Traditional

Traditional religion has been displaced in our societies by other things: mindfulness spirituality, fringe beliefs and cults as well as self created dogmas which combine the spiritual with the secular. This has happened because human beings need some sort of belief system which even atheism and agnosticism also are since the very conviction that God does not or may not exist has consequences on the way we live.

Some think this loss of traditional belief system makes our society less orderly and it is true that when there are less commonly held ideas you scatter people to the wind. But these religions were also sometimes used to subjugate people into submission and shunned them when they didn't measure up. Divorced Catholics for example could be denied communion and never mind admitting you were homosexual. It was a mass belief system for those who could fit within its confines and comply and it was this aspect of religion warped by humanity which was developed for its other needs. Doubters need not apply although don't ever say that to C.S. Lewis.

I began to outgrow conventional religion because what had become of its original purity had been hidden underneath layers of convention which became a middleman I no longer required. Plus when you need to deliver to the masses, everything can become fashioned into the formulaic for easier digestion by all. Going to Sunday Mass became a formed habit made even less palatable by stale and uninspired homilists and my intellect grew to need more sustenance.

If we grow to think for ourselves we may realize that there is more to grasp when we do some of the work on our own.