Sunday, November 9, 2008
Week 11 Blog: Reformation Vs Spiritualism
This weeks reading on the reformation got me thinking about today and how it seems that most of the people I know "reform" their own religions. During the times of the reformation, religion obviously had a much stronger influence on the beliefs of the people--but these people started to change their religions to either suit them better, or follow more accurately what they thought the bible meant. Today as I see it, people change their religions too, only it happens in a different way. Many of my friends denounce religion altogether--not because they don't believe in god, but because they don't want to follow any sort of religion. I realize that this option would not have existed during the times of the reformation. Nonetheless I think what happens is that these people struggle with the balancing of their "religious" and their "social" identities, and once this conflict happens they choose to believe in God, but not to follow his "written rules"--aka the bible. Many people today have undergone this sort of change. They say they don't believe in religion and call themselves spiritual. Of course not all spiritualists would fit into this category, but imagine if the people during the reformation had the ability to denounce religion--would they have become spiritualists? I think so.
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I agree that many of us today choose not to practice religion not because we don’t believe in God, but because we are able to make our own assumptions and decisions about our beliefs. We don’t find it necessary to follow structured rules and systems, but to branch out and think and practice for ourselves. I completely agree that if at that time people were able to denounce religion that would have become spiritualist. I feel that because of their upbringing, and the importance of religion at the time they would not completely abandon faith all together, but instead become spiritualists. Could you imagine the repercussions of a member of society in those times denouncing religion all together? The idea was probably so frightening it crossed very few minds at the time.
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