u/DramaQueen202s

My understanding is that almost all churches are open to the public, unless it's people in bad faith or dangerous (which is why they have specific groups for alcoholics and to prisoners). Even conservative churches are usually open spaces, although their ideas aren't necessarily open to change or welcoming.

But what about other religions? Can you come to a mosque or synagogue and just chill there? Are you expected to follow some rules or stay in a specific place for visitors? Are you invited? Is the place closed for safety, specially if it's a religion practiced in countries harsh to it?

I recently discovered the Amish' beliefs aren't that different from that of other Christians (even the Trinity), but they have do a complementary text that function as a constitution and explains their unique lifestyle and habits. This is called the Dordrecht Confession of Faith, and it's mostly a set of rules justified by Christian customs and the Bible, but emphasized by Anabaptist traditions.

Some Pentecostals follow a similar set of rules based off the Bible. In most cases it standardizes interpretation of fundamental doctrine, organization, ethics and even goals of the group. They may but rarely proscribe personal rules, which are usually left to personal conscience. They also rarely add any doctrine to the Sacred books.

I wonder if there are more complementary texts that are less known, but often define denominations or even full religions. Usually traditional religions have stuff such as Catechism, Talmud, or Islamic Law, but they are lesser known and it's easier to understand modern or contemporary religion thanks to them.

I get some people had negative experiences with religion. Most of them don't leave their faith, but may change their religious community, avoid some interactions or seek some form reconciliation. In other cases, they just leave the whole faith, sometimes get a very bad taste of religion as a whole, which I could understand if there is trauma.

However, I find it odd that very few people just go to more liberal versions of their own religion, and in fact it seems liberal versions of religions usually stagnate. I get more liberal and progressive denominations don't usually proselytize as much, but I would expect most former-conservative believers to join them. Most liberal Christians I know just happened to have such denomination as part of their family, since usually more liberal denominations are older and more traditional, but way less conservative.

I thought it was only Christianity, but I observed the same in Judaism, Hinduism, although not as much in Islam because their denominations are more heterogeneous on matters of doctrine (or at least it seems so).

Clearly the original settlers were very Protestant, but the priest of the island seems to be Catholic or Anglican, which is the people that new Christian movements were running from in Europe. When did that change?

I also wonder if the priest was a local, since I would not find it likely he could become a priest without leaving the island. It's hard to imagine a class of professionals that never went to college working on the island since ever.

Of course, this is mostly based on prejudice, but it seems that many religious movements are just only superficial copies of other religions. Nothing wrong with that, and arguably many actual religions and denominations had a stage in which they considered themselves as part of other religion or only superficially practice it, but it's interesting regardless.

• Hare Krishna Movement -> New Agers pretending to be Hindus.
• Nation of Islam -> Some people pretending to be Muslims.
• Messianic Jews -> Some Christians pretending to be Jewish.
• Moonies -> Some Koreans and Japanese people pretending to be Christians.
• Western Buddhists (some) -> Often Atheists and secularist only superficially practicing Buddhism, with no metaphysical foundation.

I get the issue of conflicts in the Middle East for territory, but also Muslims have criticized Christians for similar arguments, such as the Crusades.

Still, Jews and ME Muslims share a lot of theological views of God, both are closer to semitic culture than Christians. They also share even dietary practices and customs.

However, it seems that Muslims are more tolerant of Christianity than Judaism in the Middle East, even when the Quran considers both People of the Book. In Jordan and Syria it also seems they even cooperate against extremists of any kind.

I like the idea of organized religion way more than non-organized or personal religions, but let me explain why. I understand there are exceptions for everything, though.

• Institutions founded by organized religion can be a social good, such as foundation of orphans, hospitals and schools. Smaller religions or individuals can also help, but by law of numbers and inertia, established religions usually help more, even if it's only their own.
• Organized religions have little to no secretive beliefs. This allows people to explore a belief system before joining it, instead having to spend time to get to "higher tiers" such as in scientology.
• Traditional religions are usually more tolerant to other denominations, even to more rigid or exclusive denominations. For example, the Anglican church is way more tolerant to Pentecostals than the reverse (at least in my experience).
• Traditional organized religion are wide enough to be a platform for a wider diversity of political and social beliefs, and many theological viewpoints. For instance, there is a wide variety of views about the end times even in the same traditional protestant denominations, and they don't find it problematic because it's not really doctrine required to be saved (e.g. You don't need to believe in the rapture to be saved, just in Christ).
• Traditional religions have often more social and political power, but for the same reason they are easier to veto by their own members and open debate. Meanwhile, a politician practicing a religion such as South Korean moonies may be more problematic as these hermetic organizations act more like inner states.
• Religion that has a cultural presence is usually more tolerant to surrounding culture, so people may join or leave with no issues, or even participate for rites without committing to it.
• Traditional religions often have orders or inner institutions for more strict members, such as orders of nuns/monks, or theological schools. This creates a space for them without leaving behind more moderate members.

BTW there are non-traditional organized religions such as "scientology", which acts more like a secretive fraternity than a religion, and there are religions in the borderline, such as Jehovah Witnesses.

