Grrr – I closed the browser window by accident! Lost one of my very long responses and don’t have the heart to try to recreate it verbatim – so here is the abridged version!
Imagine a world without the stigma of divorce, the stigma of who has the better car, the stigma of who is more educated (degrees attained, not actual education!), the stigma of not fitting in with the fold? Unfortunately, most of this isn’t possible as long as people are preaching their beliefs instead of being able to evolve both emotionally, as well as practically.
Last night I came to the conclusion (I was in deep thinking mode – you draw your own conclusions!) that the ‘family values’ and abstinence lobby has probably done more to promote teen sex and other things which they are supposed to be against! The problem is that by putting a religious moral label on something (God wants you to be pure, without chastity you are sinning, etc.) and the hippocracy of it as well as the forbidden fruit of it causes many kids to rebel against it. Without the hypocritical religious aspect of supposed social consciousness, society might actually have a chance to band together to create moral codes. For example, the more devout someone is, chances are the less they are open about a problem. The more devout someone is, the more likely if there is a problem to be discussed that the repercussions are so severe that the problem will continue and lying and deception will be the norm.
If there was no religion and social codes were in step society would come together in a greater way. Currently we have a us-vs.-them mentality of religious leaders preaching their own brand of morality to the masses (while usually they are the most egregious offenders of the social code i.e. Bush) and a backlash from open minded and the socially relaxed larger irreligious mass. Just as many people (like myself) disregard the preaching of the religious as either self-serving, opposite in values to what they preach, dangerous to free will, or just plain socially repressive as well as the very large group who pay lip service to their religious responsibilities and go out and break all the rules anyway (the forbidden fruit), this sets up conflict in society and actually increases the behavior against the preaching.
The corollary to that would be that if moralistic prigs didn’t abuse their power derived from the great mass of sheep like followers, and did not attach religion to social actions (such as chastity, abortion, vulgarism, etc.), society would have a greater mandate to set standards for these actions. It’s hard to set policies and ideas in dealing with teens as a community, when the community is so fractured with the far-right religious dogma which is tried to be hobbled on popular society.
Some examples of hippocracy are found in my own travels. I have a friend (spoke of him earlier) who is deeply religious. He spends a huge amount of time lying or thinking about lying as he chafes at the halter of his religious convictions. He is very typical. I go through life without ever telling any lies. As I live an open life, and don’t have any artificial requirements laid on me by any outsourced morality police, I never have anything to lie about!
I have a Mormon friend who sneaks off and plays golf and drinks and smokes on the course, and lies about it to his wife and family. I have a Hasidic friend (Ultra religious Jew) who has a huge porn collection at his office (as his other co religionists do) as he has to hide this from his family and the temple. I have a Catholic acquaintance who is in a loveless marriage, but stays together because he has to (and never, ever talks to his wife) – real good for the kids!
I live my own moral code and actually follow it. I tell the truth because I can’t imagine any reason I would have for lying. I don’t chafe…
On the subject of marriage, it is amazing how much damage is done by these strict and anti-sociatal edicts that accompany religion. I think that the Catholic church is a prime offender, but also many Muslim sects are also preaching regressive rules which are enforced with severity on the population. The stigma attached to divorce is one of many crimes which the church should answer for. Raising kids when you aren’t in love and don’t create a loving atmosphere is just not right. Preaching abstainance (without any chance of it working) and not using or endorsing contraception has killed more people than most wars – I would hate to part of a group which was this corrupt and dangerous to polite society.
I know it’s politically correct not to take a religion to task for the ills it creates, but perhaps this might be the start of a golden age where we make people who hurt others responsible for their actions. Take the church to task for the people who are diseased and dying because of the lack of contraception, take the church to task for making girls too young to raise an infant responsible to spend their lives in poverty and squalor, take the bishops who knew about sexual predators and moved them around to more fertile hunting grounds and imprison them (why has this not happened?)
I know this is going to inflame the religious core. I wish it wasn’t so. But try answering for the specific things as written above. I hope that there is a time where religion is not treated in a special manner and the religious are held accountable for their actions rather then being allowed to influence society for the worse.
p.s. Sorry Kitty for not realizing your position vis-a-vis religion and dogma. I shouldn’t have gotten it wrong based on your posts – you have an awesome and honest perspective on life and a great heart!
