I dislike religions as an institution

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Hermes

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While I admire people of faith - I dislike religions as an institution....
This is nothing personal but "religion", per se, has brought more ills and misfortune to humanity than any other "institution" has. I like people who believe and trust me I am not against your belief! I admire your faith and conviction. BUT I cannot trust the institution of any religion. I even distrust the Dalai Llama. His holiness is the closest person I would say I'd trust in the realm of organized religion, but I cannot go as far as become a part of the galupta sect. Why should I? Should I perhaps study for 40 years only to realize that not the "yellow hat" sect is the "true" sect but the other guys? :)
You see where I am going with this? Who ordains these people? I know the story of the reincarnated Buddha etc and I like the Buddhists. What the other religions, who says that guy speaks the truth and the other is full of crap?
I say they are all full of crap! You know deep down inside what the truth is. You do not need anyone to tell you about g-d, or whatever name the sect has picked to symbolize such a deity like Allah, or Vishnu, whatever.
I hope I do not offend you. This is not my aim. But if you seriously study history you'd realize that people were tortured, killed, starved based on their beliefs and their symbolic name of g-d. Jews were murdered based on some ethnic trait but that was also intertwined with religion. I also, perhaps you will disagree consider, communism as a religion. So you see, nothing good ever came out of these fanatic ideas. Allah is the same g-d of the Jew or a Christian. What symbol (name) you use is of no consequence.
Of course I know most of you are NOT dogmatic and you are more ecumenically inclined and kinder gentler than your forefathers were but the simple truth is that fanaticism can be rekindled and started in otherwise gentle people by the clergy. If you need a social interaction go to the church of your choice. If you wish your child have a decent education, send him or her to a catholic high school, but never EVER forget, you do not need anyone to show you god. At least of all some self anointed person.
Of course most of this will fall upon deaf ears because most people are weak and they are sheep, they are in a need to follow, and they'd follow anyone who will console them and comfort them.
 
Welcome to IO, Hermes. :)

Ever notice how religious institutions have historically filled in the niche psychologists occupy in today's secular society?
 
Thanks SeattleGal for your welcome...
Very good observation. In the olden days the clergy was often your shrink and confessor (and more). Today that job is taken by "professionals" and I use this term very liberally. <sik>
...and the common denominator, NOW is ever more than back then - .... MONEY! The bastards always want YOUR money.... :)
seattlegal said:
Welcome to IO, Hermes. :)

Ever notice how religious institutions have historically filled in the niche psychologists occupy in today's secular society?
Click to expand...
 
Religiousness cannot be institutionalized, it is utterly individual so it is perfectly good you feel this way - it shows a great maturity, although it is quite prevalent today.

Religiousness is an experience, but actually information becomes a block to this, they are ready made answers which ego will cling to. You have gone in the other direction though, you reject all the answers provided... there has to be a middle ground.

Do not accept anyones words on their own, but also remain open to their possibility. All religions are pointing at the same thing, find out what that is and you will find religiousness. I can offer an exercise which will help though: find out the true nature of the "I". If something can be observed, find out where it has arisen from, who is observing it? You will say "I am", but this is merely a concept. Look deeply and find what the nature of this concept is, where has even this arisen?

Contemplate on this, and try to inquire about it whensoever you like. God is a ready-made answer for that which you will find, but you will have to discover it yourself to know it.
 
Religion is about as far from self-help as is possible, in fact ultimately it will kill the self which you identify with at this time.

It will be better to consider it a science experiment, and I have provided the first hypothesis for you to test :)
 
Well, for one, when you join a congregation you will listen to sermons. Why bother listening to a sermon when it is useless? Often the ideas and the delivery is inspiring but it seldom worth 10% of your income!
Religion = institution,
spirituality = freedom
Lunitik said:
Religiousness cannot be institutionalized, it is utterly individual so it is perfectly good you feel this way - it shows a great maturity, although it is quite prevalent today.

Religiousness is an experience, but actually information becomes a block to this, they are ready made answers which ego will cling to. You have gone in the other direction though, you reject all the answers provided... there has to be a middle ground.

Do not accept anyones words on their own, but also remain open to their possibility. All religions are pointing at the same thing, find out what that is and you will find religiousness. I can offer an exercise which will help though: find out the true nature of the "I". If something can be observed, find out where it has arisen from, who is observing it? You will say "I am", but this is merely a concept. Look deeply and find what the nature of this concept is, where has even this arisen?

Contemplate on this, and try to inquire about it whensoever you like. God is a ready-made answer for that which you will find, but you will have to discover it yourself to know it.
Click to expand...
 
Hermes said:
Well, for one, when you join a congregation you will listen to sermons. Why bother listening to a sermon when it is useless? Often the ideas and the delivery is inspiring but it seldom worth 10% of your income!
Religion = institution,
spirituality = freedom
Click to expand...

I agree, I am merely pointing to how to discover that freedom :)

Freedom is a funny old word, we throw it around a lot but what does it actually mean? Freedom from what is the goal of spirituality? I would say mind and its false concepts - you are the entirety of existence, but most of humanity believe themselves this expression within that... strange. This is the prison though, you must break out of it... but then what? Then liberation.
 
Freedom from being duped.....the truth is freedom and liberating as it may be....

