What is Religion?

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by Shy0ne, Dec 10, 2022.

  1. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    So only values that pertain to the sacred, spiritual, transcendent, metaphysical, and or supernatural would qualify as religious. And as you have already stripped the words sacred, spiritual, transcendent, metaphysical, and supernatural of any reference to any sort of deity, it seems to me that the examples iI cited would qualify as religious activities.

    Okay, you have no idea what goes on in these meetings that would make them religious.

    Your first link claims people gather to express their belief in non-belief. And it's "tongue in cheek"
    An. article that gives us no informational all as to why they are religious.
    Second link is a repeat of the first.
    Third link is even less information about the same event you linked to in the first two links.
    The fourth link quotes a professor who says that some atheists miss the community that churches offer. So?
    Some atheists think they should be more visible. So?
    One atheist feels society thinks he is unpatriotic (as I presume if you don't belong to a religion you don't support the U.S. government). So he's going to start a church. Of course we have no idea what this church will be or why he would call it a church.
    So this link gives us no information on what an atheist church is.
    And finally the fifth link....well turns out it's a repeat of the first, second, and third links. Let's see, two comedians hold meetings where people play guitars, clap, give inspirational speeches, play with Legos, and even go to restaurants and eat food. And all that makes them a religion even though you can't point out one thing that separates these meetings from, oh, say a rock concert, business conference, team building exercise, etc. except that everyone attending is an atheist. That is someone who doesn't believe in a religion...and that makes these meetings a religion!!!!
    Can't make this stuff up.
     
  2. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    Interesting. People taking their time to participate in these services just as a spoof. Whaddabout the American Humanist Association, the Council for Secular Humanism, the IHEU, etc. ? They've been going on for decades and people keep attending the services. Of course, to some extent they function as a support group in a society permeated with theistic religion. But they seem also to express a spiritual need for meaning or ultimate concerns that go beyond self. BTW I'm not stripping the words of theistic meaning. I'm telling you how others who have studied the subject use them.
    I see no purpose in continuing our discussion here, since I gather after 541 posts that your mind is pretty well made up on this subject.
     
  3. Shy0ne

    Shy0ne Members

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    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Atheists like any other religion still need to at a minimum get ordained to to perform religious ceremonies and rituals.


    :p
     
  4. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    The American Humanist Association, the Council for Secular Humanism, the IHEU, etc. certainly provide an avenue for community association and promotion of their ideals. If you want to call that spiritual, that's up to you.

    I didn't mean to imply that you personally are somehow changing the English language, I am saying that you seem to agree with those who redefine certain words, such as spiritual, to suit their purposes.

    Mind mind is made up unless and until I encounter a valid reason to change it.
     
  5. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    The Universal Life Church is a self proclaimed religious organization that
    You don't have to be a minister to perform a marriage ceremony, non ministers or religious people can perform a marriage, Marriages are performed differently in different states... Judges, governors, justices of the peace, mayors, magistrates, clerks of the peace, the two parties themselves, etc., etc. may all solemnize a marriage depending on jurisdiction.

    However if you want to perform a marriage recognized by a certain religion, then you must be ordained by that religion, which would mean that you are not an atheist as an ordination confers the ministerial or priestly authority of that religion.

    The Universal Life Church battled the government for years over this and the government finally gave in. They are mostly recognized as a marriage certificate mill as they have apparently granted the power of marriage to peoples' pets.
     
  6. Tishomingo

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  7. Shy0ne

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    the historical record however demonstrates a preponderance of evidence pointing to religion initially being secular and evolving into deities later on.

    So what I dont understand is how you maintain it must be the worship of a deity or its not religion?


    Prehistoric religion

    The Venus of Laussel, a stone relief of a seated woman
    Part of a series on History of religions
    [​IMG]


    Founding figures
    Study of religion
    The study of Neanderthal ritual, as proxy and preface for religion, revolves around death and burial rites. The first undisputed burials, approximately 150,000 years ago, were performed by Neanderthals. The limits of the archaeological record stymie extrapolation from burial to funeral rites, though evidence of grave goods and unusual markings on bones suggest funerary practices. In addition to funerals, a growing evidence base suggests Neanderthals made use of bodily ornamentation through pigments, feathers, and even claws.[21] As such ornamentation is not preserved in the archaeological record, it is understood only by comparison to modern hunter-gatherers, where it often corresponds to rituals of spiritual significance.[22] Unlike H. s. sapiens over equivalent periods, Neanderthal society as preserved in the archaeological record is one of remarkable stability, with little change in tool design over hundreds of thousands of years;[21]

    Religion exists in all human cultures,[5] but the study of prehistoric religion was only popularised around the end of the nineteenth century.

