by nvrgnbk 42 Replies latest jw friends
I wish to thank writetoknow for prompting this question from his thread "Hating Religion Is It Bigotry?"
What do you think?
What has been your personal experience?
Consider the impressionable mind of the infant.
Is it fair to indoctrinate them with dogma?
Is it fair not to?
well, you have to teach them something, but I really wouldn't recommend religion!
If it's based on fairie tales presented as truth that must be followed or else, yes. And isn't that the case with all religion?
changeling
well, you have to teach them something, but I really wouldn't recommend religion!
True, Hortensia.
Perhaps they could be taught natural consequences, with no mention whatsoever of supernatural entities?
In that way, they can navigate through life without fear of divine punishment for misdeeds and without false hope that all will be fixed by imaginary friends.
At times, I wonder if spirituality is innate.
Dilemma...
At times, I wonder if spirituality is innate.
Dilemma...
Dilemma?
It would appear that spirituality most definitely is innate.
No, all religons are not all abusive. How do define abuse?
If it's based on fairie tales presented as truth that must be followed or else, yes. And isn't that the case with all religion?
You, imho, hit the nail on the head.
Religion itself Might not be such a problem if it weren't for the FEAR that is employed.
Perhaps, though, if we took out the "or else" factor, what we would have is just a philosophy.
"Everything that men touch gets dirty"
And it goes for religion.
You can point to just about anything and find aspects that contain some degree of abuse. This applies to religion, politics, business, psychology, family and probably a lot more.
What makes any of these abusive is not that they sometimes abuse people but rather abuse of power is a fundamental aspect of their teachings and behavior. In the many different scales used to define abuse, groups that are totalitarian usually score positive on almost every point in the variouslists.
Non-abusive groups may score on 1 or 2 points. But those points do not demonstrate a pattern of abuse.
Another aspect may be that some members of a group may take things to the max, which may not be an actual belief of the group.
