Holism

I am finding myself agreeing more and more with the importance of socialism. And I am not talking about the political structure, but rather the idea and importance of socialization, but ‘socializationism’ is not a word. (The red squiggly line says so.) From a divine, eternal standpoint, we are social creatures by nature. We will always live with other people. Throughout recorded history (that is to say during the history of the earth and exclude pre-mortal and post-mortal life), we have learned what we know from each other. Everything in our lives is interrelated.
This leads me to think of the real meaning of religion. Religion is what we invent for ourselves, it would seem. And whether or not that invention would include the aspect of spirituality, which mistakenly goes hand-in-hand with religiosity, then becomes a decision for the individual to make. Just because someone is religious does not necessarily denote spirituality. A person is religious by his or her conviction to the religion’s respective totem. Totems in the LDS faith would include males wearing a white shirt to church, going to church and attending other activities, hanging pictures of temples and deity in the house, and even paying tithing, but only when someone is watching. These totems intrinsically are neither good nor bad. But their value is determined by their use. The cross from religious to spiritual comes when the person does not let his left hand know what his right hand is doing, and when he prays in his closet, and when gives alms in secret. For instance, in Sunday school, the teacher asked the class whether or not we had ever read the Book of Mormon. Making a lame joke, I left my arm up and drew attention to it. “Everybody sees my hand is up, right? That means I’ve read the Book of Mormon.” I don’t mean to disrespect the scriptures, and I could go ahead and bear my testimony of them. But the point is the totem of not just the Book of Mormon itself as a publication, but the act of reading it. The group may determine what it holds as totems, but the individual determines, even interprets, the meaning and significance of the established totems.