    Prehistoric religion - Wikipedia


    It would seem there is no justification for you to hold fast to religion = deity worship since before it was deity worship it was totally mundane and secular.
     
  8. Shy0ne

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    That is an error, it should have read 'materially' sacred, ie without a deity.
     
  9. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    "Prehistoric religion" is a term used to discuss pre-historic archeological finds and how we, today, interpret what they mean or were used for. As they are pre-historic, there are no records of their use.
    Extrapolated means we guess at what was going on based on what we know today.

    Your Wiki article points to stone circles, burials, cave art, etc. all of which many "think" or suppose, or guess, may have had something to do with religion...but no one really knows, it's all speculation.
    Burying someone with figures, feathers, and claws doesn't mean there was a religion involved.

    Regardless, if there were secular, that is non deity rites preformed before religion was born, then they were non religious.
    How does that make them religious?
    Non religious rites came first, then religion was born. Religion can't be secular and then become non secular, if so there is no meaning to the word secular.
     
  10. Shy0ne

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    Ok then, since secular came first, you should be arguing that religion has little to nothing to do with a deity, I agree.
    Of course, you dont create a definition without first having something to define!
    no it just means it not as narrow as you prefer, in fact it can be both which is why these rites are defined as sacred, a subset to religion.
     
  11. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I don't follow your logic. How are you defining secular? Miriam Webster defines it as of or relating to the worldly, not overtly or specifically religious, not ecclesiastical or clerical.
    Cambridge defines it as: not having any connection with religion.
    Dictionary.com: of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred). And so on.

    You are arguing that the word secular and the word religion are the same word, or have the same meaning as if they were synonyms. But when I look up the synonyms for secular I get: civil, materialistic, worldly, lay, material, profane, temporal, earthly, laic, laical, nonclerical, nonreligious, of this world, and unsacred.
    When I look for antonyms, that is words with the opposite meaning of secular I get: mental, godly, holy, religious, and spiritual.
    Exactly. And when there are only rites without a deity you don't need the words secular or religious. Once relgion formed then you need two different words to distinguish the two different types of rites.
    Look up the definition of synonyms and antonyms.
     
  12. Tishomingo

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    It's not just up to me, but also to the sources on spirituality I cited.

    If redefining certain words, such as spiritual, to suit their purposes means scholars knowledgeable in a field adopting a definition that seems more useful than one based on lay usage, I plead guilty.

    I don't think that would be possible![/quote][/QUOTE]
     
  13. Tishomingo

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    Scholars trying to figure out how religions began have a choice: either extrapolate on the bass of the available data or forget it. I, and most of them, are willing to take a chance and venture reasonable conclusions based on substantial evidence. These conclusions are based on: archaelogical evidence of prehistoric humans and anthropological evidence of present-day hunters and gatherers. ShyOne talks about Neanderthal burials, which were pre-homo sapiens. There is scholarly disagreement about whether or not they show evidence of religion, but they certainly seem to show evidence of reverence for the deceased--burial, placement in fetal position, red ochre. When it comes to the first homo sapiens, the evidence is more compelling: grave goods, suggesting a concept of the afterlife. Absen t time travel, we will never know for sure, but that's what it seems to mean in present-day hunter-gatherer societies.

    What else do you think it might mean? Maybe a vulture landed on the body, and the people just threw the dirt in on top of it? Early homo sapiens of the Paleolithic buried their dead with bone and ivory beads other prestige grave goods which were sometimes elaborate, indicating that the buriers went to considerable trouble. At an Upper Paleolithic site at Sungir, people were buried with 10,000 ivory beads, ivory spears, and ivory bracelets, involving an estimated labor of 9,000 man hours. Quite a lot of trouble for some dead people. The skeleton of the Brno shaman in the Czech republic was accompanied by 600 fossil dentalia shells that must have taken generations to collect. (Oliva,2000, "The Brno II Upper Paleolithic Burial", Roebroecks, et al, Hunters of the Golden Age, p. 150. No evidence of gods, but most archaeologists are willing to take it as evidence of belief in a soul and afterlife.

