One of my friends wrote that she believed in God but not in religion. Or at least she didn't believe in institutionalized religion. I at least partly support this line of thinking. Institutionalized religion can create many different types of problems -- some of them worse than the types of problems it attempts to solve.
Most institutionalized forms of religion (notice I said 'most', not 'all') are full of 'righteousness' and 'narcissism' -- and that to me indicates the hand of man, not the hand of God. Even those religion that work extra hard to preach such things as: 'altruism', 'love', 'generosity', 'caring', 'community', 'family', 'not being greedy or selfish', 'tolerance', 'acceptance', etc., etc., -- these characteristics too reflect the hand -- and the mind -- of man, not the hand of God...Man is 'multi-bi-polar' in my mind, and this latter set of characteristics simply reflect a second line of 'bi-polar thinking' in man...
So here is one 'dialectical bi-polarity' that we find in many religions and churches (mosques, synagogues, temples...): the bi-polarity between righteousness on the one hand and tolerance/acceptance on the other hand. A second bi-polarity is between narcissism and altruism; and a third bi-polarity is between dominance and submission or even sadism and masochism. Some bi-polarities in religion are either suppressed and/or hidden. When they are hidden, we call them 'hypocrisies' such as when the Roman Catholic Church was preaching a life of 'self-denial' and 'giving everything possible to the Church' while the leaders of the Church were indulging in every luxury, fantasy, and narcissitic pleasure imaginable based on everything that was given to them by the people of their Church in the name of 'piety'. Or when a preacher/evangelist on television is preaching a 'very stringent sexual morality' to thousands and thousands of people but then is found to be visiting prostitutes in his spare time and/or engaging in very 'liberal sexual practises' inside his own Church. Hypocrisy -- thy name is 'man' (based on unintegrated 'bi-polarities' in the personalities of many, many individual people including even those leaders who we at least start out by idealizing and/or idolizing the most, that is, until they fall off the bandwagon of the 'most esteemed pedestal' that we unrealistically put them on to begin with.) We expect our leaders to be 'super-human' -- until we find over the course of time that they are just as human as each and everyone of us is who have falsely idealized and idolized them. We love to hold our leaders to unrealistic expectations -- and then 'trash' them when they 'fall from glory' because they can't or don't live up to these unrealistic expectatins that we placed on them in the first place. Call it the 'honeymoon' and 'after the honeymoon' effect...
There are at least three more bi-polarities that are worth investigating relative to the workings of many religions: specifically, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism, and authoritarianism vs. democracy. We will only look briefly at the last one in the context of this essay.
Most religions are flat out 'authoriarian'. They tell you what to do -- in the name of God -- and they expect you to do it. Which begs the question: 'Why not teach, preach, and practice democracy in Church?' Indeed, this is part of a larger question that needs investigating: 'Why do we teach, preach -- and indeed almost worship -- democracy (or purported democracy) in our political speeches and yet generally fail to practise it in our homes and families, in our place of work and business, and in our various religions and the institutions where these religions are practised? Where is the consistency and logic in this type of reasoning and behaving?
The answer as I see it is this: Man in general is conflicted and 'bi-polar' within his psyche between 'authoriarianism' and 'democracy'. And these two 'dialectical opposites' continue to 'dialectically dance' with each other every living day of our life -- at work, at home, in government, and even in our various religions.
Both authoritarianism and democracy have their strengths and weaknesses (for example, more unilateralism and speed of decision-making in an authoritarian context vs. generally more respect for the group and the various individuals in the group in the context of a democracy). Man is constantly sliding back and forth between authoritarianism and democracy as he reaches for the advantages and strengths of each while getting into trouble with the disadvantages and weaknesses of each.
Again, as in many instances of the thousands of possible 'dialectical dances' we can do, the answer will often for many lie somewhere in the middle such as in the integrative realm of an 'authoritarian democracy' or a 'democratic authoritarianism (or autocracy)'.
Regardless, 'democracy' rarely reaches into religion which is why we might ask ourselves: 'Why are we so ready and willing to submit and adapt ourselves to a basically authoritarian and dominant-submissive environment. What would it take to get from a basically 'righteous, narcissistic and/or anti-narcissistic, dominant-submissive' process of practising religion to a more 'democratic-dialectic-humanistic-existential' process of practising religion?'
Those are the two questions that I will leave you with today...
dgb, April 4th, 2008.
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