Christmas != Flag Day (But Why Not?)
Oct. 14th, 2007 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiDiscussions have got me thinking about how I define religion (I make a point of not defining religion, mostly, but relying on people's self-identifications). In these discussions--but not necessarily outside of them, I don't know--I seem to operating under something like
Religion = Cultural Forms + Ideology
Obviously that would include everything, since all cultural forms have an ideological character, but it seems to me that the stronger the bond between the cultural forms and the ideology, the more of a religious character it takes on. Is there anything obviously wrong with this?
And I'm still not sure if the problem is how to make the cultural forms accessible to people who don't share the ideology, or whether it's how to respect people who don't share the cultural forms (not necessarily for any ideological reason, but just because they're not theirs). The two questions seem to be complicating each other and making for a lot of confusion. [ETA: For example, the "conversation" (that is far too charitable a word) in Amy's journal when a flamer (that word is much more appropriate) claimed that religion was chosen. The ideology should be chosen after thoughtful reflection, but cultural forms are inherited.]
Religion = Cultural Forms + Ideology
Obviously that would include everything, since all cultural forms have an ideological character, but it seems to me that the stronger the bond between the cultural forms and the ideology, the more of a religious character it takes on. Is there anything obviously wrong with this?
And I'm still not sure if the problem is how to make the cultural forms accessible to people who don't share the ideology, or whether it's how to respect people who don't share the cultural forms (not necessarily for any ideological reason, but just because they're not theirs). The two questions seem to be complicating each other and making for a lot of confusion. [ETA: For example, the "conversation" (that is far too charitable a word) in Amy's journal when a flamer (that word is much more appropriate) claimed that religion was chosen. The ideology should be chosen after thoughtful reflection, but cultural forms are inherited.]