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I have increasingly, over the years, felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.

Mary Douglas

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Mary Douglas
Age: 86 †
Born: 1921
Born: March 25
Died: 2007
Died: May 16
Anthropologist
University Teacher
Writer
San Remo
Dame Mary Douglas
Margaret Mary Tew
Felt
Doe
Today
Years
Increasingly
Good
Harm
Civilization
Religion

More quotes by Mary Douglas

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The theory of cultural bias... is the idea that a culture is based on a particular form of organization. It can't be transplanted except to another variant of that organization.
Mary Douglas
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Our technological infrastructure alienates us from each other. No need to form a workplace community, everybody there will be out in a year or two, and so will you, looking for a better place.
Mary Douglas
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Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the byproduct of a systematic ordering and classification of matter.
Mary Douglas
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Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.
Mary Douglas
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Since 1970, relationships can be more volatile, jobs more ephemeral, geographical mobility more intensified, stability of marriage weaker.
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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
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It's unlikely that the organized religions will get more sectarian... or is it? I am not at all sure.
Mary Douglas
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I am convinced that living in an enclave shapes the personality, and living alone shapes the personality too.
Mary Douglas
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When we are reflecting on terrorism we can grieve for many things we do and have done.
Mary Douglas
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Inequality can have a bad downside, but equality, for its part, sure does get in the way of coordination.
Mary Douglas
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It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.
Mary Douglas
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If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization.
Mary Douglas
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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
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Institutions have the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program.
Mary Douglas
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Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.
Mary Douglas
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If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.
Mary Douglas
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Any great organization can go through sectarian phases.
Mary Douglas
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Hierarchy works well in a stable environment.
Mary Douglas
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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
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Hierarchy is is much reviled in the present day.
Mary Douglas