Lauren Clark (FGCU): Institutions and Religion

Why is religion part of our society? Why are some people so reliant towards God, while others can wholeheartedly state that they believe there is no God, and others fall everywhere in between? We were told in class that such social institutions, like churches, as well as other non-religious institutions like school, are created and sustained to satisfy peoples’ social needs. But why are some groups so radical in their beliefs that they push them onto everyone who surrounds them? Isn’t part of having a social institution such as a church supposed to be a supply to society’s need rather than forcing it upon them? Not according to one extremist church based out of Kansas that has been the subject of many documentaries about their radical belief system that God hates everyone and basically everything we do is against God’s will including fighting in the war, dating, and many other social acts that we consider normal. BBC did a very interesting documentary on the family of the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church and its congregation, as well as documented several of their pickets located at funerals of fallen soldiers.

The documentary is here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7735501683185935638&ei=ywPqSZDFEobWqAKU39CUDw&hl=en

However, I would like to recommend you do NOT watch this documentary if you are easily offended, it does contain a great deal of hate speech toward most social groups in our country.

It seems as though this church has found something to hate about every social class that is not basically white supremacist. It is truly sad that there are people out there who have conformed to such a stringent religion when all it really is to an outsider is an extremist hate group which only adds fuel to the fire of those who abstain from religion for the belief that it is exactly that, a group of extremists who think they are better than everyone else because of their beliefs.

I have taken the time to watch that documentary (it is an hour long, but very interesting), but many of the things that were said and the train of thought in these people’s minds is so obscure and completely irrational that it was hard to believe that was the way these people lived. Going back to what we talked about, were there lives so terrible that they found that the only way to push through was to completely transform their lives to live this lifestyle of hate and total exclusion from society and the outside world? I believe each person is entitled to their own religious beliefs, and while I personally believe that some systems are wrong in their teachings, I also am confident that each person does have a need for some sort of foundation of religion to always rely on in times of need, and “to each his own”.

**I know that many people have very strong beliefs about their religion, and in no way did I intend or want to put down one religion or another. I did only want to present my opinion and share a very interesting documentary with the class, but again, I do want to strongly suggest not watching it if you are going to be easily offended.

This entry was posted on 18. April 2009 at 19:14 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.