What is "religion"?

[alexander]

Originally Posted by C1ay

I think I did exactly that. I claimed religion is a broad term and quoted a list of authoritative sources that support my claim. Religion is not a term that can be narrowly constrained down to a list of 3 or 4 items that determine something is a religion or not. It seems to be a term with a growing level of ambiguity in literary usage. This is compounded by the ambiguity of the term "God" which has given rise to Ignosticism. Who knows what they will mean 100 years from now.

You are missing my very point then. I very much agree that religion is a broad term, in no way did i ever say that religion is contained within the rules, all i said is that to me everything that is considered a religion follow each one of these three rules, and ideologies that are not considered to be religions fail to follow all 3 rules. Like i said, religion is a very broad term and there are many religions that differ widely, but they all, to me, seem to have these 3 things in common. But what i am saying is that not every belief system is a religion, atheism is not a religion, sometimes it looks or seems like a religion, but it's not, yet following the definitions you have posted, some may consider it to be a religion because it complies with one of the definitions.... you see what i mean?

Originally Posted by Q

In the example of your friend, the very fact that he lives according to the teachings of the Buddha, presumeably with the reverence that many people have for him and practicing certain rites, makes it his religion.

But that's it, like i said, depending on how you define "religion". If your definition considers atheism to be a religion, then my friend is religious, even though he does not follow the spirituality of buddhism and believes Nirvana to be something quite different from what we are accustomed to thinking it is, and yet he lives by the rules and philosophy of buddhism. If we accept that what we call religion should have the 3 rules (or more or less) that i defined above, then he is not religious, as he does not follow a precise theology and does not follow the "salvation" reasoning, then again if we define religion as simply following a set of rules and teachings, then driving becomes the practice of roadism...

Does he say so because Buddhism doesn't comply with those three points?

he says so because how he interprets buddhism does not comply with these points. If you were one who believed that christ was a great man, and follow all his teachings, but did not accept that he was god, and that there is any such god, but salvation lies through bettering oneself through christ's teachings.... are you, a, a christian and b, is what you believe in a religion or a philosophy...?

my point is still, I dont know, but i would like to arrive at something logically that makes sense, such that when discussing movements in the future, we can use this thread to simply say "ok well according to what we think, outlined in the "what is religion" thread, this philosophy is (or is not) a religion" and stop calling everything left and right a religion.....

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by alexander

You are missing my very point then. I very much agree that religion is a broad term, in no way did i ever say that religion is contained within the rules, all i said is that to me everything that is considered a religion follow each one of these three rules, and ideologies that are not considered to be religions fail to follow all 3 rules.

And that's my point. You have your own constraints on what is and what is not religion and that's exactly the same problem that exists with God discussions, everyone wants to use their own definition.

Originally Posted by alexander

Basically I said that all religions follow the 3 basic rules of religions:

1) they all offer salvation
2) they all follow precise theology
3) they recruit people into their ranks, as i have said either passively or actively

From 2 you imply that theism is a requirement for religion? That there are no non-theist religions. Even the Supreme Court of the U.S. has held in at leat one case, TORCASO v. WATKINS, 367 U.S. 488 (1961):

Originally Posted by U.S. Supreme Court

Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others. See Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U.S. App. D.C. 371, 249 F.2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal. App. 2d 673, 315 P.2d 394; II Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopaedia Britannica (1957 ed.) 325-327; 21 id., at 797; Archer, Faiths Men Live By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac 695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47.

Would you claim they erred in this case or might it simply be that their definition is different than yours? If it is simply different then how can there be a meaningful discussion on what religion means without a coherent definition that is accepted by all debating the issue?

[UncleAl]

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/reality.png

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by alexander

In this thread i would like to discuss what religion actually is. There seems to be a lot of confusion between people of what religion is, how religions differ from other belief systems. I would like to point out that just because something ends with "ism" or someone considers a belief system to be a religion, does not mean that it actually is a religion.
[,,,]

I find it interesting to define religion in the anthropological sense. To answer the question, what is religion(?) one must arguably turn to the origins, the source of religion itself: to the Upper Paleolithic, roughly between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.


