Organized religion.

[cantdog]

I say no..

although I kindof object to the question. Wheat do you mean by "allowed to develop unchecked" You make it sound like religion is all suppressed, as though there were some kind of weird commie police writing down liscense plate numbers outside churches. I think that religion is developing, and I think it is developing towards more liberal social values, one of which is value of all people. While I think that gender roles as dictated in some cultures and proscribed by some religions are unequal, I think that people buy into them less and less and that this is reflected in their practice of organized religions. Also.. lots of people arent jerks, and lots of sincere religious people are totally not jerks, and many sincere religious people with charisma and intelligence to influence their communities are not only not jerks but are women. I think misogyny is a personal problem. Maybe its hip in some places.. with some groups, religious or not, but really. Its like the gay marriage issue being discussed in other threads. Its not even really anything to argue about. Yes.. people not like you really are still people and they really are a lot like you.

Or.. Religion is the cultural infrastructure of the past. Inequality was a cultural given in the past. That is falling away because the culture is changing. Religion is no longer the main structure of cultural organization now. But, as far as developing, if organized religions want to maintain relevancy they need to speak to the cultural changes that are happening independantly of them. This means to me that any "developments" will be taking religion towards new cultural norms. At least, thats how I see it.

Of course change isn't easy as we can see in the conflicts all over the world.. People who don't want to change can coopt religion or tradition or any number of ideas to justify their opposition. It doesn't mean that religion as a concept is any more exclusively theirs than spirituality belongs to hippies or the new age.

In fact, once, religion was considered the major civilizing factor in bringing us away from cultures that were in certain ways far more brutal than those we now enjoy, if you can imagine that.

Religion isn't a monster itself. I think religion is even kinda good! Gee! Have any of you guys ever practiced a religion? Do you know any religious people? People get so caught up with the fringes, the ridiculous amount of worthwhileness that seems to me so evident at the heart of the idea gets ignored. Maybe people just like to be outraged.


(goodness.. a rant!!)

As you say, explaura, the culture is changing. Churches will also change to reflect that, to a degree, and I think they were doing so even as the Right gained strength. Some elements, in reaction, are burrowing the opposite direction, of course. At the turn of the millenium, especially, Christians got excited, just like they did the last time.

For gays, for women, the hope is the younger generations, each less folded in on itself than the last. Or so I see it on my coast, in my weird corner of the country. The heartland is always more different from the coasts than you would imagine, if you are not living there.

Just the same, here the people around thirty are much less exercised about gays than those around fifty, and people around fifteen even less so, but with a good solid minority of outraged fundamentalists determined to give no ground.

I understand the picture is somewhat less rosy for gays and women in Kansas or Wyoming.

In all cases, though, the single most pervasive and important opposition to freedom for gays and women is religion.

 

[cloudy]

Organized religion isn't so much about religion as it is "belonging." Attend any church in the south, and you'll know exactly what I mean.

"True" religion, on the other hand, can be practiced alone, without the need for the stamp of approval from others, and without a "leader."

I do it every day....and so do many others.

 

[Ness73]

Explaura, re civilising brutal cultures with religion.

These cultures already had religion - many had multiple gods and the rites that go along with worshipping these gods.. They had creation myths, they had social stucture, they had crops and had domesticated animals. IMO they were already civilised. So they were occasionally brutal in their lives, I don't think that makes them uncivilised. Just because they didn't live by the bible...

 

[rgraham666]

Organized religion isn't so much about religion as it is "belonging." Attend any church in the south, and you'll know exactly what I mean.

"True" religion, on the other hand, can be practiced alone, without the need for the stamp of approval from others, and without a "leader."

I do it every day....and so do many others.

Nicely said, cloudy.

 

[Explaura]

I don't know if I beleive this quite. I think that organized religion is about belonging, but I don't think that is the extent of it. Also I think there is something very important and special about worshipping in a group.
I am not myself a member of an organized religion, but I have experience with them, and I have thought and studied a lot about it. What you call true religion sounds to me like spirituality, which is to me, the spirit and motivation behind religion. Its what makes religion real to me.. But I don't think they are the same. You can have one without the other, but to have both is different.

So I guess my main point is.. I think that the belonging aspect of organized religion is not peripheral, but that it really makes a difference to the practice of the religion and what people get out of it. I think it's a really valuable experience to have the support of a community for your faith. I wish I did have it. I deffinately understand people who don't get what they need out of that aspect of religion. That's fine but it doesn't negate the values others do place on this element of their spiritual practice.

