There's the idiotic flow of society, and then there's the idiots who think they and their religion can survive by "going against the flow," or however you like to put it. So many Christians these days think that they're something special, that it's them against "the world." So they have their own rock music, and their own sports teams, and their own drama groups, and they wear T-shirts that proclaim how different they are, and how rad it is to be different from all the normal people.
History has lessons to teach, but a little thinking can teach some of them just as well. Cultures formed around religions stagnate and rot from the inside when they get too big. You might be able to pull off the "be different, be cool, be a member of whatever religion" thing if your religion is new, not obviously cracked, and has a small but faithful base of adherents, but when it's the biggest religion in the world there's no way that you can claim to be unique by being a member of that religion. However, religious higher-ups realize that Christianity is stagnating, and that many of those thousands of millions don't have any faith at all - so, even with a huge following around the world, those higher-ups are attempting to (with the possiblity of being different or some such rot) fan the flames in current members as well as make Christianity attractive to possible converts.
If one's personal spiritual life is less important than the culture formed around a religion, the religion is already going down in flames. Christianity seems to have entirely lost focus. My prediction is that there'll sometime be an inverse revival of a sort, in which many "Christians" will realize that they don't feel any need for the religion, and reject it.
Can't people make themselves different without having to proclaim their uniqueness from rooftops, or dye their hair, or put on some tortured artist persona? Can't we be ourselves? Yes, I know that a great many of us are assholes deep down; but there's a difference between making an effort not to be an asshole and interacting with the world through a mask.
posted on Sunday, March 23, 2003
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