    You might say that, but then again you're not really up on it, are you? Archaeologists and anthropologists say otherwise. You could say that during 99% of human existence before gods were invented, everybody was an atheist like you and Richard Dawkins. Or you could find in the cave art seeming to depict shamanic activity, painted by torchlight in remote parts of the cave mere aesthetic expression. Or in the "venus' figurines of the Upper paleolitihic the beginnings of cave man porn. Mebbe so. Most scholars see similarities between these early patterns and ones found in hunter-gatherer societies of today, and see a continuity between these primal patterns and the more elaborate ones later on. Anthropologists studying the so-called "pre-animist" beliefs in amophous impersonal forces like the Melanesian/Poynesian mana, Iriquois orenda, Lakota wakan, etc. consider them religious. Most scholars studying these phenomena, following R.R. Marett in the Threshold of Religion, regard these as religious--belief in unseen forces that influence human activity. They are not gods, but they are functional equivalents. Then came animism, a belief that everything--trees, rocks, plants, etc., is possessed by a spirit that should be respected. The line between spirits and gods seems to be a matter of scope of jurisdiction. Spirits are confined to the particular rock, plant, animal, etc., that is encountered. Gods are supernatural beings with jurisdiction over various categories of these. They made their debut in the Neolithic. Before there were gods proper, there was mana, or mysterious impersonal forces (Maret), magic ,or the use of rituals to control nature (Frazer), ancestor worship, based on a belief that the departed were still around as invisible presences (Pencer; Shiels); and fetishism, the veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernatural potency (Durkheim).

    Religion can never be secular. That would be a contradiction in terms. Durkheim distinguished between the sacred, which he associated with religion, and the secular, which described other aspects of primal life.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2023
  14. Tishomingo

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    All science involves a degree of extrapolation from the data. In the hard sciences, the standards for extrapolation are more rigorous: a statistical method of predicting the value or state of a variable based on its current state.
    https://builtin.com/data-science/extrapolation
    Trend Extrapolation - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
    Daniel Steel(2007) Across the Boundaries: Extrapolation in Biology and Social Science
    In science, extrapolations are made on the basis of a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, to the satisfaction of expert peer referees and the scientific community. In fields that aren't amenable to the rigorous standards of the physical sciences, it is common to use less demanding standard of preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not) and rational basis (enough to convince a reasonable expert, even though other reasonable experts may not be convinced. The latter two are standards of plausibility rather than scientific certainty, and are useful in theory building as pieces of the puzzle, pending further evidence. Informed expert opinion. It should be obvious that in studying the origin of religion, where the prehistoric subjects are illiterate, we must either opt for the lower standards or give up the enterprise entirely. Educated expert opinion based on the available evidence isn't just a "guess". Science may be described as a systematic field of study based on the available evidence and/or the knowledge that is obtained from such study." Religious studies are not an exact science, but they represent the most plausible explanations based on the available evidence.

    I find myself in a position in life where I feel that I need to take action on matters when scientific proof is not available. Voting, for example. I can't prove that Trump is unfit to serve again as President, but I think there is abundant evidence pointing in that direction, and I'm willing to extrapolate on the basis of his past performance to what he would do if elected again. I take the same approach to religion.
     
  15. Shy0ne

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    Is secular always related to religion?
    In contemporary English, secular is primarily used to distinguish something (such as an attitude, belief, or position) that is not specifically religious or sectarian in nature (for example, music with no religious connection or affiliation might be described as "secular"). However, certain meanings of secular do have some basis in religion, such as "not bound by monastic vows or rules," and "of, relating to, or forming clergy not belonging to a religious order or congregation."

    These dictionaries need to catch up to the times :)

    A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly entities.

    Secular religion - Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Secular_religion
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2023
  16. Shy0ne

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    Wow, circular reasoning!

    Anything material can become sacred depending on what it represents.

