Twid's spiritual exploration thingie.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's partially to understand them from an inside perspective, partially to appreciate them, and partially to find which bits work for me.

I will say I'm not exactly sure I understand the meaning for your metaphor. I'm a little unclear on what fire is supposed to represent.

Fire is progress. Not just technological progress, but intellectual and spiritual progress. Ever since my initial religious disillusionment I can't consider any religious tradition or teaching all that likely to inspire progress. On the contrary, they seem consciously designed to prevent progress.

It isn't just scientific progress, though that's the easiest for us to see now because that's the fastest-progressing area of development we have right now. But religion expressly forbids all kinds of progress. Social progress, political progress, medical progress, sexual progress. You're forbidden from doing or often even saying or thinking anything that has been declared "unclean" to you, by the ultimate in untouchable authority figures.

So there are the monkeys, stumbling about blindly trying to figure out some stuff about living, and as soon as they think they have something figured out, they team up and beat anybody who asks if maybe there's another way to look at things. Because religion is power and control, and they each seem to be fundamentally incompatible with the concept of finding your own way. The entire point of the religions I'm aware of is that you don't and can't figure it out on your own no matter what you do, so just quit trying and let THEM tell you how it is. Or else.

This is actually a pretty broad and inaccurate generalization. It's very easy to see the regressiveness and evil within religion, just like it's easy to see that the world is violent place by watching the news. But then again, people don't like good news. It's boring, right? It's like what Nigel said in another thread. The default mood is contentment. You don't notice contentment. You notice discontent and euphoria. Your religious experiences are not necessarily the same as everyone else's, and is probably coloring your perception on religion.

It's easy to point to Christianity and say that it's anti-science because it refuses to accept evolution and the Big Bang. Well, maybe for some of the loud and closed minded ones. If you ask the Pope though, you're a fucking idiot if you doubt either of them. And he runs the biggest Christian gig in the world.

Christians are also pretty big into actually helping people. Some use it as a chance to set up a Kool Aid stand, others genuinely want to help, because that's what their God  told them to do. There are feminist nuns and priests who want to do away with all of the stupid shit that the Church officially holds onto. The organization is not always the same as the average member of the organization. The people at the top are pretty resistant to change, but that's not indicative.

You can't take communion if you vote pro-choice. I've never seen that stop any of my family members from taking communion. And I've never seen a priest say, "Body of Christ. Wait, are you a democrat?"

[Left]

The entire point of the religions I'm aware of is that you don't and can't figure it out on your own no matter what you do, so just quit trying and let THEM tell you how it is. Or else.

For a lot of them, yeah.

...People who find their own way to god are free to act as god asks them to/leads them to.
This makes them damned hard to order around.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

So- the organization today which is staffed by people who were born in the 20th century are guilty of arresting Galileo? You could make similar arguments for other ideologies of a secular nature. But again, you are making somewhat biased generalizations. Religion does nobly guide people through life, pushing and prodding them to stay ahead of the social curve. Say you have a minister who genuinely does these things, because he chooses to focus on love thy neighbor rather than thou shalt not. Should not his faith at least get some credit then? Or is it all God hates fags signs to you, and the minister just happens to be a nice, but mistaken person?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I have several friends who are devout Christians, and they don't give a crap about anything that I do so long as it makes me happy. And they don't judge any of it either, because their position is that Jesus' message was love.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

What you're talking about is less religion than institutional power systems, into which religions often fit. You find the same patterns in atheistic institutional power systems.

[Left]

I have several friends who are devout Christians, and they don't give a crap about anything that I do so long as it makes me happy. And they don't judge any of it either, because their position is that Jesus' message was love.

Those would seem to be genuine Christians then.
...Not so much my experience in the land of Baptist Sharia...

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I have several friends who are devout Christians, and they don't give a crap about anything that I do so long as it makes me happy. And they don't judge any of it either, because their position is that Jesus' message was love.

Those would seem to be genuine Christians then.
...Not so much my experience in the land of Baptist Sharia...

I'm from Boston. Things are a bit different here.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

What you're talking about is less religion than institutional power systems, into which religions often fit. You find the same patterns in atheistic institutional power systems.

This.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

What you're talking about is less religion than institutional power systems, into which religions often fit. You find the same patterns in atheistic institutional power systems.

This.

I guess I just don't see a difference between "religions" and "institutional power systems." Without proof of the supernatural origins they claim, they're really no different from any other club that needs money and members, and a place for important people to go when they need someone to boss around.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

How many heads were cracked before Vatican II? How many official apologies to people long since murdered for having the audacity to rock the religious boat? The Pope can get along with evolution and the Big Bang, but don't start asking questions about marriage equality or reproductive freedom. Of course the church will eventually arrive at the same conclusions but at what cost?

Instead of nobly guiding people through a tumultuous and often hostile lifetime, pushing and prodding them to improve themselves and staying ahead of the social curve, religions are merely reflections of average popular sentiment, and they are often even decades behind that. Which is what you'd expect, from institutions completely generated by groups of humans. And that would be fine, if the central tenet of religion was not that it actually reveals some hidden truth no one has access to otherwise.

Again I think this is mostly just the Big 3. Eastern religions operate on a somewhat different paradigm, so if that is the direction you're going to go I have nothing to argue.

What you're talking about is less religion than institutional power systems, into which religions often fit. You find the same patterns in atheistic institutional power systems.

This.

