(no subject)

[serene]

[Note: if you think the person I'm talking about is you, it probably is, but I am using your post as a springboard to talk about something I've been talking about in my own circles lately -- my response to your post was sincere, and this is where I'm putting the stuff I thought was not kind to put in your LJ.]

An LJ friend posted about zir feelings about taking communion. Zie wanted some input about the purpose of communion, and zie shared zir bad feelings about deciding whether or not to take communion. I declined to offer an opinion about the purpose of communion, and expressed sympathy for zir pain. That was sincere. What I would have said, though, had it been the time or place?

That's the purpose of communion, or at least one purpose. To make you feel bad about yourself. To remind you that god is looking inside your heart at all times, and the likelihood that you'll measure up is nearly nil. To make you look at the people around you, taking communion, and assume they're further along their walk with god than you are.

I totally respect the power of ritual, and if the ritual of communion is having the effect of reminding you to resolve your issues with your fellow humans, cool, but I don't see it having that effect in most people's lives. I see it having the effect that I believe most organized religion has on most people's lives -- that of making them feel bad about themselves, and making sure they know they don't measure up to god's standards.

I'm not convinced that people *want* religion to make them feel good about themselves, so I'm all for people using it however it works for them, and it's really not for me to decide what you get out of your religion. That said, I see so many people saying, basically, "I want to do X, which I understand I need to do to be right with god, and when I don't do X, I feel like shit," that I think it's valuable to examine whether or not X is healthy in the first place.

Comments

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

When I took communion, I always felt that it was simply a taking of grace, as if I took some small part of god's love into myself. I don't go to church much anymore, and I can't really say that I'm Christian. I was raised Catholic, but I just can't follow along with the belief that Jesus was divine. Ah, well.