(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Some thought-provoking news items on religion:

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

Gakked from nostalgia_lj: Do Unnatural Acts Cause Natural Disasters?

In brief: higher rates of religious belief coincide with higher rates of social ills such as murder and STDS; no correlation between numbers of gay citizens and natural disasters.

I sometimes worry what would happen if the Pagans were put in charge. Would we, too, turn to dogma, greed, and power-grabbing? Or would we simply be unable to form a stable government?

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I like to think that, without hierarchy and dogma, a lot of the problems of organised religion would be lessened; but parts of Paganism exhibit both hierarchy and dogma, and of course Pagans are just human beings. Every new religious movement starts as free and undogmatic and challenging and soon fossilizes. It's depressing.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

People don't like change and uncertainty. Freedom and lack of dogma and challenge are all very well, as long as they're going your way. But when everyone else's freedom clashes with yours, regularly, and arguments erupt because there's no solid agreement on your tenets, and when you get continually frustrated by unexpected challenges ... fossilisation starts to look appealling.

I think if we want a huge society, we have to accept limits and structures and strictures and such. But, likewise, we can't have a huge society if those strictures are too limiting, or too exclusionary.