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

@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.,)

@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...)

@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