GIMR wrote:One thing I have never understood is man's need to pervert what is good within faith by creating dogmatic divisions. The need to be "God's chosen", or be right, is the root of evil in the name of religion, in my opinion.
Why is it that people focus more on being right in relation to others than they do on being right within? Why is it that we need name-brand religion in the form of true churches and christian country clubs? Are human being so insecure?
I'm hoping that those who feel the need to be spiritually above others will cease to preach and just simply answer the question of why they feel the need to be right, so that others may understand.
I'm also hoping that this thread will get a few replies from various types of beliefs here. To me, they're all valuable.
What you call “dogmatic divisions” is a product of an increase in the number of people who could read, and perhaps most importantly the printing press which afforded the opportunity to read for the masses.
Given all the biblical contradictions and differing interpretations, each group (and there are many) perceived a need to develop its own doctrine. In doing so, each group attempted to distinguish itself from all the other groups. The invention of dogmas and doctrines actually began in the early stages of Christianity. Various schisms developed and groups of people became widely separated physically from other groups. That physical separation resulted in different ideas and inventions of religious (Christian) claims (doctrines).
The largest break resulting in more than 1,000 groups came following the protest of Martin Luther in 1517 CE. It was also at that time that the printing press began to make available the collection of books regarded as the Bible. People read. People came to different conclusions, emphasized different issues, and formed groups of their own or broke with previously formed groups.
Still addressing your first paragraph; in religion, people want to be right. Since religion relies on truth by assertion, the various groups could and did construct their own assertions about what was “true.” In so doing, they also directly or indirectly claimed beliefs which were different from theirs were wrong.
Hence, the true religion -- MINE, and the false religion -- OTHERS.
In your second paragraph, you point toward the concept of group-think. Nationalism is group-think. Membership (today) in clubs or organizations is group-think. People feel comfortable as they regard that their view matches the views of others. People like identification with others of similar perceptions.
Religion capitalizes on group-think and has generated groups. However, the group-think identification can be applied to wider scope than religion as I indicated in “nationalism.” Our tribal instincts are quite strong although we don’t generally perceive ourselves as tribal.
We still like war. We like the idea of defeating an enemy. Virtually every sport is a kind of war in which someone wins and someone looses. Or, if you prefer, some team wins and some team looses.
“Right in relation to others” (as you phrased) is still primarily right. People wish to think that they are right. (Agree with me, and you are right. Fail to agree with me, and you are wrong.)
We “need name-brand religion” (as you phrased) for the reasons which I have characterized. We like identification with a group. We also like to believe that we and our group are right as opposed to people from other tribes -- groups. It’s part of our biological evolution over thousands and tens of thousands of years.
Some group-think is “valuable” (as you phrased). However, we can make a strong case that much of it is harmful and dangerous. Since this is too long as it is, I’ll not detail that analysis here.
JAK