Organized religion: Is it all bad?

A common truism in here, is that organized religion is bad, and an enemy of the truth. While "organized" perhaps sounds ok, "religion" rings bad ...and together, it's more of a monster. Now, this thread is not for listing bad stuff done by, say, the Catholic church or radical Islam; not very interesting.

If you've had a spiritual eureka moment, and share it with your neighbor, you might end up meeting up regularly to discuss it. Is it organized yet? No really. But a few years down the road, you might have put your teachings into a book (dogma!), and you find yourself being the leader of a small crowd (hierarchy!).

We tend to hate on the big older players, while being more accepting with the smaller, newer crowds.

About 10 years ago, when a small rural Swedish pentecostal church was all over the news; they had grown to adopt some weird teachings, and it culminated in murder++. Would it perhaps be a good idea if there was some level of leadership in the movement, overseeing each other a bit? For the movement as a whole (and the murdered and/or disillusioned people), a better organization would perhaps be helpful.

TL;DR: Most spiritual ideas get "organized" at some point, and we should judge each idea by it's own merit, not by level of organization.
Depends on who's organizing it IMO.
 
Sadly this will always boil down to the question of why do people long to belong? And if I believe in freedom do I allow for others to enjoy their fantasy just because I can handle not knowing if a god exists? It is very complicating and I am more a person drawn to individuality so I don't think I can answer for people prone to follow. I think the main focus should be on why people who rebel exist in such few numbers. People who long for the truth and are sick of ego and people propagating each others fantasies like in the son of the invisible man. I think people have been lead to believe they don't have the right chemicals in the brain to truly contribute, when in reality genius seems to manifest in people faced with situations (experiences) and not relevant to test scores or academic study. Genius comes to people the way a radio receives a signal like in the Shaver Mystery and it has nothing to do with mentors or teachers or chemicals. Myth is to connect people to an image that represents a human generated structure creating an acoustical perversion of a hypogeum. What I mean is I think humans need to say things to another human and have them say it back for reassurance. Even as a loner rebel I feel I don't quite get what I'm saying until one of my friends says it back to me. There is something special about hearing another person confirm things and churches are institutions that create artificial realities for people to repeat to each other. Sound familiar television? Personally I think the truth should prevail and looking at the wonders humanity has created in golden ages I think proves something.

What do you call the putting together of letters to form words? SPELLING. Words are spells.
 
I know I struggle with that every day wondering if I'm just dysfunctional for wanting to be an individual. But then I think about how we are born with a mother but die alone and it seems like life is a gradual push to individuality whether one wants it or not.
Do we die alone?

Some do, some don't. But reports from hospice workers often tell that a dying person may be surrounded by one or more living relatives saying goodbye, and one or more of the deceased giving a welcome. It can be quite a crowd, all told!
 
I look at Organized groups of Religion the same way that I look at Organized groups of Science.

That is if you weren't "taught" it by a leader, or read educational material about it.... and only relied on your only investigation, experience and intuition.... you would not be a member of any of them... because you would realize both are full of holes.
 
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/video-lecture-by-john-lennox-explains.html

Andrew Sims

Andrew Sims, past president of Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said: "The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land (from Is Faith Delusion)."

more

In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.

Jürgen Habermas

For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk.[37][38][39][40]

From the video:

Behind the European Declaration of Human Rights lies Christianity, behind universities, hospices, hospitals, lies Christianity, behind the abolition of slavery lies Christianity. It is a delusion that Christianity has done no good what so ever.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”
 
Christianity, Islam and Judaism = bad.
Indigenous religions = good.

Since I am European, I follow the European native religion.
 
May i ask about the name of that religion? Some form of germanic paganism?

Although I am convinced that all European Pagan religions are basically the same religion, with only minor cultural and linguistic differences, I am Finnish, and thus I don't follow specifically germanic paganism. I'd say that I try to follow the moral code, which was common to all European Pagan religions (germanic, celtic, slavic etc.). I also believe in some important concepts of Pagan religions, and since I am Finnish, some Finnish terms are more convenient for me to use than foreign terms. I don't believe in any literal interpretations, and I don't want to use a name for my religion. I am also aware that all religious concepts are merely attempts to explain the ultimate reality.
 
In my opinion organized religion can be helpful or destructive depending on the group. Obviously extremist groups are destructive. However other groups can be helpful as long as you know to make your own investigations and make up your own mind about things.
I think even more evangelical groups can be helpful to certain people who are at a certain point. For example I know of a number of people who were leading lives as gang bangers, drug abusers, prostitutes, criminals etc who found religion even what I would call fundamentalist christian religion and that religion motivated them to clean up their lives. If these people truly realize they are on a spiritual path eventually they will leave that religion for something else but it doesn't change the fact that organized religion can be helpful especially to people at a certain level of the path.
 
An interesting question. I don't think it's all bad, but I think most organized religions are in need of a software upgrade. Some depend on God not having spoken in over 2000 years ...

I do view the Neo-Skeptic/Atheists as just another religion (although they claim they are not one). And a very nihilistic one to boot: at the heart of their Neo-Skeptic faith is the belief in a universe that cares little about the individual, is made up of arbitrarily created universal laws. A faith that says the soul of man is a mere mirage of non-living matter, and that the best that can be said teleologically is that we are here to simply survive and replicate, and that love (and consciousness) itself is a kind of facade that exists only to propagate our species forward into a universe that has a mechanical beating heart.

These same Neo-Skeptics of course when asked, really don't know why or how reality even exists in the first place. They still have no idea how consciousness itself arose spontaneously from inert lifeless matter. And they insist that we all should be perfectly happy and morally content that each of us get to have a brief "flashbulb" existence and awareness of the "grandeur" of reality but will soon be put away forever - ourselves along with all our loved ones - and we ought to be ethically content with this state of affairs.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Is organized religion all bad? No

Is organized religion all good? No

Wrong on both accounts,simply because religion is what people make of it and religion is all good , the true one at least , but :

"...And i say that as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So, the wicked and the weak cannot fall below the lowest which is in you also ..." US-Lebanese poet and philosopher Gibran Khalil Gibran in his "The Prophet " book.
 
The problem with organised religions is often the sexist, racist or homophobic veiws they try to promote. I feel that this is what drives a majority of people to turn to athiesm. They don't want to be associated with it.
 
The problem with organised religions is often the sexist, racist or homophobic veiws they try to promote. I feel that this is what drives a majority of people to turn to athiesm. They don't want to be associated with it.

In my opinion - what drives "athiesm" is people who don't even know how to spell.

My Best,
Bertha
 
I suggest you learn how to spell before making pronouncements about religion and atheism. It might help your cause.

My Best,
Bertha

I suggest responding to an actual point as opposed to ones grammar or spelling, it'll help you seem at least a little intelligent. If you have nothing to contribute to my post then do me a favour and ignore me.
 
I suggest responding to an actual point as opposed to ones grammar or spelling, it'll help you seem at least a little intelligent. If you have nothing to contribute to my post then do me a favour and ignore me.

That should be a possessive : "ones grammar" = "one's grammar". On second thought johny, perhaps you shouldn't post anything at all.

My Best,
Bertha
 
That should be a possessive : "ones grammar" should be "one's grammar. On second thought johny, perhaps you shouldn't post anything at all.

My Best,
Bertha

As I stated previously, if you do not like my posts, feel free to ignore them. Frequently correcting someone's grammar is a sign of having nothing intelligent to contribute. As for your suggestion to not post anything at all I wil repeat, if you do not like my posts, ignore them.
 
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