Spoilers for Chas Clifton’s post How to Ruin the Mysteries, or Religion is not Moral.

“Yeah, religion — the “juice,” not the social organizations — can be sexy. Hindu gurus are notorious for sexual scandals, as are some Zen teachers, Protestant ministers, Catholic priests . . . you could go on.

Morality ought to be filed under Philosophy, not Religion.

An issue that affects both new religions (like various new Paganisms) and scholars of religion is the enormous, often unrecognized, cultural meme that “religion” equals not just a type of monotheism with a Holy Book, but Protestant Christianity in particular.”

Yes, you should read the whole thing INCLUDING THE COMMENTS.

And then you might want to think about rereading my bit on Groups For extra credit, think about my leadership tag.

I’ve decided to devote some time to analyzing the crusader mode. I’ve a bunch of pagans trying to tell me what is and is not moral while dismissing what I have to say.

As a working assumption, crusaders are immoral, intolerant, and intrusive. If someone dares question the Ideal, irrational too.

And yes, religion and faith are amoral. Every example I’ve seen of religious morality is to control other people. And this absolutely justifies my decision to split my blogging into pagan and political all those years ago.

Too many people are in religion for the politics.

I think the crusaders get their way because most people just don’t want to argue with them. A few of these people are worried, fewer still scared.

So I think my next bit will be figuring out how to defang the crusaders. I’m tired of dealing with them and I’m even more tired of watching them “win.”