What is your opinion on organized religion?

It’s fine.

I think it is absolutely OK. People can join any club they want.

Until the believers appropriate the the coercive power of the Political State in order to exert their will on the non believers. Then, and only then, I become an opponent.

I have a massive problem with it.
I think you have to have your own ideas.

It’s not for me. I have no problem with people who get something out of it unless they knock on my door to tell me all about it.

I don’t really have an issue with it. In fact, I’m kind of supportive of it. I go to a Presbyterian church, but some times I don’t really know if I should identify myself as a Presbyterian. I don’t really see the Bible as a sort of rulebook for life, but it provides some solid guidelines and ideologies.

But blood will over almost anything, especially religion. I think it’s unfortunate that some people have given it such a bad reputation. So long as its not extreme or forcing its views on any other group, I’ve never really had an issue with it.

Every organized religion I’ve studied is based on mythology that is largely bullshit and contains morals that have no place in modern society.

I haven’t studied Buddhism much though.

I’m ridiculously and unequivocally ambivalent.

Hey, if it floats your boat, fine. just don’t go around trying to kill, harass, or act like your shit smells better than the supposed sub humans or non believers.

Despise it.

I like the potlucks.

I think its a haven for sociopaths. What better job for someone who thrives on telling people what to do and having them listen and follow than preaching at them? And doing it “legitimately” through organized religion keeps them respectable rather than being called the cult leaders and sociopaths they are. These people are able to indulge themselves in a way that’s purely ridiculous and manipulate people in a way that’s disgusting.

@Kardamom yay potlucks! Organized religion is good for what it’s good for.
Some of them have proselytizing aspects that are twisted and psychologically cancerous. But that’s not true of them all nor of most practitioners, usually the “leadership”.

The Catholic parish I go to is very liberal, and has a strong and welcoming community. It is supportive of various viewpoints; in that regard it is unusual. If it were not that way, I doubt I would be participating.

@dabbler, I don’t think the fact that they proselytize is nearly as problematic as what they’re proselytizing.

God didn’t make things “one size fits all.” Jesus had far more issues with the Scribes and Pharasees than he ever did with harlots and tax collectors. Christians are not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together, but neither do we need an entrenched heirarchy of eccleiastical bureaucrats interpreting what God told us. I do not like organized religion.

Kinda creeps me out, honestly.

@athenasgriffin Welcome to Fluther. I’d be happy if organized religion went the way of monarchy and other human institutions that we have largely evolved beyond today. I believe that outside of the USA, it is doing just that, and that’s a good thing. Even here, it doesn’t commend the demographics it did 100 years ago. But the God guns and gays crowd has a loud and stubbornly persuasive voice in shaping the US meme.

I believe organized religion is inherently corrupt and therefore don’t like it one bit.

I think it is good for some people, and bad for others. I know a family who have been going through some issues, the nature of which I do not know, but their Church deemed them “sinful” as a result and basically dropped them like a bad habit. That is completely ridiculous, but it happened, so they came to a different Church who did not accept them due to their inability to actively participate because of the health reasons that got them deemed “sinful”. They then went to yet another church, my uncle’s church, and made loads of new friends there and are doing fantastic now. So organized religion helped them a lot, in the end, they are great people.

As far as its negative effects go, the extreme ends of religion are bad, and when the Church is overly self-righteous, like in my example above, they reject people they deem sinful or who cannot actively participate due to medical reasons.

I think of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, both prominent members of organized religion, who had the courage to speak out against intolerance and injustice and hatred, who communicated a clear vision for a better future, and who were both murdered for their beliefs.

@mattbrowne, the flipside to MLK and Bonhoeffer are all the people who were prominent members of organized religion who committed atrocities in the name of their religion.

You can’t simultaneously give religion credit for MLK but say that religion did not underpin the behavior of al-Qaeda, abortion clinic bombers, inquisators and crusaders.

@Qingu – Well, there are healthy forms of religions and unhealthy forms of religion. Can we give credit to the founding fathers of the American nation and its constitution?

Nationalism involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined as a nation and the nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit. Can’t we simultaneously give credit for people who wrote the American constitution, but say that the concept of having nation states did not underpin the behavior of criminals who kill in the name of nationalism? Like the IRA in Northern Ireland. They never killed anybody in the name of Catholicism. Can we really draw the conclusion that a small group of people misusing the concept of religion or the nation state does discredit the concepts as a whole?

What can we do to distance ourselves from these small groups of people? I think having a charter is a good idea. Like this one which I have shared before:

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women

- to restore compassion to the center of morality and religion
– to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate
– to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures
– to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity
– to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”