The Ireland vote that appears to have sanctioned homosexual marriage in a traditionally conservative and Catholic realm is certainly a reparation of sorts for a stigmatized population.
But beyond the obvious social impact, what occurs to me is the statement it makes about the voluntarism in shaping a religion. The writ-in-stone quality that religions can arrogate to its tenets is a figment of a frightened imagination.
Get it straight: You create your religion and any over-arching, daddy-knows-best quality, while it may be comforting, is just another bit of imaginative and personal creation.
Taking responsibility can be frightening, but it is one of the indispensable characteristics of a religious usefulness and joy and credibility.
Or anyway that's my take.
I looked it up, and only 46% of the Irish population attend church, though 70% apparently believe there's a god. I heard once that the pedophilia that survives in the catholic church occurs more often in America because older countries like Italy and Ireland maintain a healthy mistrust of priests. I guess i'm thinking the vote might be reflected in some way by how the number of atheists vs. true believers compared. But on whatever side of the ledger one might line up, i suppose there's still a matter of personal belief or conscience to consider that would be too much trouble to count, sort and list. And what benefit would going to that trouble offer anyway?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism