Organized Religion: Natural Or Unnatural?

[carrdero]

Given what we know about Nature and GOD, is the understanding of what we know about organized religion natural or unnatural?

Are these organizations a derivative if human nature or GOD Nature?

If you choose natural as an answer, what exactly is it that makes it natural? Is it as one believes, the belief in which God’s will is written on the hearts of men? Are there any religious props that are required? Is belief natural?

If you believe that organized is unnatural what could religion do to align itself into a more Natural state that reflects the aspects of GOD’s nature?

[Aloysius]

there is a natural inclination in the human heart towards organization into society of everything, for man lives upon the subsistence of culture and society and cannot survive and prosper as a species when isolated from the structures it forms... even the most "primitive" cultures are so organized into society, they merely lack the complex stratification of large scale societies. all human beings are organized, and thus it is natural for them to organize all things into social structure, including their religions. religious belief in something is also as natural a phenomenon as language itself, with specific brain areas dedicated to it and being found universally in different forms throughout the world.

we believe that part of our organized religion, distinct from all other religions of the world, is super-natural... ie consists of a divine revelation. something which is supernatural is not contrary to nature, merely above it. it does not contradict the natural, but extends beyond it. our religion posits that we are a union of the supernatural to the natural; at the very core of it is the incarnation, the very definition of supernaturality connecting with naturality. so many aspects of the Catholic faith we will tell you are not natural, but supernatural, above nature.

it is natural for man to believe in something beyond himself. and it is natural for man to reason things out and to think and be logical. I believe that logic alone necessitates that there must only be one supreme being, and thus it is natural for human beings to come to that conclusion. the ancient Greek philosophers figured this out naturally, as did high class Hindus around the turn of the first millennium (and the belief has trickled down ever since to the point where most Hindus do believe there is only one God who merely manifests himself in many forms). it is my belief that the ancient Hebrews discovered this supernaturally, however, and that's what they claim (the ancient Greeks and Hindus never claimed to discover this supernaturally, to my knowledge, only that they reasoned it out naturally). thus, those who draw their belief from the ancient Hebrews either directly or indirectly share in the supernatural origin of their belief in God, because they came to that belief by believing in certain things which were supernaturally revealed.

many tribal peoples have had this nascent belief, and it is theorized that polytheism likely only develops when societies begin to ally themselves and grow bigger. for instance, once upon a time Zeus was the one and only God to Greeks of a certain city state while Apollo was the one and only God to Greeks of another city state, and eventually they came to recognize each others gods and thus consider their own god as only one of many divine beings. I really adamantly believe this about the Hindu gods and see the evolution of their religion as going from many small villages with private monotheisms to a large scale religion with wide scale polytheism and then finally beginning to emerge again with the natural belief in only one God. anyway, the amalgamation can be definitely seen in the way the Roman Empire spread and just adopted gods as it did... if they could increase their pantheon by spreading, who's to say the pantheon didn't get started in the first place by placing a bunch of singular gods together to unify peoples?

but anyway, tribal peoples like the Native Americans and Aborigines have also been found to have a nascent belief in a one God. It is clear to me that the human mind is naturally prone to belief in one God through its capacity for reason... and it can be shown to be probable that any polytheistic or atheistic religion has come from an evolution out of primitive pristine simplistic and natural monotheism.

[puellapaschalis]

To be religious is in man's nature.
To be organised (to varying extents; please don't look at my office) is in man's nature.

Thus, organised religion is natural.

[Justin86]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1539747' date='May 24 2008, 09:35 PM']To be religious is in man's nature.
To be organised (to varying extents; please don't look at my office) is in man's nature.

Thus, organised religion is natural.[/quote]
And yet it is also unnatural in the sense that it is supernatural as the Catholic Church was founded by God.

Perhaps this dives a bit too much into theology for my own good, but I believe this gets into how the Church is both a human and divine institution. I'll let those more learned in theology go from here.

[Aloysius]

the last two posts have summarized my long winded post into the main points pretty well...

[Justin86]

That's what I do best.

Edited May 24, 2008 by Justin86

[Deb]

God draws us to the church so organized religion (at least Catholicism) is of divine origin and therefore as natural as breathing.

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1539762' date='May 24 2008, 03:20 PM']the last two posts have summarized my long winded post into the main points pretty well... [/quote]

Ok. Aloysius has just made my day

[Mr.Cat]

They are "[b]supernatural[/b]"...

Think about it...

[dUSt]

Nature is organized.
It is natural for man to be organized.
Man was made in the image and likeness of God.
Therefore, God is organized.
God's religion is organized.
Organized religion is natural.

[Cure of Ars]

[quote name='dust (the ultra-handsome' post='1540009' date='May 24 2008, 10:57 AM']It is natural for man to be organized.[/quote]


I guess you have never seen my sock drawer.

[CatherineM]

There's a song from Point of Grace where they say, "we were made to worship, and I choose you." I believe that. I think that there is a longing built into our souls to worship. In the beginning, it might have been focused on fire or the sun, but when God allowed us to know him, then we knew where to direct our attention. With maturity either as a people or as individuals comes structure and rules. This led to the covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and eventually down to the New Covenant in Christ. We have an organized religion because we worship Jesus Christ, and he set the organization he wanted for his church. He set in place the primacy of Peter, apostolic succession, the sacraments, and even how we should handle those in dissent. If I want to worship Christ, then I should yield to his wishes as to the manner in which that worship should take shape.

[Apotheoun]

Anyone who reads St. Paul's letters knows that the Church is an organized body, i.e., the body of Christ.

[Kitty]

I think spirituality is natural, however organized religion I see as more unnatural.

[CatherineM]

People who put all their eggs into a spirituality basket often get let astray.