thinking non‐cult organized religions are evil 🤝 people who think they are smarter than everyone else
an organized religion is just an organized discussion. there are lots of reasons not to like specific religions, but if you hate a religion simply for the sin of being organized that just means you hate listening to people who aren¦t yourself
what Christianity teaches is that people are vulnerable and fallible and sometimes they need the leadership of experts. this has a failure mode on one end where people found cults and tell you not to trust your eyes or ears or conscience. and it seems many people have seen this and pivoted to the opposite failure of seeing themselves as infallible and not trusting experts at all
you do not have to accept Christianity¦s framing. but if you grew up in a Christian context you should at least merit that the true answer is somewhere in the middle
@gaditb i think people who criticize “organized religion” conceive of their criticisms as applying equally to buddhist monasteries and the roman catholic church. whether that is actually true is a different question, but these posts are written assuming a worldview in which some criticism applies to both (the criticism usually being: in organized religions, other people tell you what to think/do)
i am not arguing a stance with respect to religion in general, just making the claim that listening to religious experts is not always a bad thing. “experts” implies organization because it is thru organization that experts become recognized. (“organization” here is a synonym for “society” and it might be more appropriate to talk about “social religions” and “asocial religions”, but the people who criticize organized religions do not want to admit that they are arguing for asociality)
the distinction between an organized religion and an unorganized one is of the same character as the distinction between public and private. many ex‐Christians believe it is fine to be privately religious but that it is bad to publicly participate in religious practice (for a very narrow definition of “public” which varies)
@Lady I feel like there MIGHT be space to talk about a combination of "being socially positioned as a metaphysical authority, above what can be legitimately questioned by an unpositioned individual/dissension" and "making normative statements about behavior" being unethical to have together?
and... maybe that's an inherent property of organized religion?
(... tho I kinda question the "inherent property" bit, and think maybe there's prolly one or two other elements needed before it starts getting unethical... maybe...)
@Lady ... ehh, this is just the same "experts" thing you're saying, tho. But I tossed a bit about "legitimately questioned" in to give it a chance of having legs.
@gaditb i think “being socially positioned as a metaphysical authority, above what can be legitimately questioned by an unpositioned individual” is where you start to get into it being a cult. in Catholicism for example, the highest moral authority is your own conscience. people are excommunicated when their actions go against the understanding of the church, but this is not a moral condemnation of the individual so much as an organizational insulation against facilitating evil. (and you can be evil and remain in the Church so long as you do not make it complicit.) and i think many noncult Christian organizations follow a similar perspective. they offer experts, but the ultimate moral judgment does not rest with them but with Christ, and it would be sinfully presumptuous to presume oneself to be on that level
@Lady Wait Catholicism-clarification question isn't there a Pope in this.
Like does the Pope not outrank your conscience.
(Also second question -- "organizational insulation against faciliating evil" here also includes expelling bad (Church-judged) influences on the flock, right? Like people being trans. (If not "bad influences" what did my friend who got excommunicated for being trans get excommunicated for.)
EDIT since your second post: AH, "giving communion to someone in a state of sin" is the evil that would have been facilitated. (?) )
@gaditb the Pope does not outrank your conscience
this is why if you listen to Democratic Catholics (Tim Kaine as running mate for Hillary Clinton comes to mind), they will often say they believe abortion to be a “matter of conscience”. they may believe, with the Church, that it is wrong in most cases, but they also believe that if your conscience tells you it is the right thing to do, that trumps the Pope. and that is how they can support decriminalizing it even when the Pope says it should be banned, and the Pope does not excommunicate them for this
@gaditb (re: edit: yeah, my guess is that is the justification)
@gaditb to take an example of the Catholic Church being obviously wrong, they used to excommunicate people for getting divorces. this is because they thought getting divorces was morally wrong, but more importantly because being divorced is a perpetual act and they believe you should not give communion to somebody in a state of sin. you obviously cannot confess away your divorce-sin when you are still divorced, ergo, no communion
HOWEVER, many Catholics even at the time disagreed with this opinion and thought divorce did not leave you in a perpetual state of sin. and these people were not excommunicated for thinking that. the Church doctrine was legitimately questioned and this was allowed. the line was drawn at the point where the Church itself would become complicit in something that went against its values—offering communion to a person in a state of sin—not at the point of disagreement
the Church was wrong, of course
@Lady Okay for the actual thoughts here:
Hmm. I guess where does "can be legitimately questioned" land you. The questioner not being socially exorcized/dismissed from consideration or personhood?
... okay yeah, I think that lines up with what I think I was thinking, and that feels like a fair line where crossing it puts you into cult territory.
@Lady Are there critiques of organized religion that meaningfully cut across religions like this (and aren't, even if saying "organized religion", basically just critiques of one particular religion, maybe two, that the writer has personal and social experience with, and are generalizing all religions as being roughly equivalent to)?
(Also is "organized religion" a monolithic term here, or is "organized" modifying "religion" and your definitions are keeping space for religions that are not-organized or disorganized?) (Or is "not-organized/disorganized religion" just "isolated individual spirituality/practice" rather than "religion", with all the critiques of isolated individualism and whether such a thing is possible, you believe(nontransitive) in a society, etc. etc.,)