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| Thread: What is a religion and what is not. |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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del_diablo
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posted May 19, 2009 06:00 PM |
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Quote:
Religion is, IMO, quite easy to define - it is a systematic and organised belief in something beyond the material world.
Some people call Atheist and Agnostics to be religious, which has nothing to do with the latter?
I can agree about calling Darwinisme a religion(maybe i used the wrong name), since it do qualify in its ways.
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Totoro
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posted May 19, 2009 07:03 PM |
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Difference between karma and justice is that karma is related to afterlife ----> I am right.
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mvassilev
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posted May 19, 2009 10:36 PM |
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JollyJoker
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posted May 19, 2009 11:11 PM |
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Nope, sorry. No.
Retribution. Penalty. That's meted out. Justice is something else.
Question: a child is born somewhere in Africa. The first 2 years of it's life it starves. In the third it dies from some sickness. Another child is born somewhere in Arabia. Father has a couple billions. Son ist first born, never gets sick in his 90-year life, has 1000 women and 5000 children.
Justice?
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mvassilev
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posted May 19, 2009 11:13 PM |
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baklava
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posted May 19, 2009 11:27 PM |
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You guys need to agree - no, just acknowledge - already stable definitions.
"Not from the material world", in logic and philosophy, by definition encompasses God, karma and similar, as well as justice and other ideals.
There's no need to make a separate discussion out of a simple misunderstanding of basic terms.
You may claim that justice involves humans and God or karma don't; but that is a wrong approach since God and karma, by definition, involves humans. And you can't prove the existence of justice any more than you can prove the existence of God (though Descartes actually proved the existence of God  ), so the agreement is that they are all certainly immaterial.
But without misunderstanding what people are trying to say, there'd be no OSM, would there?
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DagothGares
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posted May 19, 2009 11:30 PM |
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I thought Descartes didn't even know he was alive and to advance he just said at one point: "**** it, I think therefor I am!"
I thought Thomas Aquinas proved God's existence
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mvassilev
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posted May 19, 2009 11:39 PM |
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Okay, then, allow me to clarify. Religion is a systematic and organised belief in forces/entities beyond the material world.
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baklava
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posted May 19, 2009 11:42 PM |
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Edited by baklava at 23:42, 19 May 2009.
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Quote:
I thought Descartes didn't even know he was alive and to advance he just said at one point: "**** it, I think therefor I am!"
He spend years until he reached that sentence through logical conclusions.
"I think, therefore I am" is a calculated fact, not a random sentence he thought sounded great 
And by other logical conclusions, he found out that God exists.
@MVass
That's better 
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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DagothGares
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posted May 19, 2009 11:44 PM |
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There is a lot of reason behind it, but I know he didn't mean to say that he existed and his reality was reality just because he thought. When you take that into account, it's easy to make fun of it
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TheDeath
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posted May 20, 2009 01:47 AM |
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Quote:
Okay, then, allow me to clarify. Religion is a systematic and organised belief in forces/entities beyond the material world.
What's an "entity"? I know it includes God, but I ask, how far can you go? Is someone impersonated? Something with a will? Something that does stuff? Or just some role model? Or an idea? Or what?
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2009 01:50 AM |
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Someone who may do something. So, not necessarily a god - could be a spirit of some sort.
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TheDeath
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posted May 20, 2009 01:53 AM |
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That definition removes many religions and/or sects and/or cults from being called that way (and they are called that way).
And "do" is a vague concept. Would you say the machines in the Matrix "did" something inside the virtual world, even though you had no way of seeing it (like you can't see the outside world when you're sleeping)?
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2009 02:03 AM |
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Quote:
That definition removes many religions and/or sects and/or cults from being called that way (and they are called that way).
Like what?
Quote:
Would you say the machines in the Matrix "did" something inside the virtual world, even though you had no way of seeing it (like you can't see the outside world when you're sleeping)?
Yes.
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TheDeath
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posted May 20, 2009 02:06 AM |
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Like what?
Some parts of hinduism (mind you, some people only believe in parts of it, I'm not exactly familiar with it to give proper names or definitions how they use), also buddhism.
This is for the "big" religions. As for cults do you really want me to start with them?
Quote:
Yes.
Ah ok then I get where you draw your line in your definition 
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2009 02:45 AM |
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Quote:
Some parts of hinduism (mind you, some people only believe in parts of it, I'm not exactly familiar with it to give proper names or definitions how they use), also buddhism.
They'd still be classified as religions, just religions without spirits. My definition says "forces/entities". Plus, they do believe in the soul, so that can count as an entity.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 20, 2009 07:49 AM |
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Thanks, Bak. It seems people believe in what you say is the truth.
You may indeed make a case of Buddhism and Hinduism being no religion in some sense.
In any case, don't forget the plural. Monotheism isn't the crown of religion. Having one god doesn't seem to be "better" than having two, for example. That was something I've never really understood anyway. Two gods might make a lot more sense - two would seem rather more "natural" as creators, especially if and when humans are featured in a starring role.
The monotheistic role model needed to make women from part of man and she was given to him - it's a religion that either completely ignores the way natural creation works or disqualifies it as some kind of penalty for disobeying.
Creational myths involving two creative forces do seem to look a bit more natural, don't you think?
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Warmonger
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posted May 20, 2009 08:45 AM |
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Religion is an external set of rules, beliefs and ideas which you accept without logical explanation and which are your guide through life.
By this definition religion is positive phenomenon - all the people need some kind of scheme they could follow, however they deeds may be good or evil. Usually religion is oriented on positive purpose and intend some sort of harmony which leads to greater good. To be more specific, christainity aims at values like peace, love, family and work which klead to salvation. It's not opressive, but as every ideal can be corrupted by those who don't understand it and abused by ones for their own advantage.
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Mytical
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posted May 20, 2009 09:02 AM |
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Excellently said Warmonger. A lot of people blame 'religion' for a lot of things, when the religion itself is not to blame. Somebody (or a lot of somebody's) takes the idea, twists it to their own end, and then uses charisma to convince people that this is what the religion stands for.
I have always said religion is good, but organized religion can be used for nafarious purposes. When you start killing, harming, or such in the name of a 'god' then something is wrong.
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dimis
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posted May 20, 2009 09:22 AM |
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Religion is organized. For all the other things (expressions of religion) that you refer without some "organization" there are better words that reflect them; e.g. morality.
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