RE: Is religion simply more about control than a god?
December 16, 2018 at 10:01 pm
(This post was last modified: December 16, 2018 at 10:06 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(December 16, 2018 at 5:51 pm)Libertarian God Wrote: Why is there religion in the first place? Aren't we all the same?That's more an explanation for why there's religion than some reason that there shouldn't be.
Quote:Can't we all speak to God? I mean that is what the bible says. Why is it someone has to be an "authority" when it comes to religion?Magic book is commonly wrong, why would it get that right? Our sense of the numinous combined with an inability to strike up that two way convo is another one of those cases where the answer is hiding in plain sight. Someone has to fill in that part of the dialog.
Quote: Why do they need followers? Why do they need money? Isn't the relationship with god between God and yourself? i.e. 1 on 1? It also seems there A LOT of rules when it comes to religion. I grew up in the Mormon faith, and I can tell you there were sooo many rules. Like does God honestly care with what you put in your body?Here's where I think the main thrust of your question..and the answer to it, comes in. Institutional interests often skew to the interest of the institution. That's how we end up with non profit ceos making more than for profits and sitting on cash reserves in he billions. At the core of it there's a valid reason. The institution feels that it is providing a useful service. They have to maintain their place and legitimacy in order to do that. The more affiliated people they have, the better the case (and the greater the pool of potential resources) from which to draw. While religion isn't about god anymore than a religious institution is, it is about that sense that the religious share with the non religious and irreligious. Religious institutions, otoh..and by necessity, are more about the maintenance of the institution than that common experience.
The most authentic forms of modern worship (and their ancestors of a few thousand years ago) lack those sorts of institutions, eschew them, even.....but like anything else in human life, organization trumps intent. It's only a matter of time in the case of successful religious movements until the more organized set becomes the dominant factor and, then, an institution. In this process you see a cyclical and endless falling away and re-stratifying of the adherents.
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