IN REPLY... ABOUT RELIGIONS AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS Alexander Hamlyn-Hyde: It is plain for everybody to see that the religions and religious organisations, which are traditional in our part of the world, do not have much influence left in our modern and practically secular society. This is of course not equally true in other parts of the world, where society may be neither modern nor secular - nor does it necessarily apply to the religions and religious organisations that people from those other parts of the world bring or have recently brought here with them. The long and the short of it is that a great many of what you claim to be religious customs, are in reality, just customs of the society, in which certain religions also happen to be traditional. In what we regard as a developed society, the religious organisations of that society will tend to restrict their activities to taking care of the spiritual needs of society and only go beyond that for humanitarian reasons, as indeed they are expected to, for spiritual reasons. In a less developed society, however, religious organisations may still be in the position they used have in our society centuries ago, they may still have a great deal more influence than what we are used to in our part of the world today, and - what with that society and its religion hard to tell apart - its social and religious customs may also easily become mixed up. The solution to this problem is of course not to abolish religions, religious organisations or indeed faith altogether, but to work towards the kind of social progress that rids society of its harmful customs...
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 20:15:05 +0000
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