It's not about G-d

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

"It's not about god, it's about social control."
I can't remember who said this to me but they were right about religion.

                          Social control is just one form of self control.

Given that this country/humanity/me is, as always, in a bit of a fix.
And, given that we could use some sort of motivator to get out of this trouble.
It occurs to me that we need a religion of some sort. We need a code, a system, a way.

                                        I'm a (insert identity here)

Faith needn't necessitate god though. Many religions get along fine without god: Buddhism, Taoism, some branches of Hinduism, many political movements, many Jews, most Catholics.

Not that a faith (the faiths?) would need to be atheist: one's belief in God could be like one's belief in loop quantum gravity: interesting, but not going to get you laid. Nor would the faith(s) need to have firm guideline on everything. There could be the general guideline of "don't be a fucker," with several branches of belief: you could interpret The Holy Hypertext (the holy comic book?) as saying that this means "be polite" under school A, "don't  torture your food" under school B, "volunteer," whatever.

Part of my motivation is to be able to slap labels on things and call them "of the faith." I got kosher meals when I went to Europe, because I heard they were better. This is not true on Lufthansa where the food is generall good, but most airlines have policies in this regard. Think about it. One can say "I'd really rather be able to get this or that kind of food or clothes" and then there's "it's my faith, bitch: I don't buy or eat anything else." People respect (and market to) the latter for whatever reason.

It's not about god. It's about organization, identity, rules. Snappy clothes. Ideas. Ideals. Priciples. Foundations. Caregiving. Potluck dinners and old buildings that need constant fundrasing. God's just there to give it some oomph. Oomph could be made up for with enough cool shit. I see tapdancing.


An unrelated link: a date movie for sure.

Comments

[inri33.livejournal.com]

We could make a date of it, I wanna see that movie. It looks crazy fucked up awesome

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Add me too, please. I'd like to go.

[bthomasac.livejournal.com]

Many Jews and most Catholics got along without God? How do you figure that?

[arrogant-gamer.livejournal.com]

Hi

"The people that make up the religion as a body, get along without (g)God(s)," I think is the meaning.

z.

[hundun.livejournal.com]

Most of the people I've talked to who call themselves Jewish or Catholic, and who do Jewish or Catholic things, don't really seem to regard the central tenets (i.e. "you do these things becouse God told you to") as being true. It's more of a "you do these things becouse grandma won't let it drop if you don't." Generally their immediate family shares this opinion, and, according to them, most of their peers of faith are no more pious than they. "Jewish" and "Catholic" are often mostly social clubs.