This is a quote form the Mahatma letters (letter 10)

"It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind.
Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity. Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism.
It is priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them. Is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his God or Gods demand the crime?; voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the abject slave of his crafty ministers.
The Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant will starve himself and see his family starving and naked to feed and clothe his padre and pope. For two thousand years India groaned under the weight of caste, Brahmins alone feeding on the fat of the land, and to-day the followers of Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other's throats in the names of and for the greater glory of their respective myths.
Remember the sum of human misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the altars of their false gods.
If it is objected that we too have temples, we too have priests and that our lamas also live on charity . . . let them know that the objects above named have in common with their Western equivalents, but the name.
Thus in our temples there is neither a god nor gods worshipped, only the thrice sacred memory of the greatest as the holiest man that ever lived. If our lamas to honour the fraternity of the Bhikkhus established by our blessed master himself, go out to be fed by the laity, the latter often to the number of 5 to 25,000 is fed and taken care of by the Samgha (the fraternity of lamaic monks) the lamassery providing for the wants of the poor, the sick, the afflicted.
Our lamas accept food, never money, and it is in those temples that the origin of evil is preached and impressed upon the people. There they are taught the four noble truths -- ariya sakka, and the chain of causation, (the 12 nid[ci]anas) gives them a solution of the problem of the origin and destruction of suffering. "
 
Hermes said:
Freedom from being duped.....the truth is freedom and liberating as it may be....

This is a quote form the Mahatma letters (letter 10)

"It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind.
Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity. Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism.
It is priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them. Is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his God or Gods demand the crime?; voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the abject slave of his crafty ministers.
The Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant will starve himself and see his family starving and naked to feed and clothe his padre and pope. For two thousand years India groaned under the weight of caste, Brahmins alone feeding on the fat of the land, and to-day the followers of Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other's throats in the names of and for the greater glory of their respective myths.
Remember the sum of human misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the altars of their false gods.
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Such is the way of idolatry.
 
I am not a fan of Mahatma, he has a slick tongue but he has been a masochist and a hypocrite. He speaks of non-violence, yet he has committed all manner of violence on himself - in this, apparently we are fine.
 
Hmm, the Mahatma letters are not written by Gandhi....

Lunitik said:
I am not a fan of Mahatma, he has a slick tongue but he has been a masochist and a hypocrite. He speaks of non-violence, yet he has committed all manner of violence on himself - in this, apparently we are fine.
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there is a lot of control and manipulation amongst organised religion and a lot of control and manipulation amongst un organised religion, I think it just happens with groups of people.
 
Hermes, on thinking over the contents of your opening post, I have this to offer:

Organized religion develop into bureaucracies. Bureaucracies can develop in order to contain evil, which also makes them a nice cover by which evil can be hidden or masked. A double-edged sword. When evil loses its personal face within a bureaucracy, it becomes more difficult to examine oneself in the mirror. ;) This bureaucracy phenomenon is by no means unique to organized religion, either. (You yourself compared communism to a religion, which I really don't disagree with, but this is a religion in which the State becomes God--its own unique brand of theocracy.)

While I really haven't participated much in organized religion, I have studied many of the various doctrines of organized religion. This investigation has had a transformative effect on me (I hope for the better!) I know that I would not be the person I am today had it not been for the presence of those organized religions and their doctrines by which I could compare my own reflection in the mirror to.
 
Organized Religion is an onymoron. The core of religion is finding meaning--something very individual. For the most part spirituality is occult or esoteric, in their original sense, hidden, in this case by subjectivity. My spiritual experiences are not the same as yours, much like my qualia (experiences that are the basic building blocks of consciousness--like my experience of my toothache) are not the sme as yours (even if the only difference is that my experiences include me, yours, you).

However, one can learn so much by reading and reflecing upon the texts of traditional masters--Lao-zi, Hue-neng, Gandhiji (take your pick of any). And one can benefit from a fellowship of similar seekers of meaning (like my "Religion", the Children of Truth and Light, the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers--or a gathering of differnt Native American spiritual fellowships).

The real problem is what the Buddah or George Fox (founder of Quakerism) or Alfred Whitehead (obscure philosopher) warned us about: believing in a static self and not experiencing what is true ourselves.
 
Thanks for all your thoughts on my ramblings :) these ideas were nothing new but I just felt like venting (sorry)....
One more thought on religion and state. The idea was always to link the church hierarchy to the state (royalty) via direct link or proxy. Hence the two headed monster could easier prey upon the poor and gullible. To me this is the true
organized religion. Sadly despite our constitution this two headed monster shows its ugly head(s), here in the United states. (it's election year 2012!!!) a Mormon GOP front-runner with the Idiot(He makes Bush look decent) Perry, and the dogmatic religious right....
 
Ah, Hermes, I share your concerns. But we have had to put up with this kind of insanity since Nixon's "Pink Lady Campaign" of 1950. Comes with the territory. Just get out there and (1) vote, (2) proselytize, (3) campaign, (4) support the candidate of your choice, or (5) run for office yourself. They all work.
 
Doesn't it all have more to do with human nature and power...than the religion itself?

Like the old guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Religion is a vehicle the nefarious see as a tool to assist them in their endeavors.

It is like blaming the road for being the escape route of the bank robber.

Is the net the fault of the Nigerian scams? Or even Nigeria?
 
Yes, I see your point... but as someone said "religion is the opiate of the masses", while the Truth shall set you free from it. THIS is not for everbody but eventually it is everbody's birthright to shed the need of the pack and roam free. If that is what you want, like I said religious people have done marvellous things as well as despicable evil....
The key is where you search - often you can search a lifetime for something you'l never find, then realizing that if only you'd looked within to something that was always there for you. This happens when you are ready...it can be in your ripe old age or as a teen....

wil said:
Doesn't it all have more to do with human nature and power...than the religion itself?

Like the old guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Religion is a vehicle the nefarious see as a tool to assist them in their endeavors.

It is like blaming the road for being the escape route of the bank robber.

Is the net the fault of the Nigerian scams? Or even Nigeria?
Click to expand...
 
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