Chemically based thoughts on religion

Firstly im going to iterate that in this metaphor, saltiness isnt a bad thing, and being a gas isnt a good thing. its all neutral.

envision a population like a barrel full of salt water. salt represents religion, evaporation represents conversion to ontological perspective. (if youre uncomfortable with this metaphor replace salt with sugar, maybe the fact they are losing 'sweetness' will make it more neutral to you.) water that evaporates is just water in gas form, which means some amount of salt remains behind for every bit of water that evaporates.

in other words

as people convert to ontological perspectives regarding the universe, those that remain religiously centred grow more concentrated, more 'radical' i suppose. eventually you get a very very pure and undissolved religious community.

its in this way that i think the world will never entirely be without religion, though it may seem or even be obsolete, and if the world is entirely with religion, then the meaning of religion is weak between distant communities (religion in the united states is different than religion in india) even if it may seem strong to particular individuals.

i can hold citation of when most of europe was 'united' more or less under various different sects and saints the catholic church and the ecclisiarchy, or even now with the various kinds of christianity in the USA, but it seems unnecessary that i should need to go into any real depth with those examples.

thoughts?

I remember sitting in a spa steam room with a catholic priest .When the conversation turned to the Ayatollah Khomeini's hostages,Out or the blue the priest spoke up and said I know it sounds funny coming from a man of my vocation, but some of the most dangerous people in the world are the radical religious.

I have always preferred to see myself as more spiritual than religious . Thomas Merton said something to the effect that religion is merely a spiritual path more often than not people get hung upon the path

Have you ever notice that animals bred for a certain purpose seem to have a natural instinct ,and take to it like a domestic dog takes to his master

I can't remember how I was inspired to write on this subject but please google
Chemical Balance Through Spirituality

Many people have had their path altered by a 12 step program of spiritual healing without any regard to denomination ,yet I do not deny many have placed a stigma on God

Well I like the flare that you two well crafted individuals speak. Its like songs play reading your post. Rather glad I understood the topic. You right. The more people who abandon the ideal. The people who stand steadfast. Just seem a bit more radical or simply. Crazy

Somehow knights begin with one page
It is not standings in a community that makes them worthy, it is what they stand for.

Whenever michael writes anything it reminds me of that episode of start trek where the alien species can only speak in allegories, and everyone has a very tough time figuring out what they are saying.

"Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric; a rhetorical allegory is a demonstrative form of representation conveying meaning other than the words that are spoken." You should have read what I really thought of this thread. I predict Kevin will respond as if you were a Kool Aid(drinker) lol

I didnt mean that i didnt understand, just that what you write is difficult for me to understand, and it makes me stop and think for a while...

might be because im a programmer and so thoughts i have need to be really organized...

Many people here think of me as at least one of the more abstract poets that indulges in rhyme and reason
Did you google
Chemical balance through spirituality ?
BTW you are deep also

Just trying to understand your first point, are you saying that the more people who become open to onlogical perspectives, the more radical the believers (who are left) come to be? It seems you are saying this is just as a natural or necessary outcome just as the evaportaion of salt water... and if right, why do you think this is so?

To be a bit blunt, I still believe religion is a necessary evil, and we can comb a whole library of perspectives on why this is so. Pragmatically speaking, religion can be therapy for most individuals; a way for an existentialist to find a temporary meaning for one's stay in this "mortal" life. One could also pragmatically look into it in a general sense, the bigger the group/community the harder it is to control them. And by control, this could be either positive or negative (control for peace, or control for chaotic duties), and religion becomes the feeding hand that balances the order, a mouthpiece if you will. (It is easier to control people by targeting their faith and emotions rather than their mind.) And so on...

I like the metaphor that was used. I think comparing religion to salt was spot on. If one tastes food without salt, it usually doesn't have a good flavor.. the same with religion, it adds a special flavor to life. Of course, if people add too much salt to food, it becomes too salty and its not eatable. The same with religion. There should be a balance.

@ABC,

i express this analogy mostly from looking at the history of religion across the globe. small religious communities are traditionally much more extremist than large religious communities... for instance think of a catholic church sized 40-100 people, its hard to congregate that many people, so while there are multiple days a week that there are church, not many go to all of them, and its mostly to accommodate the people who cant go on a particular day. the congregation itself is usually quiet and respectful of whatever priest or minister is speaking... the whole affair is fairly formal and controlled (i mean in behavior) theres no extreme action going on.

now lets contrast that with the Westboro Baptist Church, or for a less extreme example, and church where the congregation is less than 20 people. the people are more... im going to say vibrant with un asked shouts of "hallelujah". sometimes this means radical, some times this just means chaotic fellowship and love towards god...

in either event the large community is segmented, restrained, formalized, regulated - the small community becomes more unrestrained... sometimes this can have a negative effect on the religious community's outlook toward others but not always.

similarly, imagine the hypothetical where there was only one small christian church left in the United States Bible Belt, and everyone else had converted to atheism or agnosticism. i almost guarantee that church would militantly defend christianity, even if it didnt need to (in fact quite often we see this with attacks against science in school, usually evolution.)

If you want foreign examples just let me know, the only one i can think of off the top of my head is the nizaris ismailis...

@ TS

Agreed on that, but wouldn't that be a cause of human nature simply being pressured or motivated to do more activity (in relation to it's cause) because the community is smaller and more is required on them to keep the said community afloat? The true faith on religion becomes secondary, activity from pressure (or other deep desires) is primary.

I wasn't arguing primary secondary or tertiary motivations. just pointing out the existence of an interesting phenomenon that suggests the unintentional societal response of groups.