Religion and Individualism - Page 9

Beren3000 · 01-21-2005, 04:29 AM

For my English class, we were working on a German novel called Demian by Herman Hesse. This novel invited us "not to consider prohibited anything the soul desires" and to find our own morality since "evil is always changing". We were discussing the novel one day and one of my classmates said that he thought that people who follow religion just choose the easy way out. IOW, they wait for religion to teach them morals instead of finding them out for themselves. His comment seems to suggest a view that following religion makes you less of an individual, that (to quote Bop's sig.) "morality is the herd instinct in the individual". Now, I completely refuse this reasoning, but I just wanted to know what you guys think about it. To what extent can religion and individualism co-exist? How far does it apply to your religion; or, if you have no religion, what is your opinion on the matter?

01-21-2005, 04:29 AM	#1
Beren3000 FÃ«anorophobic Join Date: May 2004 Location: Between the pages of a book Posts: 1,417	Religion and Individualism For my English class, we were working on a German novel called Demian by Herman Hesse. This novel invited us "not to consider prohibited anything the soul desires" and to find our own morality since "evil is always changing". We were discussing the novel one day and one of my classmates said that he thought that people who follow religion just choose the easy way out. IOW, they wait for religion to teach them morals instead of finding them out for themselves. His comment seems to suggest a view that following religion makes you less of an individual, that (to quote Bop's sig.) "morality is the herd instinct in the individual". Now, I completely refuse this reasoning, but I just wanted to know what you guys think about it. To what extent can religion and individualism co-exist? How far does it apply to your religion; or, if you have no religion, what is your opinion on the matter? Last edited by Beren3000 : 01-21-2005 at 11:00 AM.