Organized religion isn't so much about religion as it is "belonging." Attend any church in the south, and you'll know exactly what I mean.

"True" religion, on the other hand, can be practiced alone, without the need for the stamp of approval from others, and without a "leader."

I do it every day....and so do many others.

 

[Tuomas]

True, but for the most part, our religious society is Christian dominated, and I think it's mostly lip service that is given to other religions, though that is sure to change as we become more evenly diverse.

Lucky for me, I was not talking about "our" -rather your- religious society.

However, I wonder what you'd get if you took a real survey on what women really want. It may surprise you, and maybe me too, huh? Men thought women didn't really want to vote, just some of those old biddies that were rabble rousers. Oh. You weren't here then, huh? Hmm, neither was I. *Sigh!* Still, you know what I'm saying on that, I think.

Aside from all those women who quietly told their husbands that they shouldn't let other women vote (no survey was done on that), I think another generalization is in order. People don't know what they really want. In a certain sense, I think the large majority of people are being lead to believe they want things. (Take voting for example; they majority of people elidgeable to vote do not do so ... both men and women. Largely, from that data, we can concluded that the majority of women actually don't want to vote. We can also conclude that the majority of men don't want to vote, either. And we can conclude that the majority of people are not interested in democracy, or, at the very least, the kind of democracy we have.)

I think if you made a real survey of what women want, you would come out with so many different tendencies and ideas, with so much variation between them you wouldn't reach any definate conclusion. That's why social engineering progects -feminism, misogyny, Affirmative action, etc- won't work; they respond to a generalized tendency that ultimately leaves out huge portions of the population.

And is it possible that women have culturally been "led" to believe what they want, what they were meant to be, to do, in our society? Hehe, I won't bother about why women "dress up." I'm sure you'd get a variety of responses to that even here.

And it is possible for men to have been culturally led to believe things. In fact, we are. The question is, by whom? We know that that "traditionally", women stayed home and educated the children -male and female. If men came out to be social misogynists... it was because their mothers taught them to be. In fact, women teach their children to be "misogyists" to this day.

And do women and men compete in different things as you seemingly say so cavalierly? Will Vera Rubin ever be seriously be regarded for a Noble Prize, or will they await her sudden demise as they seem to have done to Rosalind Franklin. Oh, those are two lovely women to consider in this part of your discussion. Are they really so different from other women, or is it just that they felt more freedom to go into the fields that they loved, less culturally constricted, or able to fend off what they felt was expected of them as Rosalind was said to do? Hmm. Interesting question.

Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes way back in the nineteenth century -before even the suffragate movement was noticed. Not only was she the first two-time Nobel laureate, but she remains the only person with two Nobel's in different fields of science. So, I wouldn't say the Nobel Foundation actually descriminates against women.

However, the top scientific and social achievements remain predominantly in the hands of men. Why is that? I would hazard a guess, that if a woman wanted to win, and had the wherewithal to do it, she would win -just like Currie did. The thing is, most women don't; they have -in their estimation- more important things to do. Good for them.

While I don't think women should be denied the chance to achieve things in this order should they want to, I don't believe they should be forced to do things they don't want to, in the interest of "showing they can".

Once again, I'm a bit amused at your saying this. I know you probably didn't read what I posted about this very item in a separate thread. Biologically, it may well be that initially, sex between the sexes is only done so for reasons not really accepted yet. Beware of what lies beneath -- no, not the movie, but the surface of our being, mitrochondria, etc, on some of the more minute scales. It's shockingly disturbing to some, even to the point of . . ., well, let's just say disturbing. Evolution-wise, that may rear its head again, but in the meantime, perhaps a real survey is needed to be sure of what "women really want."

And, I was not talking about sex, thank God.

But that men spend a lot of time trying to make their woman happy? Now that's something that even the women of Lit would love to speak to. Yep, some would agree in their cases, but Lordie, what would the rest have to say, or do say, about it? Hehe. Put that out there as a survey if you'd like to get a sampling of what that may be like to ask as a whole, especially in America, or maybe even in other parts of the world. It just may pop your eyes.

Men do spend a lot of time trying to make their women happy, and women spend quite a lot of time not realizing it. And vice versa. And it also depends a lot on the woman's mood. Ask a girl under the influence of PMS whether her hubbie "cares" about her, and she will most likely snap at you. Catch her while she's ovulating, and all she will be able to say are nice, warm, cuddly things about the guy. (Ok, that was an exageration ) It's perception; those who are more selfish will invariably say their SO doesn't care as much about them. Those who are more empathetic, will say otherwise.

