Guest Voices: Organized religion is big business - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

Guest Voices: Organized religion is big business - On Faith at washingtonpost.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Big Businesses famously roll on in this country because we're scared of letting them fail. And if there truly is an American business that's too big to send swirling down the economy's drain, it's the Organized Religion Industry (O.R.I)....The premise of the O.R.I, that you need religion in order to live as a person of faith, is, if you'll excuse me for saying so, unpardonable hooey. It's perfectly possible to live as person of faith without being religious; to live in partnership with God, the great Whatever, without swaddling your relationship in any of organized religion's folderol. It's absolutely fine to, in God's name and in It's company, put your time, energy, and money directly into doing some good for and with your fellow inhabitants of this sweet old world. And to let the sound and fury of the O.R.I. play on without you.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit piled higher and deeper. I worship the Church, I adore the Church, I give thanks to the Church which is the incarnation of God here on earth and love Organized Religion with all my heart and soul and mind because it is my God.

I don't give a rat's ass about living as a "person of faith" whatever that might be or living "in partnership with God, the great Whatever" whatever that comes to. I care about the institutional church--the institution that maintains the buildings and does liturgy. I care about religiosity. It it doesn't survive our lives will be poorer because we won't have those buildings, the sacred space the Church maintains, or the ceremonies it organizes. I worship the Church, I adore the Church, I give thanks to the Church for its greater glory because it is my God. I love organized religion with all my heart and soul and mind.