Does organized religion continue to play an important part in your life?

[dArKeR]

Does organized religion continue to play an important part in your life?
Yes
931 votes (28 %)
No
2361 votes (72 %)

Total Votes: 3292


http://theglobeandmail.com/ (top right side)

[REP]

1. "Continue"? It Never Did!

I was once a paid member of a Methodist choir, and I loved singing even though I didn't always agree with what I was singing.

[Name removed]

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[ThirdWheelLegend]

5. no and yes

No I do not adhere to any religion, but yes I sometimes spend minutes a day on Sunday bitching at my TV whenever an athlete thanks god. Takes important beer drinking time away from me.

"Thanks god for letting me win....
and screw that loser guy I beat!! GO me! I am god's favorite!"

Of course they never say the second part, but that always peeves me :P

TWL

[amber dog democrat]

7. no

I respect them however I am not a joiner - Consider religeon to be a private matter

[Name removed]

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[Palacsinta]

8. You bet!

Pays most of the bills....my husband is the music director at a Lutheran church.

[Name removed]

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[arwalden]

11. What Is Meant My "Play A Part"?? Does It Continue To AFFECT My Life? YES!

Those insufferable BASTARDS who call themselves fundamentalists will continually "play a part" in my life as long as they continue their witch hunt and crusade against queers.

[Mikimouse]

12. Not since age 14

when I realized that people used religion like a stick against those they didn't like. I found the overall approach hypocritical and decided that it was time to go. I have never regretted my decision, and have come to a private understanding that I tend to describe as spiritual peace.

[Name removed]

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[IrateCitizen]

14. Since I'm a UU, I don't know if it's truly "organized"...

But my answer is still a resounding YES!

Not all religious communities are bad things, despite the POV of so many of my fellow insufferable Leftists. A positive religious community provides a positive support structure to all people in it, and encourages all of its members to share experiences and perspectives in the neverending search for meaning.

Additionally, if it weren't for "organized religion", the abolitionist and civil rights movement would never have gained initial traction -- most of the vanguards of those movements were dedicated Christians!

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Maybe we wouldn't have needed those movements

if it wasn't for organized religion?

[IrateCitizen]

18. That's quite a leap of (il)logic!

Maybe we wouldn't have needed those movements if it wasn't for organized religion?

:eyes:

Yeah. Maybe we wouldn't be addicted to oil if it weren't for organized religion. Maybe we wouldn't allow exploitation of indigenous peoples if it weren't for organized religion.

Whatever.

Your ignorance of this subject is in display for all to see by making the statement you just did. Anyone else you want to cull out of your vision of acceptablility in the name of personal ideological purity?

[Le Taz Hot]

16. It plays a role in everyone's life

by ensuring less and less doctors perform abortion services, by making those few doctors left who WILL perform these services wear bulletproof vests, by taking MY tax money to teach fundamentalist religion, by ensuring my many gay friends are prohibited from getting married, by trying to stop stem cell research, by stopping "partial birth abortion" . . . yeah, it plays a role alright.

[Solomon]

17. It plays a bigger role than I'd like too.

Not because I participate. I no longer do. But my family is nuts and they can never stop bugging me about it to the point where we've had knock down drag out arguments about it.

[dArKeR]

19. Total Votes: 7564

Yes
2049 votes (27 %)
No
5515 votes (73 %)
Total Votes: 7564

[Name removed]

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. This is the same kind of logic

that makes right wingers start screaming about Stalin and Pol Pot if you dare to suggest that Marx may have been correct about a few things or that some people may have been better off under Soviet Communism than they have been under the dog-eat-dog capitalism semi-imposed on Russia in the early 1990s.

In other words, you're mistaking your bad impressions of a part of the religious population (a very vocal part, to be sure, but still only a part) for the totality.

I don't mistake Salvador Allende for Pol Pot or Alexander Dubcek for Stalin. When you think of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robinson, remember also Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When you think of the types of proselytizing "faith-based" charities seen on Bill Moyers' (who by the way started out as a Baptist minister), think also of the downtown mainstream churches of Portland, who among them managed to provide meals seven days a week three times a day for the poor and homeless, all without requiring any religious commitment. When you think of the Roman Catholic church supporting corrupt governments, think also about Oscar Romero and the four American nuns who were killed for advocating the interests of the poor in El Salvador.

When you think of Bushboy and his holy drug warriors funding oppression in Colombia, think also of Witness for Peace, a religiously based group which sends volunteers to document abuses and provide escorts for non-combatants through dangerous territory.

When you think of the fundamentalists you love to hate, think also of me, Lynne Sin, Indiana Green, Rowdyboy, Irate Citizen, dwickham, and others whose names slip my mind at the moment, who are affiliated with religious communities and who believe in evolution, choice, gay rights, and all that other stuff that religious people are stereotyped as not believing in.

By issuing blanket condemnations of religion, you sound like the types of people who characterize advocacy of peace or social justice as "pinko Commies."