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S
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Date Posted: 19:17:37 12/29/01 Sat
>You proved my point. It was the people, not the
>religion. At least your brother had the good sense to
>remove you from a place where a child did not belong.
Yes, it was the people, not the religion. I've seen an awful lot of emotional, even physical abuse done in the name of God in my time, so I don't have the best view of organized religion. But then again, it is the organized part I have a problem with, not the religion itself.
Faith on a personal level is good. It gives people hope. It helps them through troubled times. It's when religion and political power get mixed together that all hell breaks loose.
All of the major religions have at one point or another been used to con the masses into supporting a corrupt political regime.
On the other hand, I've been reading creation stories from ancient cultures tonight, and I'm reminded that all religions started out with the same basic ingredients.
Give people a sense of purpose. Give people a sense of belonging. And give people some rules to obey and some consequences if those rules are not obeyed. This was absolutely necessary to develop civilizations and even to assure the survival of the species.
The warnings that show up at the earliest point in every culture on the planet are the ones about sex, drunkeness and violence. So is this what human nature boils down to--the lowest common denominator--get laid, get drunk, beat the shit of of someone?
The Navajo, for example, have an astounding number of stories warning men not to boink someone else's wife.
Imagine a world where we never had those rules. I think I'll just leave it at that.
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