    The cow, a revered animal in Hinduism

    In the Hindu religion, the cow has acquired a sacred status. It used to be sacrificed like other animals and offered to the gods and its meat was eaten.

    The sacred cow - Alimentarium
    https://www.alimentarium.org › fact-sheet › sacred-cow



    Sacred cows? Thats as material and secular as it gets.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2023
  17. Shy0ne

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    I was going to give you a like until you brought this up. Enjoy brandons gift to you; ludicrous high inflation! LOL
     
  18. Shy0ne

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    and as shown to you earlier and in the OP he took it one step further.

    "Religion is best characterized as the non-empirical homologue of ideological beliefs, by contrast with science or philosophy the cognitive interest is no longer primary, but gives way to the evaluative interest."
     
  19. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I don't believe in an individual after life or a religion, yet I would have no problem with burying someone with certain objects, flowers, etc. to honor their time on the Earth, just as I may give them a gift while they were alive. That doesn't make it religious.
    So now I need a degree in anthropology, archeology, sociology, etc. to express an opinion?
    I never claimed to be an atheist. I have repeatedly asserted that. It depends on how you define theism and you and Shyone are very good at defining things to suit your purposes.

    So most scholars see similarities between prehistoric rituals and later religious rituals. That's what I said.
    Then some of them see a belief in "forces", that aren't gods by the way and therefore not theistic, and assume they are religious again claiming religion is deity less. Which then means all beliefs are religious, or at least any we wish to label as such.
    Etc.
    According to these experts religion has always existed, it is everywhere in the human scope of affairs, and it never arose, being always in existence.
    If that's how you wish to define religion, fine.
    That's what I said...but the "experts" seem to disagree as religion has always been a part of human society, there never was a secular society ever.
     
  20. Tishomingo

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    Maybe that's because you live in a society where burial and flowers have long been the custom. Burials per se aren't evidence of religion. Elaborate burials, with positioning of the body and grave goods are, although not conclusive.
    No, but I do think that if you don't have much background in an area you might show greater respect for people who do, like the ones writing books, refereed articles, and entries in encyclopedias. You haven't just been giving your opinion, but have been asserting it as the right one, although you'll tolerate others as misguided.
    Not our own purposes, but those of the anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists. etc., you seem to dismiss.

    If you insist on defining religion to include god as the indispensable criterion, that's certainly your prerogative. Most scholars do not. At least I haven't encountered any. Can you name one who does and give us the citation? (other than a dictionary of popular usage). As I've said, it's legitimate to define terms in a way that you find useful if you make your usage clear. But saying that humans had no religion until the Neolithic or very late Paleolithic when long before that they were employing shamans to use spells to heal people and bring the game or performing rituals in which they invoke the spirits of ancestors and are possessed by (as they are still doing in hunter-gatherer societies today) seems unwarranted. You might find another term than "atheist" to describe that. And since scholars (Durkheim, Bellah, Elliade, etc.) don't seem to be using the term that way, you might explain why you are.

    Come to think of it, there is one group that insists religion must include god, and that God was in it from the outset. That, of course, is the Evangelical Christians, following the theory Urmonotheismus (primeval monotheism) inroduced by the Scottish anthropologist Andrew Lang and carried forward by anthropologists (and priests) Fr. Wilhelm Schmdit and Kenyan Anglican theologian John Mbiti. They noticed that in many African and Native American societies, there was a concept of a transcendental Sky God, and argued that originally this was the universal religion from which people fell away. For a full evangelical exposition of this theory, see Norman Geisler, "Primitive Monotheism", Christian Apologetics Journal (Spring, 1998). Italian anthropoligist/historian Raffaele Pettazzoni devoted much of his professional life to refuting the theory, arguing that claim that the sky gods were merely a dim personification or of the physical sky. Anthropologist E.E. Pritchard reported that there was no universal pattern on this phenomenon. But I guess it's a possibility. Strange bedfellows for you.
    Only beliefs in forces of a spiritual or supernatural origin and a sacred character.
    Etc.
    According to these scholars, it was a phenomenon that grew out of human encounters with the environment, so theoretically there was a time when some humans hadn't developed it yet. But we don't know when that was..
    There you go again. It's not just me. It's me and most scholars.
    Well there have certainly been lots of them since the eighteenth century.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2023

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