I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need.
Organized religion may be anathema on the political Left, but the need for the things religion provides - moral fervor, meaning, a sense of community - are not.
Organized religion: the world's largest pyramid scheme.
Across all religions in the United States, people 18-30 are more spiritual than before, but they don't like organized religion. What sets Birthright apart is that no one's hitting on you to be Jewish in any particular way, and you can define Jewish any way you want.
My biggest problem with organized religion is that God has been imagined as a human being with emotions. I feel if you let go of that, then it's possible to see God as a force, to connect to him or her spiritually.
I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.
I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.
It is certainly true that writers take a stance at some variance from organized religion. This has not always been true. But since the romantic movement - and I'm referring now exclusively to poetry - the emphasis has been on the individual imagination defined against, rather than in terms of, any orthodoxy.
There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions.
If organized religion has become less relevant, it's not because churches have held fast to their creedal beliefs - it's because they've held fast to their conventional structures, programs, roles and routines.
