Originally Posted by
squern
I was brought up in a vaguely Christian household, under no pressure to conform or otherwise.
The older I get, the less I believe that organised religion is a good thing, and that Christianity, as practised by the established churches is relevant. It preaches a self-satified, intolerant, patronising propaganda, and dismisses all other beliefs with an astounding arrogance.
It seems to me to be rather infantile to expect certain words spoken in the right order, by a person got up in peculiar regalia to make a difference one way or the other. A sort of uber "Daddy mend!". It belongs to a past of ignorance, deference and unquestioning obedience which is out of place in today's world. We ought to have grown out of it by now.
If we see what we call primitive people deferring to some befeathered bloke, chanting of strange sounds waving bones and potiuons about, we consider them backward.
In the past we have sent our own version to chant words they don't understand, whilst decked out in peculiar garb, to "educate" them in the True Path. And dismissed their culture, beliefs, and social systems without another thought. And the Christian church still does, believing, as it does that it, and only it, has all the right answers to all the world's ills.
And when you look at the actions of those who profess to follow these teachings, you have to add in hypocracy as well. Protestants murdering Catholics (and vice versa) in Ireland, child abuse, Vatican corruption, dodgy financial doings - all contrary to the teachings of this faith, and all carried out by people who would call themselves religious.
And if you live in Iraq, you'd better be the right sort of Muslim, otherwise another Muslim might kill you.
And there's supposed to be a God behind all this? The less I have to do with it, the better.