I don't see a great deal of difference between corporations and churches since both embrace competition and seek wealth and power to get the upper hand and encourage the Us vs/ Them POV. I recall in school being taught that not only the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, but all large organizations, could be analyzed and summed up by PREMS -by looking at the forces of Politics, Religion, Economics, Military, and Social changes and conditions. Of those, I actually lean toward Economics being the Prime Mover and the others fall in line and take their turn and the ball is rolling.

seriously, please, don't generalise your experiences.
This might be the case in the Americas, but i see nothing like it where I live.

Also please enlighten us what you mean by "church" - the various christian churches, or all religious institutions?

historically correct; and the catholic church might still be moving along those lines i guess. i seriously don't know - they don't have that sort of impact in the countries I have lived in, but globally there still might be some truth to that.

again, please don't generalise.
i'm not blue-eyed but what you claim to be a rule of sorts does not apply everywhere.

disclaimer:
i'm not even christian/protestant myself.

He means organisations that are monopolistic in practice. The Catholic church for example, was monopolistic to the point of imposing death on people for printing the bible. France imposed death on people for copying fabric patterns without permission.

I'm inclined to agree with the comparison, insomuch as we clarify what they have in common. This may not be what he intended with his post-- but if he did intend to point out the monopolistic practices that religions and states often have in common, then what they have in common is monopoly. Of course, it depends on the church and it depends on the country. But states typically have a monopoly on some things. Your average LLC is hardly a monopoly of any sort, but the big corporations have monopolistic practices.

Thank you, freemedia2018, that is the gist of what I meant, although I should directly answer one specific question and that is by "church" I mean most organized religions. I would've said "all" but I'm reasonably certain Buddhists don't seek wealth and power, and while they enjoy new people embracing their tenets I don't see them as aggressively evangelical. Granted, I have somewhat limited experience with religions other than Christianity, LDS, Islam, and Buddhism since those are the three types of friends I've had over the years and the rest I've only had light association with or read about. All of those believe they are The One True Faith and seek to convert ultimately everyone left standing (although LDS embraces the practice of praying for and baptizing the dead) and require wealth which they get through collections, tithes, or selling things like sacred relics and "temple garments", etc.

All of the above have lobbyists just like corporations or many other interest groups have that seek legislation to improve and increase their influence. In the US there would not be a clause specifically outlawing State Religion (separation of Church and State) in the Constitution if it wasn't a near universal, and devastating, attribute and goal of organized religions to take power and eliminate the competition.

Ondoho, I am honestly not trying to offend you, or anyone, but surely you must realize my already lengthy posts would be massively larger if I did not generalize. There are, from my POV, slight differences between religions and their many sects and subdivisions, but all do have some commonality and that is why I am forced to generalize. I understand that you view your church as benevolent and I absolutely agree that is a major part of all religions, too. Even Kali came to her senses and stopped her universal killing spree and settled back into mothering after a brief bloodbath. That you cannot see that underneath or along with the benevolence the carrot in one hand has a stick in the other is perfectly understandable, but from the outside looking in it seems quite clear. The very same can be said of corporations and governments as well as gangs, whether Cosa Nostra or street gangs. In fact, it is an extension of the contradictions we all, as individuals, balance at some tipping point.

I honestly don't understand the need to convert others to a specific Faith very well, but I do know it is very widespread in time and place. I do understand that we all seek some measure of wealth and power. It's just that some seem insatiable and if the line is fuzzy, I can't help that. I can only try to understand it and see it for what it actually is. In this thread, this came up because I see so much of what looks like senseless violence having either it's beginning or loose justification coming from that evangelical, competitive, Us vs/ Them POV and it should be absolutely obvious religionb is part and parcel of what occurred in Christchurch.

I think the reason for it is pretty simple.

