>>>But it was nice to grow among self-organized people, who didn't wait for anyone's order or call when they wanted to do something.
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>You were privileged. It is sad that such environments do not seem to survive beyond a certain size or more than a fraction of a generation in time.

This was a whole country, and this thing lasted for about thirty to forty years (roughly, mid-fifties to early nineties). It was really funny when once, as senior college students, we went for a graduation trip to Soviet Union, and accepted the offer from the local photographer to have a group picture taken in front of Ermitazh. After taking the shots, the guy asked "who is the eldest" (also translatable as "who's in charge"). We started looking at each other, and started laughing - we didn't have anyone in charge. My roommate and I just volunteered to collect the money and distribute the photos.

Or, the case when a Yugoslav airplane was hijacked on the airport in Athens before taking off. The passengers faked a fire, confused the hijackers and took over the plane. One of the more famous examples of self-organization.

And it would have survived much longer, but The Party was an obstacle, even though this self-management was its own invention. They just didn't seem to like the people really being in charge, and put a lots of limitations, and eventually allowed their inner party struggles to spread into a war. Then we had leaders.

>Have you read Animal Farm?

At age of 18, the same month I read 1984. Animal farm was too familiar from real life.
I also don't think that Animal Farm is about communists alone. It's about any social movement which preaches equality in the beginning, but then introduces military-like organization and ends up as just any other hierarchy. Major religions are no exception, for that matter. Did you read "Satanic verse"?

>>>Established religions have the mechanism which enables them to outlast the time when they were beneficial to the civilization, IMO. Resistance to logic and reasoning is one of the key features of the mechanism.
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>Which religion resists logic and reasoning? I am not referring to you, but often those who accuse religions of this are themselves illogical and intolerant of anybody "stupid enough to disagree with them".

Pretty much each dogma is, by definition, axiomatic. You don't question axioms, right? You either take them for granted, or discard the whole system. Now if one of the axioms is that only two people were created, and they had two sons, where one killed the other - then, how come there are some six billion people on Earth?

I tried some logic and reasoning on this in one long dispute here a couple of years ago, and I never got a straight answer... except "you should read these books".

>>>Not that they are wrong all the time - but they often are. I've heard quite often that this or that moral trait is the key to stability of the society, and then these traits haven't passed the test of time - and nothing bad happened to the societies, they just go on.
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>I think standards and self-restraint have a lot to do with it. It is no bad thing to be told we need to stop at a red light even though a stream of cars stopping just because a light changes color may seem illogical to an innocent observer.

Of course. We differ only in the question of who's in charge of telling people this, and how do they explain the rules. IMO, rules make sense as long as the reasoning behind them is clear to those who need to abide to, and enforce them. If they are enforced by sheer command, you get various forms of rebellion as a result.

In particular, I can't honestly understand how can people allow someone to tell them what to eat and what not, how to make love and how not (specially the when, where and with whom part), whom to marry... and if these rules have a reasonable explanation, I'd like to hear it. Most of these could probably be reduced to "we want to rule your lives" - and that's one of my major objections to organized religions as such. ("We want your money" also ranks high.)

When the rules are clear-cut, as the traffic rules are ("you need to stop at the red light, because the guys coming from your left and right are getting a green, which means they'll trust that you have stopped, and they'll drive their tons of hardware through the crossing, you don't want to be in their way"), that's not just OK, that's civilization.

>As far as I can tell, Religions are pretty much the only institutions left to staunchly defend our need to maintain a moral "red light".

You haven't seen other ways. I have, and they can work. I've actually seen them work better in several aspects.

And, the religions have their agendas - like maintaining control over their flock (don't they use the term "sheep"?), spreading their influence, political clout etc. Of course they would like you to think they are the only such institutions left, and that without them it would be chaos.

> Elsewhere we see a permissive "drive as you please" mentality pervading society, even though there is ample evidence that it will not work. I guess we are determined to learn the hard way, again. Such is life.

I'm not proposing that, either. The clear-cut rules (like "no violence", "stick to the law", "don't mix money and love") should exist, and should be self-enforcing.