There is not much overlap between Buddhism and Christianity, but I think they seem to be alignment on the importance of forgiveness in some form. In Christianity this is mainly from God, but also it's encouraged among the people. Yes, they use different words, but Buddha's and Jesus' behavior of non-escalation and non-violence can often be found emphasized in both religions. This does not mean that violence is strictly forbidden in those religions, but it's discouraged. I understand this is the theory... yes, there are violent Christians, and there are violent Islamophobic Buddhist monks, but I'm talking in the context of the theory.

It seems in the West 'forgiveness' have semantically shifted for reconciliation, but religions rarely preach reconciliation unless it's for people of the community or close family. Jesus had enemies that tried to catch him, Buddha also had dangerous enemies even among his own family. Being forgetful does not mean reconciliation, but it seems more like discouragement of escalation. Forgiveness is not a concession either, you are not saying your enemy is right. It seems Buddha was right on the idea of non-attachment... 'cause that probably a good definition of forgiveness.

People often see forgiveness and reconciliation as something very personal, or assume it's something that comes naturally, but that's not always the case, specially in tribalism. I was reading about anthropologists describing tribes in Africa that hate each another because a dead ancestor from another tribe stole a cow decades ago. Not long ago almost all human societies were like this (we can see this tribalist dynamic in Romeo and Juliet), and many societies still are, so it makes sense religions and even secular missions often put such emphasize on reconciliation and forgiveness for healthy societies.

People often get defensive, and jump to assuming it's about forgiving someone for something unthinkable as r*ape or m*rder, and yet for many of us it's just about moving on from a former friend that betrayed us in high school, or an ex that cheated (yes, it's terrible, and no, that does not mean reconciliation). It also seems that even Jesus had reasonable exceptions to forgiveness, such as those who hurt children (Matthew 18:6) or adultery (Matthew 5:32, 19:9).

The problem is that people seem to assume forgiveness is a kind of submission, while the actual submission is putting an enemy on a pedestal, rent-free in your head. Resentment is drinking poison and expect the other person to die. It seems we have redefined forgiveness a burden too heavy to carry for most people, which is very unfortunate.

TLDR: If we returned to the original meaning of forgiveness, it would be easier for us to forgive.

I don't get the controversy around Mother Theresa. Of course that if I'm not a traditionalist Catholic I will disagree with her views of sex or her discouraging birth control. However, that says more about her beliefs than her deeds. Her views of suffering as a noble sacrifice are also not so alien to Catholicism, and even outside of religion there are some secular ideas that considered struggle as necessary for growth, or at least a defining factor of our humanity.

I get Theresa's mission had not the standards of a hospital, but she managed a place where people go to die instead dying on the streets in a very populated country that even today has problems with sanitation and healthcare access... it was not a hospital. Not saying she could have done it better, but helping homeless dying people is also empathic.

In any case, I do believe her contributions are mostly overblown, but that's not her fault either... people make an idealistic image of someone as a "saint", or adopt a famous priest/nun/monk as an ideal, to then find that they were people with faults and defects as any other. We love to put people on a moral pedestal and then get mad when we find that person was just a normal human being, with their own defects.

No, I don't consider her a hero, but also she was not evil as some people tried to paint her later on.

It's strange how Manichaeism almost completely vanished after spreading for so far into Asia. I suppose other ancient and medieval universalist movements also died off, but it probably was way earlier, not after spreading so far. The strange thing is how Manichaeism grew and expanded, it became a well-documented religion, and then vanished. It's rare for established universalist religions to disappear as they are not restricted to an ethnicity, and later on some ethnicities adopt them as their own, in the same way that Armenians basically made their flavor of Christianity an ethnic religion.

I suspect Manichaeism don't fully died, but integrated its concepts into existing religions until it had no unique identity on its own, in the same way that Hindu regions in Southeast Asia became Buddhist but kept many Hindu elements. You could also argue that Manichaeism probably didn't have many original elements on its own, as it rather borrowed lots of ideas from Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity... which makes it harder to know what came from it or from those religions directly.

The other explanation may be that Manichaeism was a higher class religion that was preached to educated and nobles, but never established solid roots among commoners. This may explain why it's so well documented but died off. Nobles eventually adopt the commoner's religion because it's easier than changing the people's faith.

In any case, we have a lot of information about this religion, but almost no real reason about why it disappeared. It was not significantly prosecuted or preached against either. Very odd.

TLDR: Manichaeism was a universalist religion that widely expanded, we know a lot about, but somehow vanished into irrelevance completely with not much historical explanation.

It seems Hinduism is more like a collection of religions that share a common culture or origin.

Considering Hinduism as one religion seems to be as odd as considering all Abrahamic religions the same religion because they share God and some prophets. Yes, Hindu denominations recognize each other as kind of valid, but so you can say about Islam recognizing People of the book or Christians recognizing Judaism as having some truth in it. There are also fundamental dogmatic disagreements among Hindu denominations akin to that between different religions of the same family.

BTW this also seems to happen in the West too, to a lesser extend. For example, Mormonism has a totally different and unique view of God to that of mainstream Christianity, it even has a totally different book on top of the Bible, but they are still considered Christian for most purposes.

I believe this view of Hinduism as one religion is based mainly on colonialism and Indian nationalism. This is similar to the "Chinese" language which is not really a thing, but a collection of languages that happen to share same writing and Chinese culture.