Quote:
Originally Posted by SeattleUte
I've never understood this notion of reforming a religion. Maybe because I just left. But it seems to me much like trying to "reform" a person's sexual preference. Being society's most conservative element, laying down the law, resisting progress, a magic world view that stands in opposition to science seem fundamental to what religion is. It's yet to be seen whether a religion can be "reformed" and survive. The ones that have moved overtly to the left are dying. As I type this I realize that the LDS Church's rejection of polygamy was a reform, but that was so outside of even the fringes.
The religion that I have seen most at peace with itself and in an easy relation with secularism was Italian Catholicism, typified by this beautiful inlaid artwork in the Siena Cathedral depicting Romulus and Remus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena_..._tango7174.jpg
A lovely and frank acknowledgment of religion's essentially mythological roots and quality and debt to antiquity. |
The best part of Mormonism was that man has divine origins and each individual may have contact with the divinity, that relationships are important and lasting. That has been supplanted by the bureaucratic Church. That is something the Catholic Church has never had.
Mormonism, unfortunately, has never inspired great works of art. Instead it is a stoic work of conservatism, asceticism and denial.
Of course, most religious movements are inspired by one charismatic leader followed by the damn bureaucrats.