Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.
From Mary Douglas
Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.
It's unlikely that the organized religions will get more sectarian... or is it? I am not at all sure.
Every year the progress of advanced capitalist society makes our population consist of more and more isolates. This is because of the infrastructure of the economy, especially electronic communications.
I have increasingly, over the years, felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.
Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.
Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.
It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.
Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion.
The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting.
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