ebbixx
New Member
Saladin said:I'm not sure that a lot of religious people would frame their thoughts using those exact words. Trying to keep the group or congregation together and "spreading the word" aren't sinister or hypocritical acts as you seem to be suggesting with some of your more questionable phrases.
I wouldn't expect them to use those same words.
And when I speak of the religious people I've known personally, they are probably a decidedly unrepresentative sample, composed as they are of highly sceptical folk born into Mormonism, a handful of sceptical Catholics, the usual mix of fundies one runs into growing up in the rural West, and mostly reform and reconstructionist Jews, many of whom when asked, would describe themselves at at least agnostic.
As for whether an allegiance to group cohesion and continuity is or isn't a problem, I don't have time or space to lay out the history of Christianity and other expansive, missionary faiths here, much less a history of world religions and other coercive organizations.
Do your own reading and reach your own conclusions. For me the bad effects outweigh the good, taken on balance. And filtered through personal experience.
I don't expect or desire to separate anyone else from their fondest beliefs as I have a fair understanding of Stockholm Syndrome and don't have the kind of time that would be necessary to persuade someone inclined to feel sympathy and affection for human institutions such as churches. I'm merely stating one point of view, and a fairly subjective one at that.