[SteveA]

You can take a lot of other large social movements and see similar problems as well, like Fascism in Germany and Marxism in Russia.

The point is when people lose sight of the individuals these groups are composed of. It's symbolism and social forces that make people believe it's ok to rain destruction on others.

We didn't see random individuals just coincidently decide go off on crusades or come up with ideas of genocide etc. These were caused by placing too much power in too few hands and leaving individual ethics/morals behind.

Just because 1,000 other people are jumping off a cliff, doesn't mean you should as well, nor does it grant anyone the right to push someone else off, yet these social views continue to wreak havoc on people daily.

Social institutions don't physically exist, they are simply symbolic representations of how we coordinate ourselves with others. You can't point to something and say it's government or religion really. It's just as easy to say the same thing about God. Government/God are almost identical from any tangible perspective yet people believe in government and "The People" as much as they do God. So who's wrong?

Here, more churches are hierarchical organization to speak the "will of God".

Most government are hierarchical organizations to speak the "will of the People".

So you guys are complaining that noone can see God and get a first hand account of what he's saying (why you'd want to follow what he said is a separate subject).

Well, the same thing is true of "the People" or "government". All there are is a bunch of people claiming to represent it and feelings they have more right to rule over others because of that representation of authority.

I'm not trying to claim that people can't follow God or government if they desire, I'm just trying to put some perspective on things so when there's a dispute over God or government, people can have a better understanding of why these disputes occur.