Stick?

2 years ago, in June, I found myself in Bandung under some of the most surprising circumstances. Representing Singapore in an U-21 PABF (Pacific Asia Bridge Federation) sanctioned event, whereby the top 3 teams of each age group, U-21 U-26 open teams ( 5-64 years of age) and seniors (65+) and the ladies team qualifies for the World Cup(in Bridge terms to put it simply.) Everyday for the entire duration of 14 days, we were busy playing cards from 9am-7pm with 2 breaks in between 1 for lunch, and 1's just an interval for the tabulation of scores. On the night of the first thursday, my teammates and I, were on our way back to our rooms, when my roommate decided to go check out the scores. Unwillingly i accompanied him to the playing hall and on the noticeboard next to the scores, I saw friday -0800hrs to 1100hrs 1st session, 1400hrs-1700hrs 2nd session. So i asked my roommate out of curiousity, "Hey how come there's only 2 sessions tomorrow? Is there a mistake?", and he replied," No I checked it on the schedule they printed it as 2 sessions only, if you think there's a mistake we can always check with the organisers tomorrow." We did just that the next day morning, (I must add waking up earlier took a toll on my performance in the morning =S) They told us the reason for the super long break in between the 2 sessions, was to cater to the muslims, as they needed to pray. Right, I totally forgot about that....


Fast forward 2 years, as I'm piecing my entry on groups, I couldn't help but think about this incident. Religion, is it really counted as a group? Definition for group -> A collection of individuals who, as a result of interacting with one another over time, become interdependent, developing shared patterns of behavior and a collective identity.
Sure, the homogenization of people who suscribe to their groups really fit in with the last portion of the description of a group, they do develop shared patterns of behavior(to a certain extent), and a collective identity.(at least the majority do) However does it fit the interdependent portion? What about interacting with one another over time? (It's a little hard to dispute the collection of individuals portion i guess) If religion is not counted as a group, why do people still acknowledge them as religious groups? Is this a layman's term for classification? Do people generally classify people who do things together, as a group? Hopefully I've managed to stir up some questions in your mind while you were reading this, to help you out further, let me give you my perspective of the, 'Is religion really a group issue.'

Let's take for example, Scientology. If you are unfamilar with this religion then Tom Cruise probably hasn't made much of an impact on your life, save perhaps the, 'Mission Impossible' re-runs you might have encountered on TV. Anyway, this religion borders around 500,000 strong, and is growing in popularity.
First created by American science fiction author L.Ron Hubbard, who believes that people are actually immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. They promote spiritual rehabilitation through a type of counselling often referred as auditing.(So says wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology) I don't really know if they've really managed to interact with one another 500,000 might seem like a really big number but seriously, compared to figures such as 1.8 billion muslims, 2.1 billion christians, it's beginning to seem like peanuts now huh? Ok point aside what about big names like Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, John Travolta just to name a few? DO THEY actually mingle with the others? Assuming they do, do they become interdependent with your everyday Janes and Sams of Scientology? Even better, Shared patterns of behavior and a collective identity? Perhaps as believers of Scientology but I guess that's where the line is drawn? Because if that's not the case, I shudder to imagine how many fans would have converted over further beefing up the numbers? (not that they haven't already done so I guess =P)


Can it actually be possible for the religion to meet each and every member's interpersonal needs? Can the decisions they make acutally garner full support from all of it's members? Can it really assume all members to act as per will of the religion? Are roles of a group (other than follower =P) really assigned to each and every member of the group? You might insist that they might not be qualified, but surely amongst say 450,000 everyday run-of-the-mill believers, surely there must be people capable of doing things that can acutally benefit the development of this so-called 'group'?


What say you now that you've seen my take on the issue?