides religion. Am I just trying to be cool and anti-establishment? Not really. But the level of personal responsibility is something that oftentimes diminishes in an institution, and especially in the case of religion, I believe that it is a matter of personal responsibility.
You really can't honest believe something if your only incentive to believe is that you've got some authority figure telling you to. They might be able to point you to the path, but it's your job to take it.
Maybe I have too much faith in people but the only religious people I've ever trusted have been the type that make their beliefs their own responsibility. This doesn't exclude wanting to inspire people to their mode of thinking or talking with them, but it does exclude them being wholly responsible for someone else's faith. Which I don't think any human being has the right to do. Institutions discourage autonomy outside of their structure, and I don't know, maybe I'm just hippie enough for that to bother me on a fundamental level. I don't include advisers because for them to truly be labeled as such means they were asked for their expertise. Mentoring and the like should not be a matter of control, and if it is, then it's warped into something else. Nothing gets my goat more than abused authority.
In short: I don't care if you get together in prayer circles and even hand me fliers about my damnation, but the instant people within your group feel the need to govern my life, I have issues. I don't care if you're a prophet, my connection to or disconnection from god is my own. I'll extend the same courtesy.
~Cendri