So it's a "religion" if there's a power base? Pew says that 76 percent of Americans identify as Christian but only 41 percent belong to a church.
By that logic, would you consider a Christian who believes that there's a god-form who incarnated to tell people "Be nice to each other" and who doesn't belong to a church non-religious? Would that change if that Christian talked to hir kids about hir beliefs because they were important to s/he?
Ultimately, I'm not sure how unified and defined the established belief structures are. It seems like the rules are pretty fluid. One group says that gay folks are all right, one says they're not. One says that you can go to Heaven by being nice, one says you have to say the right incantation and have the right intercession. One's quiver-full, one's supportive of birth control. One's solitary and contemplative, one's communal and ecstatic. The net is broad and full of holes.
To disclose further: I was raised outside of all of this, and I've built enough of a religious cover that I can fake my way into seeming quietly more religious than the most religious person in the room, but I really don't comprehend it. It's the equivalent of asking a dog to choose its favorite Linux distro. So, yeah. These are stupid questions, but I'm stupid about faith-forms.
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Re: Hmmm
Date: 2011-03-23 04:57 pm (UTC)By that logic, would you consider a Christian who believes that there's a god-form who incarnated to tell people "Be nice to each other" and who doesn't belong to a church non-religious? Would that change if that Christian talked to hir kids about hir beliefs because they were important to s/he?
Ultimately, I'm not sure how unified and defined the established belief structures are. It seems like the rules are pretty fluid. One group says that gay folks are all right, one says they're not. One says that you can go to Heaven by being nice, one says you have to say the right incantation and have the right intercession. One's quiver-full, one's supportive of birth control. One's solitary and contemplative, one's communal and ecstatic. The net is broad and full of holes.
To disclose further: I was raised outside of all of this, and I've built enough of a religious cover that I can fake my way into seeming quietly more religious than the most religious person in the room, but I really don't comprehend it. It's the equivalent of asking a dog to choose its favorite Linux distro. So, yeah. These are stupid questions, but I'm stupid about faith-forms.