I guess I just don't see a difference between "religions" and "institutional power systems." Without proof of the supernatural origins they claim, they're really no different from any other club that needs money and members, and a place for important people to go when they need someone to boss around.

There isn't a difference, most of the time. But religions simultaneously fill a bunch of other different roles that normal institutional power systems generally don't. Further, you can have the religion without actually participating in the institution itself. The institution in and of itself isn't all that necessary.

[Left]

I have several friends who are devout Christians, and they don't give a crap about anything that I do so long as it makes me happy. And they don't judge any of it either, because their position is that Jesus' message was love.

Those would seem to be genuine Christians then.
...Not so much my experience in the land of Baptist Sharia...

I'm from Boston. Things are a bit different here.

I know there are saner places outside of Texas, but that's not my operating heuristic...more's the pity.
...Besides, it seems like Tucson everywhere these days.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I have several friends who are devout Christians, and they don't give a crap about anything that I do so long as it makes me happy. And they don't judge any of it either, because their position is that Jesus' message was love.

Those would seem to be genuine Christians then.
...Not so much my experience in the land of Baptist Sharia...

I'm from Boston. Things are a bit different here.

I know there are saner places outside of Texas, but that's not my operating heuristic...more's the pity.
...Besides, it seems like Tucson everywhere these days.

It is. It's just a little more subtle about being Tucson in this part.

[Pergamos]

Yeah, I don't really get the idea that religions can't/shouldn't change.

They do change, but they also -- at every stage of their evolution -- like to pretend that they don't. The Bible says DON'T EVER ADD ANYTHING TO SCRIPTURE, because scripture has always been "complete," even before it was finished. Every successive generation practicing a religion convinces themselves and teaches dogmatically that the way they practice is the One True Way to practice, that anyone who did it differently before them was doing it wrong, and anyone who comes after them who changes anything is doing it wrong. Of course religions change -- but they don't admit to changing, they don't encourage change, and religious people willfully ignore the natural evolution of their religion to the point of outright ignorance of their own traditions and history. I know Baptists who actually believe that the Rapture was taught by the original Apostles, for example. They write whole books about this kind of thing despite it being demonstrably false. It all just adds to my overall impression of religion being a social tool specifically designed to confound people and confuse reality with arbitrary myth.

Religion is a human behavior.  Humans are not constant.

And if you expect purity of intent and logic in ANY human endeavor, you are going to be very, very disappointed.

Yeah, I'm not contradicting that here. I don't expect humans to be constant or even consistent. I expect even less from religion, considering it is entirely a human contrivance, invented, modified, transmitted, propagated, and enforced entirely by a collective of mostly blank human minds. Obviously it is going to change along with the humans who are solely responsible for its entire existence.

What I'm saying is that people who believe a religion, believe that it is more than that. That it is divinely inspired or revealed. Handed down from a transcendental source of some kind, which itself is above petty things like changing human culture. They believe that their religion is timeless and unwavering, no matter how old, new, or adapted to culture it may be. And as I wonder how one can truly understand a religion until one truly believes it, the fact is I can't ignore the disparity between what religion claims to be (timeless and transcendant) and what it actually is (the sum total of five billion or so aggressive apes trying to assemble a circus tent from five billion or so different sets of instructions, then getting into a fight trying to raise it, and beating each other to death with the poles.)

So, in relation to the OP (sorry for the hijack, by the way) -- how can one "tour" religions? Is this strictly about the drudgery of rituals and diets and commandments, or are you trying to gain an insight into their entire belief structures, from the vantage point of an average adherant? Because if that's what you're after I'm incredibly interested and I'd like to know how you get past the superficial regard for your target religion as "another bunch of monkeys trying to discover fire and smashing anyone who rubs two sticks together" and experience it as authentic?

If you behave as if you believe something you will come to believe it.  That's one of the basic tricks of chaos magic. (not defending chaos magic, but they do have some tricks that work, and that is one of them)

[Pergamos]

It's partially to understand them from an inside perspective, partially to appreciate them, and partially to find which bits work for me.

I will say I'm not exactly sure I understand the meaning for your metaphor. I'm a little unclear on what fire is supposed to represent.

Fire is progress. Not just technological progress, but intellectual and spiritual progress. Ever since my initial religious disillusionment I can't consider any religious tradition or teaching all that likely to inspire progress. On the contrary, they seem consciously designed to prevent progress.

It isn't just scientific progress, though that's the easiest for us to see now because that's the fastest-progressing area of development we have right now. But religion expressly forbids all kinds of progress. Social progress, political progress, medical progress, sexual progress. You're forbidden from doing or often even saying or thinking anything that has been declared "unclean" to you, by the ultimate in untouchable authority figures.

So there are the monkeys, stumbling about blindly trying to figure out some stuff about living, and as soon as they think they have something figured out, they team up and beat anybody who asks if maybe there's another way to look at things. Because religion is power and control, and they each seem to be fundamentally incompatible with the concept of finding your own way. The entire point of the religions I'm aware of is that you don't and can't figure it out on your own no matter what you do, so just quit trying and let THEM tell you how it is. Or else.

Considering that you insist that religion be devoid of change from its roots it seems natural that you would feel they are antithetical to progress.  Progress, in a religion, is the very sort of heresy or hypocrisy that you were condemning a few posts ago as causing a religion to be inauthentic.  The way in which you define a religion it must be anti progress, otherwise it is a sham.