caeryon
New member
Ah! The ol' "opiate of the masses" debate....
While all that might be true about organized religions, there is a difference between faith and religion, although you certainly won't find most of the world's religions agreeing with that. How many times have you heard someone say, "I believe so-and-so, but I don't have to go to church to do so"? Personally, I think those people are right; most churches would disagree. What you believe is more important than how you express that belief. And that goes for those who don't believe as well.
If you're a Christian, you should be familiar with the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke. People like the Pharisee, who flaunt their religiosity and boast about how religious they are, irk the heck out of me. For folks who claim to be good Christians, they certainly don't seem to know very well what Jesus actually taught. Making a big show of your religion, any religion -- strutting about going, "Look at me! I'm more religious than you!" -- isn't what it's about.
It's usually that attitude, rather than the simple faith at the heart of a religion, that becomes the root of war. As long as religious leaders teach that their followers are the only people on the right path and everyone else is wrong, nothing will change. I admit that I have a w-i-d-e streak of idealism in me, but even I realize that that will never happen. I blame the problem on humans and human institutions, though, not on god-whatever-that-is.
As a sidenote, when I was in high school during the heyday of the Cold War, we had to take a class called "Americanism vs Communism." Several of us smart-alecks used to love to flummox the teacher by pointing to the early Christian community as a fine example of communism that worked. She was not amused, but look at how the first century followers of Jesus lived and tell me that it wasn't an example of the ideals of communism put into practice. As you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of the puritan work ethic, the Sermon on the Mount, and "the rich giving all their worldly possesions away." As far as I'm concerned, money is the root of all evil. (The old hippie in me, I guess.) The problem with the Medieval Church -- and today's -- is that the Church was rich -- and greedy, something of which I'm sure Jesus, who pretty much owned nothing but the clothes on his back, would have heartily disapproved. The Church hierarchy were money-changers in the temple, and we know how he felt about that. One of my personal heroes is St. Francis, a rich Medieval lord who did give away his possessions and became a better man for it.
While all that might be true about organized religions, there is a difference between faith and religion, although you certainly won't find most of the world's religions agreeing with that. How many times have you heard someone say, "I believe so-and-so, but I don't have to go to church to do so"? Personally, I think those people are right; most churches would disagree. What you believe is more important than how you express that belief. And that goes for those who don't believe as well.
If you're a Christian, you should be familiar with the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke. People like the Pharisee, who flaunt their religiosity and boast about how religious they are, irk the heck out of me. For folks who claim to be good Christians, they certainly don't seem to know very well what Jesus actually taught. Making a big show of your religion, any religion -- strutting about going, "Look at me! I'm more religious than you!" -- isn't what it's about.
It's usually that attitude, rather than the simple faith at the heart of a religion, that becomes the root of war. As long as religious leaders teach that their followers are the only people on the right path and everyone else is wrong, nothing will change. I admit that I have a w-i-d-e streak of idealism in me, but even I realize that that will never happen. I blame the problem on humans and human institutions, though, not on god-whatever-that-is.
As a sidenote, when I was in high school during the heyday of the Cold War, we had to take a class called "Americanism vs Communism." Several of us smart-alecks used to love to flummox the teacher by pointing to the early Christian community as a fine example of communism that worked. She was not amused, but look at how the first century followers of Jesus lived and tell me that it wasn't an example of the ideals of communism put into practice. As you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of the puritan work ethic, the Sermon on the Mount, and "the rich giving all their worldly possesions away." As far as I'm concerned, money is the root of all evil. (The old hippie in me, I guess.) The problem with the Medieval Church -- and today's -- is that the Church was rich -- and greedy, something of which I'm sure Jesus, who pretty much owned nothing but the clothes on his back, would have heartily disapproved. The Church hierarchy were money-changers in the temple, and we know how he felt about that. One of my personal heroes is St. Francis, a rich Medieval lord who did give away his possessions and became a better man for it.