Definition of religion

C

Cypress

"Cypress you motherfucking whore!"
Some competing definitions.

Immanuel Kant - religion is the recognition that all of our duties as divine commands.

Paul Tillich - religion is a matter of being grasped by an "ultimate concern" and contains the answer to the question of the meaning of our lives.

Max Stackhouse - religion a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just, even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted.

Emile Durkheim - religion is "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."

Sigmund Freud - religion is a "childhood neurosis" and "wish fullfillment."

Karl Marx - religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the opium of the people.

Richard Dawkins - belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion.

Frederich Nietzsche - Faith means not wanting to know what is true. "The very word 'Christianity' is a misunderstanding — in truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”

Vladimir Lenin - the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society.
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domer76 said:
Looks like Durkheim gets closest.
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I like his too, because a search or quest for the sacred really what sets religion apart from other social conventions.

For the atheists, I actually like Lenin the best, because he has a mechanistic, causal explanation for religion rather than just calling it dumb or delusional.
 
Cypress said:
I like his too, because a search or quest for the sacred really what sets religion apart from other social conventions.

For the atheists, I actually like Lenin the best, because he has a mechanistic, causal explanation for religion rather than just calling it dumb or delusional.
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I used to think of myself as somewhat of an atheist and that there was only one truth. Kinda softened that a bit, but still reject the Christian version of a personal and interactive deity.
 
domer76 said:
I used to think of myself as somewhat of an atheist and that there was only one truth. Kinda softened that a bit, but still reject the Christian version of a personal and interactive deity.
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Life is a journey. My trajectory is has been through different shades of atheism, Christianity, agnoticism, pantheism.

I definitely do not accept the hubris that human sensory perception, empiricism, and our souped up chimpanzee mental cognition necessarily gives us access to all of reality and higher truths
 
Cypress said:
Life is a journey. My trajectory is has been through different shades of atheism, Christianity, agnoticism, pantheism.

I definitely do not accept the hubris that human sensory perception, empiricism, and our souped up chimpanzee mental cognition necessarily gives us access to all of reality and higher truths
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Sometimes, I wonder how “souped up” that cognition really is..
 
domer76 said:
Sometimes, I wonder how “souped up” that cognition really is..
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We tend to be hubristic, in the widespread assumption that with the right scientific experiments and mathmatical equations we can answer any and all questions about reality and the human experience.

In that sense, I think we tend to vastly overestimate the cognitive abilities and reach of our simian brains.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Most of them are not packing a full seabag...
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Don't forget to include the vegetables, Terry, don't forget the vegetables. In that regard, you are a one-man tossed salad.

You know I like you. Terry. You might even be my best friend on JPP. I wouldn't expect much more out of you than to maybe bark at the mailman but you are always welcome to come over and drink out of my toilet.
 
Cypress said:
Some competing definitions.
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A proper definition of religion must contain the following elements:

1. unfalsifiability
2. must not require a deity, although one is certainly optional
3. set of assumptions (dogma) to guide socio-political / life decisions that involves some element of supernatural/metaphysical/mystical
4. no rational basis for the belief(s). The correct word is "irrational" however too many people misunderstand "irrational" to mean "emotional" and "not thinking straight." In this case, "irrational" means "without a rational basis", i.e. without science, math, direct observation, logical theorem, economic model, etc.

Ergo: A followed unfalsifiable and irrational theistic dogma guiding one's socio-political and life decisions.

The extent to which a religion involves the supernatural/metaphysical/mystical is the religion's theism. This can include deities and other planes. For example, the Lakota Sioux hold, as part of their religion, that one should respect others. This is not theism; however, their belief in the spirit of the river is. I am an atheist. If I were to adopt the Lakota tenet of respecting others, I would still be an atheist; however, if I were to adopt the Lakota belief in the spirit of the river, I would cease to be an atheist.

So we come to the Marxist religions. Those that believe in spiritual entities/forces such as the global Climate, Global Warming, greenhouse effect, etc., are theists to that extent. Those who deny human nature to believe in the (not real) Marxist nature of humanity (or irrational denial of human nature), are not only religious but are also theists to that extent.

There you go. This is my operating definition.
 
IBDaMann said:
A proper definition of religion must contain the following elements:

1. unfalsifiability
2. must not require a deity, although one is certainly optional
3. set of assumptions (dogma) to guide socio-political / life decisions that involves some element of supernatural/metaphysical/mystical
4. no rational basis for the belief(s). The correct word is "irrational" however too many people misunderstand "irrational" to mean "emotional" and "not thinking straight." In this case, "irrational" means "without a rational basis", i.e. without science, math, direct observation, logical theorem, economic model, etc.

Ergo: A followed unfalsifiable and irrational theistic dogma guiding one's socio-political and life decisions.

The extent to which a religion involves the supernatural/metaphysical/mystical is the religion's theism. This can include deities and other planes. For example, the Lakota Sioux hold, as part of their religion, that one should respect others. This is not theism; however, their belief in the spirit of the river is. I am an atheist. If I were to adopt the Lakota tenet of respecting others, I would still be an atheist; however, if I were to adopt the Lakota belief in the spirit of the river, I would cease to be an atheist.

So we come to the Marxist religions. Those that believe in spiritual entities/forces such as the global Climate, Global Warming, greenhouse effect, etc., are theists to that extent. Those who deny human nature to believe in the (not real) Marxist nature of humanity (or irrational denial of human nature), are not only religious but are also theists to that extent.

There you go. This is my operating definition.
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Cut'n'paste from your manifesto, Sybil?
 
IBDaMann said:
A followed unfalsifiable and irrational theistic dogma guiding one's socio-political and life decisions.
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That doesn't really work because some aspects of world religions inward looking, and seek to transcend the mundane experience of politics and civil society.

The Christian monastic tradition and Daoism are inward looking, seek communion with God, the sacred, or the spirit the Dao apart from conventional civil structure.

At it's highest stage of development the Hindu or Buddhist mystic is going to seek separation from the conventional concerns of politics, civil society, and anything that qualifies as impermanence.
 
Cypress said:
That doesn't really work because some aspects of world religions inward looking,
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Notice the conjunction "and" with the words "life decisions." I am referring to the union of those two sets. Most, if not all, religious people use an introspective to guide their life decisions. Whether it leads to the decision to not eat beef or to the decision to pursue a different plane (taking the decision into theism), it's still guiding the (personal) life decisions.

My definition includes the specification that one's religion affects one's social and political behavior/views. If one's religion leads to socio-political behavior of withdrawing from the community to commune with God or to seek solitude on a mountain, then great.
 
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