Could there be a "normal" Religion? h

Here are two quotes of Frederic II of Prussia concerning Religion (courtesy of www.brainyquote.com):

1. Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand.
2. All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

By the way, there is an interesting lesson to be drawn from those two quotaions; namely, that one cannot judge a person from one quotation, for if only one of those two would be told, one could easily conclude that Frederic was either pro or anti religion, depending on the quotation told.

But besides that, the point I have here in mind is that which we can learn from the combination of both quotes; that although religion is badly misused by the mobs, it can and should be used positively as an accessory for reaching one's own heaven.

However, a few questions arise concerning the "holy lies" that religions are composed of.

1. Can one generally educate nowadays without resorting anymore to "holy lies"?
This question was posed in the hebrew Atzor 134768 but seemingly with no clear answer.
2. Can religion have any value without "holy lies"?

My personal opinion earned not only from thinking and observing, but also from experience, (which could nevertheless change) is that we should first rename the Atzoric concept of "holy lies" to one of "holy games".

When one plays a game for an educational purpose, be it a board game or an acting game, one does not necessarily have to lie and hide the fact that we are playing. Only in extreme cases when danger is detected, do we have to resort to lies, but in normal cases in a normal educational environment, children willingly play along any acting game and even grasp the subliminal messages expressed therein.

I would therefore say that one acts the religious rituals without raising the subject of their being a game. Even if a child gets to a stage in which he asks about an acting subject if it is "real" (or as they say in hebrew "al beemet"), one just tells him that part of the game is that this is not spoken about. When the child grows he will automatically discern between the acting expression and the genuine true eternal idea it came to express.

I think that this is the best way to preserve the religions' values while taking out of them their negative aspects of extremism that lead to violence and oppression.

Thus, although one may succeed to educate without playing acting games, in many or in most cases it is not only advantageous, but also necessary (Question # 1). Although an inherent part of religion is the personification and deification of Being into a holified personality, it does not need to be lied about. It suffices and is more healthy just to be played about with part of the game being the non discussion about the truthfullness of the subject (Question # 2).

Dear Razio,

Another point to this discussion is the explanation of how religion takes free rides on bothersome unanswerable questions in order to create its' holy lies/games.

A bird sat in his cage. Another bird flew by and called to him: "Lucky fellow, you have no food shortage since your nourishment is fully and regularly delivered". The encaged bird replied: "Well, you only take my nourishment into considerstion, what about my freedom?"

In life we have many choices between protection versus freedom. Each situation is different from the other varying according to the individuals and the circumstances. Sometimes more protection and less freedom is necessary and sometimes more freedom and less protection. The ideal situation is the possibility to choose the level of protection and the level of freedom in which one manages on our own to fend for our needs.

Also in religion where the "coerced by their understanding or by their good nature" (Anussei hatevunah) need more freedom and less coercive protection, a way has to be found to grant them the choice of balancing between encagement and freedom. The problem to be solved is how to create tolerance on part of the weaker for the greater freedom of the stronger. Humility is necessary on both sides to recognize in oneself and in the other who is the stronger and who the weaker!

Since this seems unrealistic, the only alternative remains to somehow create a legitimate enough group of the "coerced"!