a religion comprises things such as rites, rituals, traditions and the like, all descending from a set of beliefs. these beliefs may not be sufficient (although too many times they are) for any associated religious action to be carried out by followers, but are indeed necessary for an integral and consistent framework that defines each and every religious community.
it is also apparent that every religion and also every denomination dividing them all have their own specific set of beliefs and within these beliefs a yet smaller, exclusive set which distinguish them from each other. that is to say, two communities with all overlapping beliefs, are in principle identical communities where religion is concerned.
insofar as there are a set of beliefs that define and distinguish a religious community, there is no reason for these beliefs to not be as open to scrutiny and criticism as any other nonreligious belief being promulgated in society. in fact in many societies there religious beliefs and practices receive special protection from reasonable open debate, as if religion itself was something born with and not chosen by will of an informed individual; gender or race or disability are topics that could conceivably be given special protection, as it would not be consistent with fairness to even discuss why a person should or should not be an aborigine female in a wheelchair for example. instead it is well and wholly within a person's faculty of decision making to choose all their beliefs where religious or non religious beliefs are concerned, and accordingly they would be open to scrutiny and criticism from their peers for any beliefs that do not conform to reality as it is.
if it were not the case that religious people are not free to choose their beliefs, then the situation is far more dire than i currently conceive it to be: have they somehow grown incapable (and thus need help) or have they been prevented from learning new things once they have subscribed to certain beliefs of a certain religious group (and thus need help)? to me, and i think to everyone else it should be clear that given just this scenario alone there is no reason to intervene with unwanted help, except for the fact that beliefs lead to behaviours and behaviours lead to action that affect the wider community outside their own. and where these things spill into the larger community that have opposing beliefs, where do we go for reasonable discourse regarding conflicting views if one party has been awarded special protection from the beginning? i havent even mentioned isolationist practices like in-group dating and marrying, pseudoscientific education, self victimisation propaganda and child indoctrination the latter on its own being sufficient to rouse serious concern about the current preference to nonintervention.
there is a very strong need in us as a species to feel belonging in a family or in a group. most of the time this entails every member participating in the same actions, some of the time also professing the same beliefs. but deep in every individual is the guarantee of total privacy in what we really hold in our own minds despite what we do and it is from this that i suspect even the most loyal performers of traditional actions hold in themselves the spark of doubt that asks if the specific belief follows reason or not. but that spark is easily drowned out in the too common practice of everyone out there doing the same thing you are doing. it is this comfort of belonging in community and family that prevents most people from any risk of disturbance from status quo. they have learnt over the centuries, to strike a balance of trade between their individual freedom to believe and the received commodity of comfort and security, and have no reason to do anything more about it.
where will change come except from the outside?