The anthropological explanation (not to be confused with anthropomorphic) involves

(1) various psychological and social approaches; (2) alternative states of consciousness approaches that focus on hallucinatory experiences involving voices and visions deriving either from "abnormal" mental states or episodes, or from the ingestion of mind-altering substances; and (3) ritual theories, which hold that religion began with ritual activities or behavioral practices rather than belief.

Source: Anthropology and religion: what we know, think, and question*By Robert L. Winzeler

Though religion has certainly evolved, along with modern homosapians, the general thrust of religion has probably not changed that much over time: in that activities and practices remain attached to ritualistic behavior. That seems to be one thing that all religions (including Buddhism) have in common.


CC

[alexander]

Originally Posted by clay

You have your own constraints

i did not constrain, i simply said what seemed to be core properties....

considered a belief in the existence

Oh noow i see where you are coming from, you are caught on the word "theology"... (should have just said so)

I used the term in a very broad sense (like religion), because i could not come up with a better way of describing a belief in a higher power, or a different realm of one's or world's spiritual being.

ok let me rephrase #2
1) they all offer salvation
2) they all follow precise system of beliefs in an elevated spiritual being/place/power
3) they recruit people into their ranks, as i have said either passively or actively

Unc, great to see you here (i now then, i wouldnt quite put science as a completely separate thing all together, it seems that there is logic in science, and there is logic in faith)

CC, i am still pondering your approach, also nice to see you here

[C1ay]

Neither Ethical Culturists or Secular Humanists have a belief in a higher being/place/power yet both are considered religions by SCOTUS and some of their own followers.

[alexander]

yes, and ofcourse we know that the supreme court of the united states is never wrong, is the only court in the world that matters in the english language and defines everyone's ideology, right...

Please, wiki, secular-humanism.com, and your very own favorite sources (dictionaries) all do not refer to secular humanism as a religion.

US supreme court rules on what the court system is to consider a religious belief, not what it actually is. Those terms are constantly redefined, take a look at the history of what a computer intrusion definition has gone through, or what one's identity undermined in the law books of the past and you will quickly realize that definitions change with time and circomstances... US supreme court rules on case, case presented by one party or the other, not on whether or not something makes sense lexically and ideologically...

As to ethical culturist movement, direct quote from the ideology creator:

Felix Adler: “Ethical Culture is religious to those who are religiously minded"

Thus it is only religion if you approach it with a religious attitude, it is an ideology that can coincide with religion without interfering, like my friend who is a nonreligious buddhist, thus by itself it is not a religion, but it can be, to one who is religious...

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by alexander

all do not refer to secular humanism as a religion.

I'm not saying that all do, only that some do. I myself am a secular humanist and I do not consider it a religion. There are those that do though and for them they are of a religion that does not fit you second criteria. Even religious Ethical Culturists do not belong to a religion that believes in a higher being/place/power.

[Zythryn]

I don't think the SCOTUS is a definative resource for definitions outside of a purely legal standpoint.
If it were, companies would be considered individuals, as the SCOTUS has ruled that companies should be considered individuals in terms of the rights they have (the right to Lobby in particular).
I see both points of view, everyone does typically have their own definition of religion.
We could simply throw in the towel and use a dictionary:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

However, even there we get multiple definitions which can mean different things.
I think the word means a huge variety of things depending upon the context. Without a more focused question, I don't think a logical/rational conclusion can be reached.

[alexander]

Ethical Culturists do not belong to a religion that believes in a higher being/place/power.

The point that i was making is that Ethical Culturist ideology does not interfere with religious belief, one can believe in a higher being and still be an ethical culturist, thus those who approach ethical culturism with belief in a higher power would be a part of ethical culture religiously, making that kind of belief a religious one, the rest of people would bee ethical culturists ideologically, and be ethical culturists but not in a religious sense... you see what i am trying to say, or is it still too convoluted? Sometimes it's not just the ideology of a philosophy that defines a belief to be religious or not, but also how one approaches the ideology that may make the same ideology religion when talking about one person's view, and a philosophy, when in context of another person's view... I can probably come up with some sort of the metaphor if you still need it...

And lost of people may consider things to be something it is not, it does not make it that though. An example here would be pumpkins, squash or cucumber, while most people tend to consider them to be vegetables, and they are on the vegetable shelves in the supermarkets, it does not mean that they are or that we should change the meaning of how we define vegetables just to change their designation from fruits, specifically epigynous berries, to vegetables...