cobra_ky said:
scifidownbeat said:
Let me rephrase that. In order to be a true Roman Catholic, I'd have to accept everything they teach. Same goes for Satanism. I, however, do not. Therefore, I am not truly Roman Catholic or Satanist. When I said religions "want" you to follow them, what I meant was that in order to truly belong to a group, you have to give up your individual ideas in favor of theirs. In order to be truly Satanist, I'd have to believe everything that religion teaches.
i think i understand a little better now, but i still disagree with this. there's no well-defined set of beliefs that Catholics have to follow. i've heard of catholics who support gay marriage and catholics who don't follow the vatican. both would be insulted if you said they weren't "true" catholics. as a reform jew, i believe a lot of traditional jewish laws and beliefs are no longer truly relevant to the modern world. i don't think it makes me any less jewish.
Well, in the most strict sense of the word, you aren't a Jew; the people you mentioned aren't, in the most strict sense of the word, Catholic. A person's beliefs are like gardens, with specific religious ideas being a different type of flower. For example, Catholic ideas could be represented by daisies; Judaism could be sunflowers; Islam, roses, and so on. But, of course, not everyone's garden will be flowers of one kind; perhaps you want to add flowers of other varities to your garden. The majority of your flowers could be daisies, with a few roses and sunflowers added in; so you could say that you were Catholic, but you wouldn't be a true Catholic because not all of your flowers are daisies. If I had a garden with a large variety of flowers, I couldn't say I was only Catholic, because that wouldn't give credit to my dozens of other flowers (non-Catholic beliefs) that I had in my garden. I could either give credit to all my beliefs individually ("Well, I'm Catholic-ish, but also I practice Jewish and Muslim rituals, plus I believe in karma, dharma, filial piety, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path." This is only an example; I mean, filial piety, pffft) or I could create a name for my beliefs, thus establishing my own personal religion.
This is all from a perfectionist's standpoint, of course. If I said I believed everything in the Bible except the Book of Leviticus, I could still say I was Catholic; it just wouldn't be true in the
strictest sense. But of course, to the people who aren't obsessed with perfection, it wouldn't really matter. Also, the logical conclusion to my idea is paradoxical; since everyone has different individual beliefs and ideas, there would have to be a name for each and every person's belief. This is impractical, however, because if everyone had their own religion, the idea of organized religion itself would become meaningless (as "organized" implies more than one person involved). So, lots of people label themselves as whichever religion comes closest to their beliefs. But then, they wouldn't truly be that religion because of their own beliefs, so... you get the picture.
