How important is religion in your life? What influence (if any) has it had on you? I don't mean to pry but I thought it may make for an interesting discussion. Religion has always been part and parcel of my life - it is embedded in my identity, which also means that I know only too well where it falls short. I would like to see whether religion does have a place in our lives, providing meaning to modern Australia or not?

Can religion be re-invigorated as a vital backdrop to contemporary Australian life?

"Religion" is a large category, but I take it to mean an institutionalised set of beliefs and practices associated on the face of it with "God" and a spiritual dimension to our lives. If we dig a little deeper we see that these institutions evolved with the socialisation of man to give authority to moral strictures and exert control over radical elements. Ideally, religion is the gluten in society.
In practice, though, this powerful control mechanism has been routinely abused, and religious institutions have historically been an influential means of mass-manipulation. The institutions have evolved symbiotically with governments to maintain the status quo, but their motivation, like any populist political party, is self-serving and preserving in perpetuity.
In the modern world, with the extraordinary rate and scope of change (so-called progressive development), conservative religious institutions are properly obsolete; unable to keep up or to offer plausible rationales for its continuing relevance. The kind of institutional ethics (a way of legitimising self-interest as a pseudo-universal) religions established presupposed cultural consummation: maturity and long-term stability.
Disintegrated post-modern society is gluten free.

Religion as a spiritual dimension to life, however, remains as a hangover for many the hapless individual. So I'm thinking now about the legitimacy of religion as an individualised component of modern life. Time permitting I'll post some thoughts on that later.

Lexi,
An interesting challenge, though I agree with Squeers that you perhaps should have explained what you understood by religion: there are many facets to this phenomenon and many definitions of the term emphasizing this or that facet. I tried to express this fact with my reference to the elephant and the blind men in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10496#174292.

Squeers provided one, albeit narrow, definition. His views on the topic are, I think, well known here, so you might be interested in my - being a hapless individual for whom the religious dimension to life remains as a hangover, to use his description - reaction to them, notably the quote from Toynbee in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10959#182998 and the sequel.

Lexi

I find myself in agreement with Squeers AND George.

Do you mean formal religion like, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism?

Or the more personal and individual spiritual feelings?

A quite brilliant insight, Squeers, I really like it.

>>Ideally, religion is the gluten in society.<<

Wikipedia describes gluten thusly:

"Gluten (from Latin gluten "glue") is a protein composite that appears in foods processed from wheat and related species, including barley and rye. It gives elasticity to dough, helping it to rise and to keep its shape, and often giving the final product a chewy texture."

I love the idea that religion gives society a "chewy texture", as well as allowing it to "rise and to keep its shape". Both are highly relevant images, with the "chewy texture" evident in the nature of different religions, and the internal tensions they create. And of course the rising and keeping in shape part is contained in the idea that religion is a form of social bonding that allows individuals to achieve more as members of an identifiable team.

But gluten, as we know, has another role. Many people experience gluten sensitivity, and in extreme cases, gluten intolerance.

At one end of this spectrum, there are people like myself who prefer to avoid religion because it makes them uncomfortable. In much the same way as I avoid wheat-based products, not because I have celiac disease, but because they give me indigestion. And I don't actually need bread, as I can get everything I need to support my life without subjecting myself to the inconvenience. Exactly as I can conduct myself with the same level of social cohesion, kindness to others and personal ethical behaviour, without the need to believe in the existence of a supreme being.

Then of course you have those who are pathologically allergic to religion - we all know who they are - and demonstrate the full range of intolerance symptoms.

Religion as society's gluten. Altogether, an almost perfect analogy, thank you Squeers.

Despite the fact that I'm an atheist, I'd have to say that Christianity is "embedded in my identity". It got there by osmosis, since I was born and raised in middle-class WASP Australian society in the 1950s, and it was therefore pretty well unavoidable, even though my parents were entirely non-religious. I went to Sunday School for a while because another kid's grandmother gave me money for doing so, but as soon as the bribery stopped I was out of there. But I can still remember the Lord's Prayer and essentially Christian values are undoubtedly implicated in many of my current implicit assumptions - once someone's enculturated it's very hard indeed to excise such influences, even if you might really want to.

On the other hand, notions of 'spirituality' are entirely alien to me. My life is not conducted by reference to imaginary gods or friends in the way that it is for religious people. That's not to say that I'm anti-religion - indeed, I think religious belief and practice perform numerous very positive social and individual functions.

So does sport. I have nothing against either except when they impinge uninvited upon my personal life. But it's a good topic for discussion, Lexi - I think that many problems derive from the fact that religious people have their faith so deeply embedded in their identities that they simply can't conceive of any other way of being. Should be interesting :)