Given, perhaps, the dance community is in habit of exercising the body to a fault, neglecting the activities of the noggin. And yet, my intuition points that underdevelopment to another source. Taking the following situation:
Two highschool age dancers in discussion about beards and the boy says, “Have you ever seen Jesus’ face?”
Perhaps he meant images of Jesus, no harm there.
Another girl butts into the conversation, very matter-of-factly. “But Jesus doesn’t have a face!”
After pausing she goes on. “He doesn’t have a face. He’s not a person. He’s a… a… spiritual being.”
The boys responds. “Well, he used to.”
Rebuttal. “But not anymore!”
Oh my. Apparently there is no distinguishment made in Christian worship between Jesus of Nazereth, a man who lived and taught in Jerusalem, and God, the omnipotent and all-encompassing entity who is considered to exist outside of time and to be perfect.
Christians do believe Jesus of Nazereth was also the son the God or God in human form. But to enmesh their identities so much that they are interchangeable seems to have provided for a gross misunderstanding by this young person, who probably thought she was being wildly cutting edge to believe God/Jesus does not take a bodily form (though this nebulous entity still has a gender, interestingly).
This is exactly the kind of intellectual laziness that organized religion is apt to promote. And this makes it very dangerous, as the girl was completely confident with interuppting into a conversation that was not even her own in order to spew out this misinformation. With Christianity specifically, believing itself the only sovereigned religion, individuals will be prone to self-righteousness and inflexibility. There is a great potential for serious reperucussions when the most basic facts are poorly understood by its practitioners.
Later, there was a debate as to whether Jesus was Jewish.
While there is an open and very serious debate in this country as to whether Jesus had a face, let no one question whether Adam and Eve had belly buttons – they didn’t!
Organized religion is not just “apt to promote” intellectual laziness, it requires it. Too much learning, or the wrong sort of learning, is an immediate threat to the institution.
If people really started thinking about it, they’d realize that organized religions exist as much for their own sake as they do for the saving of souls or the redistribution of alms or the reform of a society or the creation of a Kingdom of God. And then who would keep the lights on at the mega-churches?
Organized religion is not merely “apt to promote” intellectual laziness; it absolutley requires it. Anything else is a threat to the institution which exist as much for its own sake as for any kind of so-called “mission.”