1. Narcissists and sociopaths exist.

2. They tend to bully / manipulate their way to the heads of organisations.

3. They remake (or build) those organisations in their image. Narcissists are monopolies in the form of a person. Monopolies are narcissists in the form of an organisation. No narcissism, no monopoly-- no monopoly, no narcissism. Of course this too is a generalisation, but again, it would take longer to avoid one.

yet institutionalised buddhism, buddhism as a religion, even state religion, exists in quite a few countries on this globe (probably not the same institutions your friends are members of).
i share your respect for buddhism per se, but i'm not sure these buddhist churches are better than other churches.

i think you should take that time.
or should i give my generalisations about americans free reign?

and now you're not only generalising my statements, but also patronising me.
i said a few times in this thread that this is not "my" church. not historically - I haven't grown up in the area i'm speaking of - and not by choice.
in other words, i am outside looking in.

apparently you cannot understand how a non-believer might form a not-completely-negative picture of a religious institution.

Yes, I read about it too. I also remember having read somewhere that, according to the Christian doctrine, guardian angels positioned cherubs in some institutions to resurrect sinners in paradise after inquisition in some cases. That would be a great way to die!

While I suppose it may seem I implied it, I didn't say Buddhists were better since that would take everything into account and I don't know that much about their organization as I've never attended a Buddhist function. I have attended a fairly wide variety of Christian denominations' functions so my pattern matching is probably best there for whatever that's worth.

Of course you're free to do as you choose but a word of caution... it is far safer to generalize about a group of people who willfully belong to a group of like minded other individuals, than it is to generalize about people simply born into a location, especially if moving elsewhere is difficult but then that begs the question, "Where is better?" Most just acquiesce and try to carve out some modicum of privacy where they are. I don't think my generalizations about Organized Religion is far off the mark but just like statistic, one may be able to extract from data that 7 out of 10 people are such-and-such but it offers no help in picking out which 7. So I'm not trying to come to any profound conclusions concerning you, just the country and religion you described.


Ooops. I did make a mistake there by calling it "your church" instead of the church you referred to but I truly don't see anything patronising about what I said after. I think it is quite evident that it is rather rare from any POV that a thing or a person is all good or all bad. Most are a package deal.

As you stated it above I don't see how you arrived at that since I am a non-believer who is completely aware that even organized religion has good in it. Have I seemed to you to come off as if I find everything about religious institutions negative?

you seem to be the master of not only having the last but also the longest word (a.k.a. endless discussions).
i think you should dedicate some of that energy to avoid truth-distorting generalisations.

I don't see "generalization" as intrinsically faulty or mistaken. Generalization is a tool and like all tools has a set of useful applications, when properly applied, and a set of non-usable circumstances and/or improper usage. Certainly your opinion of my generalizations is valid to you and something of a concern of mine since I'd like to be understood as well as truthful but what we see as truth may vary quite a lot.

For convenience sake I think this definition is a good one and what I hope to bring here.


In light of this, it is interesting to note that your referring to my generalizations is a generalization in itself since it does not define some specific area of question or disagreement. If you would care to state some specific area of lack of clarity, misunderstanding or disagreement, I'd be happy to respond specifically.

I'm sort of in the middle on this, since I think you both have a point (and if so, seem to be missing each other's points) but just for the sake of sanity, I'll point out that "overgeneralisation" is the keyword here.

A generalisation isn't an inherent problem, as you say. When generalisations become overgeneralisations, by definition they become limiting and a problem. It's obvious that ondoho was talking about overgeneralisation, which makes his point valid (as they are a problem.) I'm not sure whether or not he was nitpicking your point about churches or not-- I'd almost say you were in the middle.

I didn't take your generalisation to mean "all churches" so I couldn't fault you for it-- but his point is valid that making generalisations too often (which he seems to think you do, but I have no horse in that race) would lead to misunderstandings-- either for you, or for the people reading your posts.

And both of you are sticking to your points, my hope in posting this isn't to fan the flames but to give you both a way out of a deadlock so the thread can continue in some kind of topic-related path. TL;DR you both have good points, FSVO "good." But I'd consider considering his point, and I've considered yours and found it reasonable enough for me.