It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements. – Mary Douglas
Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside? – Mary Douglas
Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion. – Mary Douglas
I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay. – Mary Douglas
Our religion is itself profoundly sad – a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each mans own language – so long as he knows anguish and is a painter. – Charles Baudelaire
Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. – Elise Boulding