Avoidance of Head Detonation
Damn thoughts if I don't write them down my head will EXPLODE.
Christianity is in decline in this country because it has become watered down and vague. Women as vicars, gay vicars, gay marriage and so forth are all symptoms of this. Being a liberal minded individual all of this is music to my ears, but it is undeniably against the doctrine of Christianity. The problem is that people are, for the most part, tolerant and liberal minded in this country and this...niceness just doesn't fit in with the more intolerant aspects of Christianity, so Christianity itself had to change. But in changing it lost any semblance of legitimacy-if you can choose not to believe in certain parts of the bible, what reason is there to believe any of it at all? The trouble with the liberalisation of religion is that eventually it will have to renounce itself. How can a liberal person believe it is right for someone, anyone, no matter what they have done, to be tortured? Yet Christians believe in Hell, where people are tortured for all eternity for as little as not believing in God. If organised religion wants to remain legitimate it has to accept that it is intrinsically cruel.
I'm not anti-religious. I think you can factor a God into a liberal and tolerant world view, it just won't be any of the ones that are on offer. I've read enough psychology and experienced them often enough to know that religious feelings are real, and they try to latch onto things-ideas of God, spirituality, aliens, ghosts, giant lizards who rule the world, astrology, superstition. I just think that religion should be personal, not this huge authoritarian monster straddling the Earth.
Christianity is in decline in this country because it has become watered down and vague. Women as vicars, gay vicars, gay marriage and so forth are all symptoms of this. Being a liberal minded individual all of this is music to my ears, but it is undeniably against the doctrine of Christianity. The problem is that people are, for the most part, tolerant and liberal minded in this country and this...niceness just doesn't fit in with the more intolerant aspects of Christianity, so Christianity itself had to change. But in changing it lost any semblance of legitimacy-if you can choose not to believe in certain parts of the bible, what reason is there to believe any of it at all? The trouble with the liberalisation of religion is that eventually it will have to renounce itself. How can a liberal person believe it is right for someone, anyone, no matter what they have done, to be tortured? Yet Christians believe in Hell, where people are tortured for all eternity for as little as not believing in God. If organised religion wants to remain legitimate it has to accept that it is intrinsically cruel.
I'm not anti-religious. I think you can factor a God into a liberal and tolerant world view, it just won't be any of the ones that are on offer. I've read enough psychology and experienced them often enough to know that religious feelings are real, and they try to latch onto things-ideas of God, spirituality, aliens, ghosts, giant lizards who rule the world, astrology, superstition. I just think that religion should be personal, not this huge authoritarian monster straddling the Earth.
posted by Ben at 6:52 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home