Beliefs? or an excuse to justify intolerance? (Religion)

Member Name: samantha

Product:	Religion
Date:	04/05/01 (78 review reads)
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I'm musing I'm afraid, so god knows (excuse the pun!) where this will go.

My family are predominantly catholic, although all apart from one of my grandmas have rejected the faith and I was not even baptised into the C of E which was pretty much standard practise when I was born (1976).

My Catholic grandma, I have recently learnt, comes from money. Her mother was a Catholic from Ireland who married a Protestant and was rapidly disinherited and disowned by her family. A tale that all too often happens, she lost her family by falling in love with someone from the 'wrong' religion.

My other grandma attended a catholic school ran by nuns and was so badly treated that she rejected her faith entirely and is very scathing of Catholicism. Another sad tale that we often seem to hear.

Clearly this make me very suspicious of organised religion.

I have very little to do with people who are very religious, not from choice, but they clearly must avoid me or vice versa. One situation I found deeply odd was an ex boyfriend whose family where religious and it was a well known fact that his dad used to sleep with the organist at the church, he even used to bring her home!

I understand this is probably deeply unrepresentative of many people who have faith but surely people who hold a belief should live as closely as possible an acceptable life style, or at the very least a moral one!

In England there seems to be a deep distrust of religions such as Hinduism and Sikhs but I'm afraid I have, from my experience had a greater respect for the people who live in the area which I do (which is predominately Asian) who attend services regularly and 'appear' to live in their culture. (and it is a culture - this is the difference between the Christian religions and many other religions we have no Christian culture)

I'm sure that all sounds very naive, but whilst I distrust religion I have grea
t respect for those who truly believe in something and live by those beliefs, it is a form of discipline that I clearly do not have.

As the Dooyoo question states is an undercurrent of religion really necessary for today’s society? I don’t believe it is. Society does not take its morals from religion, religion is not enforced in any way. The law is not based upon moral guidelines (excluding the original origins of equity) although they do permeate the decisions and the laws that are made, there are no moral imperatives embodied in the law, no demands to act in a moral manner, just punishment for transgressing the rules of society. For example there is no positive requirement in the law to save a drowning child or to help someone who is being raped. Clearly to ignore these acts would be perceived as immoral but there is no necessity to input a moral obligation into the law as individuals are assumed to be broadly moralistic, be it due to their own personal codes or from some religious belief.

We can all recant tails of problems with religion, intolerance, fights and even wars that stem from religious beliefs. I will personally never support a church that propagates beliefs that I am opposed to, such as anti abortionist and homophobic literature and support for groups who act out these beliefs. But sometimes religion is just an excuse, something to ‘back up’ extremist beliefs, the KKK, claim to be good god fearing Christians, as if this makes them anything other than violent racists.

So everyone has their right to choose but as other have said, if these beliefs are narrow minded, harmful or event just downright annoying can they please keep them to themselves. I don’t think converting me would make me into a better person just a less tolerant one.

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