Quote:
Originally Posted by frau kaleun
Nevertheless it can be just as hard to leave an older, "established" tradition than a newer and smaller one. The social and familial pressure is often even greater because the religious practices and beliefs are far more likely to be intertwined with one's existing everyday life and experience, with one's closest and dearest relationships, and with how a person has always self-identified (and been identified by those closest to them) as an individual.
The difference to me is not how old or "mainstream" a spiritual tradition is, it's the amount of personal autonomy the practitioners are required to relinquish in order to be fully "acceptable" to those who are in authority within it and, just as important, the means by which those authorities obtain the support and compliance of their followers.
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Sure it's not easy to leave the older religions. I 'divorced' from the Finnish main religion which is the Finnish Lutheran church or something like that. Most Finns are baptised into it when they are babies so they kind of automatically belong to it, which is kinda sneaky. Members have to pay something called the "church tax" which goes from the salary automatically. There's stuff like burial and other things, the church owns the burial grounds so they're talking about putting prices for non-religious people to be buried etc.
I left the church in 2000 so I'm now celebrating my decade out of church.
