Valentines Day and the Hollow Man

This will be my second post for the day... Kind of sad when it's Valentines day I guess...

Many of you know the religion which with I generally associate myself. I won't mention it again, because I think this may be a problem amongst religions in general, although it is pretty pronounced in mine. I used to be pretty devout, but the more I see, the less I am inclined to align myself perfectly with it. That's not to say I'm not committed to the principles, but the organization surrounding those principles has some serious problems.

I have a friend who's having a problem with his localized leader. Basically this guy was told by the guy above him that their area would be requiring a higher standard of obedience than other parts of the church. Apparently this standard doesn't apply to pride, because doing this has the effect of making them better than everyone else (And that's almost a direct quote!) I won't go into specifics, but his wife made a comment after meeting with the local leader this past weekend. She described him as a hollow man, not having any soul, just deferring to the guy above him and repeating that things would not change, and this is just the way it is.

I guess you can't blame the guy, the entire organization seems to be under the mistaken impression that it is evil to question anything that comes down from the top, or anywhere between you and the top.

I have another associate who is involved in handling cases where there has been abuse and other misconduct committed by leaders within this same organization.

So with that I sit watching a documentary on PBS last night about the religion. One of the top guys comes on and makes this comment. "It is wrong to question the leaders of this Church. Even is that leader is wrong."

If you'll pardon my language, but that my friends, is 100% Bullshit. When there are any number of perverted, sexual deviants who have used their positions of authority to victimize kids and other people, the idea that you still shouldn't question authority is dead wrong.

I've mentioned in the past the problems with Religion. This is perhaps the biggest.