3 ms·
To be honest, my thinking on this is not crystalised but I do think there's an important difference between a religion like Christianity and other "occult" prac
by thehappyfellow 2y ago
To be honest, my thinking on this is not crystalised but I do think there's an important difference between a religion like Christianity and other "occult" practices - it's about social guardrails against going insane.
Practicing Christians will congregate weekly, reinforce their beliefs, chat about them, confess to the same priest - all of this stops going into crazy corners of the belief space. Also, normal to be openly Christian (at least where I'm from) and people have vague ideas about which beliefs are roughly in that category - and can call out deviations.
I'm basing this all on my guesses to be clear! Still curious to see if others have similar thoughts.
- _kb 2y agoThat's a sound theory. I'm a fairly staunch atheist so do believe both are equally absurd. Even with that frame though it's easy to acknowledge community that forms around (most) religion serves to align group behaviour. This can be both good or bad depending on what those behaviours are in a larger social context. You still get similar community in a lot of alternative spirituality / occult practices but from slices of that community I've been exposed to it does focus much more on personal exploration and opens the door to the recursive degeneration that may lead to.