NationStates Jolt Archive

Something I'm interested to know - how many of you associate organized religion (in the Christian sense) with the Catholic church?

The reason I ask is that most people who bash organized religion (and they're don't exactly seem thin on the ground around here) generally support it with facts relating mostly to Catholicism - the Crusades are an excellent example.

I find a lot of things are laid at the feet of Christianity that are sect-specific, and have nothing to do with the actual religion or what it teaches (in my opinion - voting yes does not carry some hidden agreement to this statement with it :p).

This is not meant to be a discussion about religion or any aspects of it - it's just a poll on the topic title. And please think honestly about the question, rather than just trigger-pulling on no.

i do not exclusively associate organized religeon specificly even with exclusively monotheism, let alone any one specific system of belief such as christianity or islam. catholicism is one family of sects within christianity, protestantism being the other.

the term organzed belief is used specificly because it INCLUDES ALL systems of belief which have organizational structure. this includes everything from baha'i to zoroastrian. (i couldn't think of one that begins with 'a', yes i know agnostic begins with an 'a' but by deffinician agnosticism isn't an ORGANIZED belief, though it may be the most valid of them all).

baha'i
budhist
christian
hindu
indiginous traditions
islamist
judaic
siekh
shinto
taoist
zoroastrian

for all practical purposes, judaism, christianism, islamism, and baha'i can all be considered 'chapters' of the same book in that sequence

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I should have been somewhat clearer in my original post, I guess. When I said organized religion, I meant mainly with the Christian sense.

Organized religion in the default is obviously a much wider topic, and I didn't intend to include all the possibilities. My bad.

I find a lot of things are laid at the feet of Christianity that are sect-specific, and have nothing to do with the actual religion or what it teaches.
Catholicism is one of, if not the, oldest Christian sect, which simply means the list is much longer. Its not like, say, Protestants haven't got a lost, it just isn't as long (though Prod-Cath wars can be blamed on both...)

Catholicism is one of, if not the, oldest Christian sect, which simply means the list is much longer. Its not like, say, Protestants haven't got a lost, it just isn't as long (though Prod-Cath wars can be blamed on both...)


I just edited that sentence XD

I don't doubt that members of many different sects have perpetrated less-than-Christian acts. It just seems to me that people accuse organized religions of a lot of evils that aren't neccesarily applicable to every form of it.

I should have been somewhat clearer in my original post, I guess. When I said organized religion, I meant mainly with the Christian sense.

Organized religion in the default is obviously a much wider topic, and I didn't intend to include all the possibilities. My bad.

then what you are asking specificly is do we associate christianity with catholocism. as in say, roman catholocism, more then methodist or baptist or unitarian.

well again my answer would still be no. and the more encompassing term still encompasses the less encompasing term and my perspective is the objective rather then subjective. in my case of neccessity as i do not consider myself christian at all. neither as it so happens islamist.

rather agnostic in that broadest of all possible senses, that i do find in my heart a spiritual connectedness with something greater then myself, but little or no simalirity between that connection and the arbitrary speculations of, again in that broadest possible sense, organized belief, at all, save those such as taoism and the keeping of indiginous traditions which both avoid such pretentions assumptions.

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No. Can't be bothered explaining why. Perhaps because I am Catholic. Mmm.

when I think of "organized religion" as a big bad problem, yeah, the Catholic church is first on my list. I think I am probably unfairly biased. I did want to be honest though. It's more of a knee jerk reaction than anything, the more thought I put into it (even like more than 5 seconds) the more I back away from "just the Catholic church".

I do agree with you that people tend to focus on particular sects, and their problems and don't realize what at the base Christianity is all about. People even assume that if you associate with a certian denomination that you "are" the worst they have seen that denomination represented. (but I won't go into my rant about that.)

The Catholic church and whatever sect born-agains generally fall under. Baptists, maybe? I don't know. But I associate everything bad in Christianity with those two sects, mostly because they're the ones responsible for almost everything bad in Christianity.

Something I'm interested to know - how many of you associate organized religion (in the Christian sense) with the Catholic church?

The reason I ask is that most people who bash organized religion (and they're don't exactly seem thin on the ground around here) generally support it with facts relating mostly to Catholicism - the Crusades are an excellent example.

I find a lot of things are laid at the feet of Christianity that are sect-specific, and have nothing to do with the actual religion or what it teaches (in my opinion - voting yes does not carry some hidden agreement to this statement with it :p).

This is not meant to be a discussion about religion or any aspects of it - it's just a poll on the topic title. And please think honestly about the question, rather than just trigger-pulling on no.
I don't automatically associate the phrase, "organized religion" with Catholicism, no. However, I find the Catholic Church to be one of the most disgusting and criminal religious organizations in the modern world, and it also happens to be one of the organizations that has most directly attempted to violate my civil and human rights, so I talk about it more than some other organized religions.

as an american catholic who grew up in a protestant area, i associate organized religion with baptists.

if i had grown up here in new mexico where the catholic church tends to be extremely arrogant, i might feel differently

Well if you want to bash a Christian denomination then as catholicism is the largest one it makes sense to attack it.

as an american catholic who grew up in a protestant area, i associate organized religion with baptists.

if i had grown up here in new mexico where the catholic church tends to be extremely arrogant, i might feel differently
it's probably the opposite for me, since I grew up Baptist in an area with a lot of Catholic churches LOL funny how that works.