The rest of what women do, and want, as opposed to what men get to do (luckily, huh?), fugetaboutit, bub You don't want to get into that here, or much of anywhere where there is a goodly, openly spoken female population.

As if I was afraid of "openly spoken females"

Aw! Gosh, do you think they'd like to do the cooking? That way they could really make themselves happy. Oh, and before we get into that (which I won't do after this), just think of all the complaints out there in two worker families about "men" expecting the women to do "women's work."

Now where did I say anything like that? The common problem between men and women is miscommunication

I said women usually decide what the household eats -not that they cook it. And I did not mention "women's work", either. Now, if men would actually listen to what women said, instead of just assuming what they want to hear, maybe there would be better relations between the sexes

 

[cloudy]

I don't know if I beleive this quite. I think that organized religion is about belonging, but I don't think that is the extent of it. Also I think there is something very important and special about worshipping in a group.
I am not myself a member of an organized religion, but I have experience with them, and I have thought and studied a lot about it. What you call true religion sounds to me like spirituality, which is to me, the spirit and motivation behind religion. Its what makes religion real to me.. But I don't think they are the same. You can have one without the other, but to have both is different.

So I guess my main point is.. I think that the belonging aspect of organized religion is not peripheral, but that it really makes a difference to the practice of the religion and what people get out of it. I think it's a really valuable experience to have the support of a community for your faith. I wish I did have it. I deffinately understand people who don't get what they need out of that aspect of religion. That's fine but it doesn't negate the values others do place on this element of their spiritual practice.

We'll just have to agree to disagree, then.

I've experienced both, and I firmly believe that organized religion is the root of all evil.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Tuomas]

Given the limitations and constraints you have provided for your thesis, then I would largely agree. But, since you do not want to debate said limitations, i don't see any point in disagreeing with you.

I would like to comment on the use of the word "misogyny", which means litterally, "hatred of women" Source. I don't think any organized social stucture can survive if they profess and practice hatred of women. There have been a number of institutions which have systematically stimied women's advances, but not becuase or through hatred. Misogyny is a hyperbolic expression used in rhetoric, and as such has no relation to reality.

Afterall, the greatest challenge for a good relationship with the complimentary sex is good comunication

 

[Pure]

nice posting mismused. some comments

mm: Men being in approximate equal numbers with women, and how little we actually know about ourselves, what we are, and why, we can say that our civilizations have developed based on what we have believed for the most part, culture having passed it from one generation to the next.

P: Is it true that 'for the most part' civilizations developed 'based on what we believed.'? I'd say that's the exception, as when the Founders wrote the US Constitution, and deliberately directed and shaped the US. But most nations, for example, England have governments that change in less planned ways. Human inventions likewise shape us in unforeseen ways--look where 'the wheel' has led, and the 'internal combustion [gasoline] engine.' Or TV.


mmNot truly knowing ourselves, and using habits, and men being in the vast majority in the above items save for quantity of persons one way or another existing, men are in fact in power.

P: Yes, although that is not necessarily against the will or consent of the women.

Habit being habit, the fact that men have assumed the "power" by whatever force, or reason, the habit of it being vested in men is habituated in them, and habits being habits, are loathe to cease being as they are, and are unwilling to be less than they are, but greater than they originally were at inception -- again, if they didn't, they would not be "habits" which/whose only inherent purpose is to be, not cease. They, habits, perpetuate themselves, even generation unto generation. And culture is habit too.

Habits reinforce the power structure, sure. Habits tend to persist. There are also the 'compliant' habits of women, however; as you suggest, power is not necessarily 'forced' on those with seemingly less power.

The above being so, a religion which is dominated by men would by nature of the habit that it has been, perpetuate itself, and most likely seek to increase lest it decrease which is anathema to habit.

Yes, the religion reinforces habit. It would be odd if it didn't.

But the question is, How key is religion? For instance, to change Iraq, would you try to change (modernize) the religion? In the case of Turkey, Ataturk modernized, and the religion fell into line.

Scheher, as i read her, is suggesting to 'check' (curb) the religion to reduce misogyny. In the US constitution a 'religious test' for any federal office was forbidden. That's a curb, designed to have a 'neutral' state as regards promoting religion.

BUT notice that it took nearly 150 years for women to get the vote; IOW, religion was part of the problem, but not the main one. US 'religion' didn't--as far as I know-- directly, get curbed in the runup to women receiving the vote.

===
great posting!!