Sorry for the break folks, I was actually expected to do some work for the past two days. :roll:
I've been reading Dexter Sinister's post and Niflmir's post back to back a couple of times I think they answer each other nicely.
Generally it seems easy to establish that when a religion is small and communal that it can be unauthoritarian. It can have moral values without exerting a moral claim on society at large and therefore is unlikely to act as a political rallying point for the political purposes of the religious authorities.
The problem seems to lie in the critical mass / populist problem.
(Yes, Dexter I did add that probably in about page three... I'm certainly not pretending to have the answers here, this is just a great forum to expand upon a discussion that happened after a movie and I never got to finish, therefore never got to really form a full position or finish my own thought process... thanks all for letting me play with this idea - mental mastrubation though it may be).
One clear attraction to religion is the communal belief system. This is as best as I can judge the difference between spiritualism and religion. If a person were truly a solitary practitioner they would feel no need to self identify as a solitary practicing - Christian / Wiccan / Hindu / Buddist etc... There is a value added to the person's spirituality by identifying with a belief system that is believed and shared by other people.
At first religion seems to be benign, it is small, communitarian systems that have shared moral values, without exerting moral claims, and a moral authority on society at large. The members simply enjoy sharing a spiritual philosophy with like minded people.
However as a religion becomes popularized it does (as Dexter points out) seem to be human nature to centralize / bureaucratize. Even now in Wicca we can see the emergence of thought leaders that were not widely present 10 years ago. As these thought leaders emerge will it become inevitable that a standard body of practice will emerge, breaking away from the now somewhat organic meeting / worship modes that currently exist into a mode where the communal leaders in the movement become those who are most widely read?
Bringing in the example of the Amish, or Hudderites (or similar) is interesting at this point. These are institutionalized religions that we can argue do not (currently) exercise a moral authority over society at large. But there is one reason (maybe two) for this. The obvious reason is that they have removed themselves largely from the wider body of society. It is hard to come to terms if this is participating in society without a moral / political authority or opting out of society all together.
The possible second reason is that perhaps they have not reached a critical mass, and if they did would they then, want to use their populist muscle to see the laws of the land conform more so with their belief systems?
After all the laws of the land are supposed to be (in part) a reflection of the moral standards of the community.
I think the inevitability / necessity for a popularized / institutionalized religion to become politicized is dependent upon making it over two hurdles.
The first I think is the individual hurdle.
If I as a solitary practitioner develop my spiritual belief system which, by virtue of being a belief system will have a moral / ethical component then it is my responsibility to reconcile my belief system with that of society.
If my belief system is similar to the majority of society's accepted values then there is no conflict, both me and society believe that there should not be murder, rape, robbery etc...
It is when my belief system comes into conflict with society that I need to make a choice, do I as a member of society accept that I have a personal belief system which is personal and therefore challenge myself to live by it's values, but do not challenge others to, or am I so motivated by my belief system that I feel compelled to ask society at large to adopt my belief system.
I've struggled over using this example as I do not want to turn this thread into another debate area, but it is one of the most powerful current debates.
So here goes: If I in my personal belief system believe that abortion is murder, then am I satisfied to say that no matter what happens in the course of my life I will never put myself in a situation where I could be responsible for aborting a "life". Or, does my belief system drive my actions beyond the personal and do I adopt a secondary belief that no only do I believe that it is morally wrong for me to participate in abortion, but I also believe that it is now my moral duty to stop others from having abortions? Which then leads to tertiary belief systems about what means I think are morally acceptable to accomplish my primary and secondary belief systems.
In an individual example this can be simplified quite a bit. If I as an individual have a belief system that is at odd with the majority (lets say large majority) of society then society will simply no react, or will remove me from society. For example if my belief system tells me that I need to participate in a ritual public fire ceremony every night, my community would soon have me arrested and taken away, or if I was the only one that believed that abortion was wrong some friends and family may humour my rantings, but I would generally be ignored, unless I actually harmed someone in which case I'd be removed from society - (perhaps as mentally unstable).
The larger challenge comes when there is critical mass to a belief system. If there is critical mass to a belief system and that belief system finds itself at odds with society at large, can those people who can recognize a shared belief amongst them, opt to keep that shared belief to their members or will they feel compelled to act out that belief system in the public policy realm.
The Amish or Hudderites may be examples of belief systems who have chosen to keep their belief systems closed to their communities, but then again there is a question on if they do have a critical mass, or if in the larger communities where they do have a critical mass how much do they influence the wider economy / politics of that community?
The counter example of this would be the fundamentalist pro-life christians who have gone as far as to endorse bombing of abortion clinics. And even more extreme the historical evidence of crusades.
