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Originally Posted by SecretMethod70
I suppose I think religion should be seen as a grand parable, not just by those teaching it, but by those following it.
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Yes, but that's asking a lot from your average human; I see you (as well as myself) as being in a far more privileged position (whether we chose it or not), where you don't *really* need a comforting set of rules, assuringly strict rituals, the soothing nature of repetition, abandonment of self... just to stay sane enough to feed your family. Most people cannot put their whole faith in something which they know is truly just a story, not when they need to trust that story in order to cope with the stress of day-to-day life.
It's like what I say about Walmart... I can afford to not shop there, to have those kinds of "ideals," because I have the means to shop elsewhere, pick and choose what I want, seeing Walmart for what it is. Most people don't have that kind of privilege... they just need a place to shop that won't break their budget. I suppose that's how I've come to see religion.
On a slightly different note, I forgot to mention Simone Weil as a Christian thinker that I respected very much (still do). Some quotes from Gravity and Grace that seem applicable here... (I had forgotten how much I loved Weil; my apologies if I ramble too much here).
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Originally Posted by Simone Weil
Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith: in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be atheistic with the part of myself which is not made for God. Among those men in whom the supernatural part has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
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Saint John of the Cross calls faith a night. With those who have had a Christian education, the lower parts of the soul become attached to those mysteries when they have no right to do so. That is why such people need a purification of which Saint John of the Cross describes the stages. Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of this purification.
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To desire one’s salvation is wrong, not because it is selfish (it is not in man’s power to be selfish), but because it is an orientation of the soul towards a merely particular and contingent possibility instead of towards a completeness of being, instead of towards the good which exists unconditionally.
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A society like the Church, which claims to be divine is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains than on account of the evil which sullies it.
Something of the social labelled divine: an intoxicating mixture which carries with it every sort of licence. Devil disguised.
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