I think we do agree on so many things. I do however find it unacceptable that the 'Church' (any church or religious organisation) tries to 'control' its members. All that is necessary is for parents to educate their children and then when those children are old enough, allow them to follow their own path, even if it is not the same as they were taught.
Many Muslim men insist that it is their right to control their women - men are superior and women have to accept the decision of men, even in what they wear. I often see a Muslim couple walking down the street with the wife following her husband a few steps behind him. A non-muslim English couple will walk down the street, chatting, maybe holding hands. I know which I would rather be!
The Catholic Church has its own rules which you are expected to obey if you are to be a good Catholic. None of those rules are actually necessary if you are a humanist. They duplicate humanist values, except where certain things are concerned. Catholics are supposed to remain virgin till they marry and after that only have sex with the spouse. In an ideal world this might be a good idea, but even in the Bible, Joseph and Mary had sex before they were married! And long ago, Catholic priests were often married men, yet today that is not allowed.
I find it very hard to understand why people believe in this imaginary being and then are happy to follow all these rules.
Religion does rather remind me of those who believe the earth is flat. No matter how much science you show them, they will always start off from the position that they are right and then try to distort the facts to prove their point! Followers of any religion seems just the same to me.
It seems to me that many religions, such much more than others, have a long way to go before they can be considered to be gender neutral. Too many men in charge of their women and too many rules to support that situation.
Here in England there are laws about equality, but churches are allowed to be exceptions to that law when their own rules would break these laws if they were not allowed to be an exception.
We live in a crazy world!
Well, I agree with the last sentence.
there is no civilization without standards and laws. People still have choice to 'follow' them, whether they feel 'controlled' or not. Religion is no different than any other human system of co existence.
Generally, speaking for myself, I am happy to follow most 'laws' because I live with other humans and they maintain some type of foundation for coexisting in some manner or another that makes sense to me. This goes for human and religious law.
As for science, my view, is that I do not know the scientists either. I have faith in the integrity of the things they say they prove and the things they write because they make sense to me, just like my faith in God and The Bible. There can be no contradiction. For me, when one system is created by another, it is not the latter that is bound by the first. It would be as if robots came up with self awareness and started to doubt that man could bleed, because they cant. Evidence they cant bleed is not evidence that their CREATOR(s) could therefore not bleed.
Edited by
msharmony
on Sat 04/20/19 11:13 AM