Re: An insult

Richard Corfield wrote:
On 2007-08-26, Dave Smith <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
E. O. Wilson has certainly claimed so. In his book 'On Human Nature'
he commented:

"The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and
powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an
ineradicable part of human nature. Emile Durkheim, an agnostic,
characterized religious practice as the consecration of the group and
the core of society. It is one of the universals of social behavior,
taking recognizable form in every society from hunter-gatherer bands
to socilaist republics....."

A real pain if that which bonds your society happens to be something you
don't believe in.

Religion can really be a bond for a society - even if it's wrong.

I'm not sure that I see the problem. There's a difference between believing in religion - which clearly exists - and believing in gods.

I'm not sure if it is a majority, but I'm certain that a very large number of practising Anglicans, to mention just one group, go along to church to enjoy the ritual, the music and the magnificent language of the Book of Common Prayer.

Much of the objection to translating the liturgy into the vernacular is that the poetry of the Latin (in the case of RCs) or Cranmer's English and that of the King James Version in the case of Anglicans, is that it being poetic is most of the point - the meaning isn't as important as the sound of it. Just as with hymns.

To me it is just silly to have excluded a verse from Mrs Alexander's 'All things bright and beautiful' on theological grounds - why should anybody care? In any event, her sentiment provides a nice contrast to PC mawkishness:

'
The Rich man in his Castle,
The Beggar at his gate,
He made them high and mighty,
He ordered their estate.
All things bright and beautiful
etc. etc.
'

That and enjoying the architecture seem perfectly good reasons to join in something that is based on nonsense.

You could argue that sport plays a similar role. It's ritualistic, tribal and divisive enough to have at least small scale violence as a feature - isn't it just religion writ small, with deified players rather than invisible gods or idols?
.

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