Religion may have been meant for the teaching of law in a society, but it's interpretation has been perverted by men who claim moral high ground, "our way or no way." Religion is about control and bondage. It's hypocrisy is being questioned as well it should. Spirituality, on the other hand,is about freedom.

Thanks to all for your comments.
I realise this is a controversial subject, especially at this time of the year.

Constance and Bazz, I dislike ALL religions, not just Christianity.
I don't dislike any person just for what they do or don't believe in however.
I take each person as they are, and how they treat others.

I believe religion to be at the root of almost all evils in our world....leading to wars and insanity.

Foxy, I realise that religions and religious people have done good things in our society and around the world. I just don't think they needed to believe in an invisible being to do them.
Mankind still grew and prospered long before they believed in a Christian God.

Yes, there are good and bad amongst secularists and atheists too, just as there are amongst any group of humans.
How do we explain a large family of God-fearing, church-going people where one or two members commit terrible crimes? I think it is because we are born that way, with some input from our environment and culture.

Dear Suse,

I'll repeat what I've posted on this forum
so many times previously.

Some form of religion has existed in every society
that we know of. Religious beliefs and practices are
so ancient that they can be traced into prehistory,
perhaps as far back as 100,000 years ago. Even the
primitive Neanderthal people of that time, it seems, had
some concept of a supernatural realm that lay beyond everyday
reality. Among the fossilized remains of these cave
dwellers, anthropologists have found evidence of
funeral ceremonies in the form of flowers and artifacts that
were buried with the dead, presumably to accompany them on
the journey to an afterlife.

Religion takes a multitude of forms. Believers may
worship gods, ancestors, or totems; they may practice
solitary meditation, frenzied rituals, or solemn prayer.
And obviously religion cannot be defined in terms of
the Western religious tradition alone. The sociologist
Emile Durkheim argued that shared religious beliefs
and the rituals that go with them are so important
that every society needs a religion, or at least some
belief system that serves the same functions.

He pointed out that the rituals enacted in any religion
enhance the solidarity of the community, as well as its
faith. Religious rituals such as Baptism, Bar Mitzvah,
Weddings, Sabbath Services, Christmas Mass, Funerals.
Rituals like these serve to bring people together,
to remind them of their common group membership, to
re-affirm their traditional values, to maintain
prohibitions and taboos, to offer comfort in times of
crisis and, in general to help transmit the cultural
heritage from one generation to the next.

The cause of much of the social disorder in modern
societies, Durkheim contended, is that, "the old gods are
growing old or are already dead, and others are not yet born."

In other words, people no longer believe deeply in traditional
religion, but they have found no satisfying substitute.

Just one of many theories and as with all theories - does
not allow for individual differences.

Hi Suse, this has really been interesting.

I raised a question in my previous post that I would like to gain an understanding of your perspective.

Assuming the success of secularism over Christianity prevails and we come to a point in time where Christianity is as popular as some of the forgotten pagan religions are today; Islam or more rightly the Muslim population of the world will continue to grow most likely reaching a point where people are either secularists or Muslim. The politically correct Western world may be willing to abandon religion but the Muslim world won't.

The Muslims will never buy into a political system run by non-believers and the secularist will never accept Muslim sharia law. This may be 500 years away but if secularism and Islam jointly share the world, an all out war is inevitable.

What is the secularist plan for dealing with the Muslim backlash? You can try to love them, allow them their space, but sharing the power cannot and will not be reciprocal.

Foxy "In other words, people no longer believe deeply in traditional
religion, but they have found no satisfying substitute. "

Foxy I think there is a very fine line between religion, culture and tradition.
No one is saying we should forget our religious history, or that everyone should become a secularist. I am saying that it is not as important now for an increasing number of people.
I have no belief in any God or religion, and I have not felt the need to find any 'substitute' either. I just feel annoyed I was forced to listen to all that rubbish and attend church when I was young.

Yes Josephus, I sent my daughter to the local Catholic school, but I first found out there were no nuns there, and the only other school, the local public school, was extremely over crowded and in disrepair.

My mother was saying today that as a young child at a Catholic boarding school, she was told by the delightful nuns that catching a train home to the farm on Good Friday for her Easter break would see her in hell for travelling on such a day. They told her she was more likely to be injured or die in an accident because God would be angry at her!

I believe we are all now more able to think for ourselves and not have to listen to such scare-mongering rubbish like that.

Conservative hippie, Muslims and Christians have been fighting wars against each other for thousands of years. I doubt much of that was due to religion as such, but more to do with securing land, people and riches for themselves.
I doubt much of that would change if there were not as many Christians around anymore.
Our great leaders of all countries will always want more than they already have.

Dear Suse,

As you know, I too was raised as a Catholic.
And I also used to think that I was not religious,
and perhaps I wasn't. I didn't like what organised
religion had done to the world. I still don't.
But I've come to realise that true religion is
internal, not external. The spirit within us can't
be blamed for the blasphemies carried out in its
name. What some have done in the name of religion,
projecting their neuroses, even perpetrating evil
on the world does not make religion as a mystical
phenomenon invalid.

I agree that secularised organised religions have
become in many cases as calcified as other institutions
that form the structure of our modern world. That's
why they are rejected by some. Our religious institutions
have far too often become handmaidens of the status quo,
while the genuine religious experience is anything but
that.

Religious institutions, as such are not the only arbiters
of religious experience. They do not own the Truth, for
Truth cannot be owned. Nor should they think they hold some
franchise on our spiritual life. They are consultants and
frameworks, but they are not God Himself. We should not
confuse the path with the destination.

I did turn away from religion for a while, but I found that
life without conscious awareness of God was difficult.
However I did not come back as a spiritually half-interested,
complacent congregant that many of our parents were when
we were growing up. I came back with an interest in actually
having a religious experience.

Yes, many people have dropped out but there are also many, like
myself, - who are beginning to come back and as a result of
this, organised religion will not be the same. It will have to
step up to bat religiously, or it will wither away.

Organised religious institutions are I believe in for a huge
transformation, for the simple reason that people
have become genuinely religious in spite of them.