A Lot of Thoughts on Organized Religion, All Neatly Organized: Part 1 - An Introduction

I've been stewing over organized religion lately.

I mean, quite clearly, I've been stewing over religion in general, but the concept of organized religion is today's musing.

So here's the context: This Amish guy showed up in my TikTok feed (and by TikTok, I mean TikTok videos that have been posted to YouTube, or maybe Facebook reels, because I'm old like that), and he came from a fundamentalist sect of the Amish that is SUPER controlling, and doesn't do the rumspringa, and you have to actually escape to leave the religion. He's made it his mission to "rescue" as many of his community members as he can, and also to answer questions about being "Old Order Amish" to the general Internet.

Anyway, today he showed up again, this time answering the question of how he can read the Bible while not believing in religion. He went on a long rant on how the Bible is the actual word of God, while religion exists to control people.

And like... he's not wrong... but he's also not even close to right.

I've seen what he's talking about in my own life, many times. But I've also seen what else religion is, and why it's - in many cases - necessary.

I don't think it's necessary for every believer-in-something-out-there to belong to a religion. But I do think every belief-in-something-out-there that's big enough to have a good sized following needs a structure to it. One of the biggest aspects of religion is community - a place for people with common beliefs to strengthen each other, and use those beliefs to offer support and strength during hard times, easy times, confusing times... you get the picture. And every community needs a set of rules. Even if those rules are just, "Don't criticize each other's theories: we're here to discuss and learn from each other, and all ideas, even the crazy-sounding ones, are welcome here." The community needs guidelines on how they're to behave with each other, and what the expectations are.

And then you add in a lot of the modern aspects of religion, including expenses/donations, charity and aid work, how to respond to social issues, how to interact with other religions, how your region of the world intertwines politics and religion, etc., and the need for structure grows.

And the more followers you have, the more structure you need. And a lot of times the beliefs of the religion play into the need for structure.

But then, on the other hand, the more structure you have, and the larger the religion, the more opportunities for corruption there are.

When you grow up in a religion, or even with the idea that a religion exists that is infallible, it's really hard to apply healthy skepticism to your own church.

And, at this point, I'm holding the opinion that even if your religion has doctrines and practices that are controlling in nature, you can still participate in the community aspects of that religion, as long as you can recognize what's off and take it with a grain of salt (which... yeah. I know. Easier said than done).

One nice thing about America is the fact that religious power is only psychological. Corruption in a church can lead to a lot of crap, but they have no physical power. (That's, of course, not including cults that employ illegal methods like physical force, blackmail, etc. to retain their members. Legally speaking, they have no physical power.)

That said, psychological power is very powerful. So, what are the red flags in a religion to take with a grain of salt? Here's what I've come up with so far:

1.) Money

2.) Being "The One"

3.) I Speak for God

4.) Leave Your Family for God

5.) The Law Doesn't Overrule God

6.) Come Live in Our Super-Spiritual Commune 

7.) Fear 

I think I'm going to go off on each of those. And if I finish and think of more, I'll just edit this post and add to the list. 

Basically, all religions have something, but if there are big red flags, it might be time to reconsider. You can walk away, or you can stay, but if you stay, you need to be able to let some things roll off - because they're wrong. 

Either way, religion can exist to control you, but it doesn't have to.