RE: Tribal loyalty towards your former religion
July 12, 2015 at 9:37 am
(This post was last modified: July 12, 2015 at 9:58 am by Aaran.)
(July 12, 2015 at 9:24 am)Redbeard The Pink Wrote: I don't much experience that. I used to be a sincerely believing Christian, but I didn't actually like what I believed. I always thought it was a really unfair and hopeless situation we were in to have been created by and at the mercy of such a hypocritical dick, and that said hypocritical dick gets to decide who goes to heaven and who burns. Heaven also never sounded that great to me either. Better than hell, I guess, but from biblical descriptions it always sounded like an eternity of boredom and tedium.
Humans tend to think in terms of narratives. The images, the actions, the words...ceremony is a way to punctuate life and highlight plot points. This is why it continues to exist, even amongst those who don't use ceremony in a religious way. It's very human.
Right, and religion seems to be one of few things which dignifies any demonstrations of ceremony. I mean a lot of these rituals are stupid enough to begin with, but their ridiculousness would be redoubled further still if they were performed by somebody who wasn't animated at all by the religious impulse.
When I was a believer I could behave ceremoniously without shame. Now, as an atheist, any attempts at ceremony on my own part make me cringe slightly.
May I ask which Church/denomination you belonged to Redbeard?
