What is "religion"?

[C1ay]

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...

[alexander]

Z, which one of the dictionaries, i can use 3-4 and come up with different meanings, like Clay has shown above :)

[Qfwfq]

I fear we've been pretty much missiong each other's points Alex. Your current:

2) they all follow precise system of beliefs in an elevated spiritual being/place/power

is a bit more like it, although I wouldn't say it's necessarily an elevated X, I would just put it as being belief about something metaphysical or spiritual. This still leaves the first and third points to bash each others heads about.:phones:

 

If your definition considers atheism to be a religion

No, mine doesn't really and I wasn't trying to prove that your friend is religious, indeed I had suggested the possibility that:

he does not follow the spirituality of buddhism and (....) and yet he lives by the rules and philosophy of buddhism.

for which I had mentioned the distinction between religious and philosophical Buddhism, a distinction which is recognized for other religions too. So, we can definitely say that your friend practices philosophical Buddhism but isn't religious. Which brings me to:

he says so because how he interprets buddhism does not comply with these points.

That, of course, is not the same as "what Buddhism is". Someone else could say it's just laziness, using the excuse of meditation, doesn't mean that's what Buddhism is.

 

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, definitely describes it as a religion. I remember some years ago he had been asked what he thought --as a religious leader-- of tolerance and about religions other than his own; his reply was that many religions are more beautiful than one religion, just as a bouquet is more beautiful than one flower. I would scarcely say these people proselytize. They are certainly pleased to teach it to folks who want to know about it; so are we pleased to teach folks about science, you wouldn't say that we proselytize, would you? I had also mentioned that some religions definitely do not proselytize and don't encourage conversion at all.

 

I don't see salvation being offered by all religions either, for instance those that believe in reincarnation don't necessarily offer it and I don't see how most Animist religions do.

[alexander]

Revision 3 :)

 

1) they all offer salvation

2) they all follow precise system of beliefs in a spiritual being/place/power

3) they recruit people into their ranks, as i have said either passively or actively

 

That, of course, is not the same as "what Buddhism is"

I agree, buddhism != (or ~= or <> or not, depending on the language being used) buddhist philosophy, but buddhist philosophy [math]\in[/math] buddhism

 

does that work better, distinguishing between a religion and a philosophy?

 

Thus it would be more correct to say that my friend follows the buddhist philosophy, but does not follow buddhism... can we call him a buddhis or do we need a term denoting philosophical movement following vs religious movement follwing?

[sman]

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.

 

 

Good thinking.

Pre-pottery Neolithic Jerico & outlying culture (~1000 years into Holocene) PPNA had a peculiar habit of burying their dead relatives in the floorboards of their huts - and later digging them up, procuring the skulls, and putting them back. This is the kind of thing archaeologists label as “religious”. Catal Huyuk, in Turkey, probably better example of ritual et cetera, but I believe it was later on.

 

Let’s remember that archaeology paints a very incomplete picture. We can be sure this type of behavior is older than these sites, but at least we know its as old as permanent sedentism in humans.

 

The art and other artifacts of the Upper Paleolithic are more cotroversially linked to religion, as is the 40 thou year mark for this. There are cave paintings in Africa that date to 80.

 

The aboriginal people of Australia have been dwelling there for 50,000 years (the death-date of a fly - with a rock painting underneath it). There is no gross difference in the brains or behavior between these populations and those of the !San of Africa. They speak the same language - differing only in some phonologic & syntactic traditions. How do their religions compare for similarity?

 

Halfway in between, in highland New Guinea, is a nest of 1000s of isolated languages and cultures and religions. How do these compare? Are there any common denominators?

 

Here is a link listing the languages of Highland New Guinea (the known ones). For every one there is a culture.

 

Ethnologue report for Papua New Guinea

[coldcreation]

Pre-pottery Neolithic Jerico & outlying culture (~1000 years into Holocene) PPNA had a peculiar habit of burying their dead relatives in the floorboards of their huts - and later digging them up, procuring the skulls, and putting them back. This is the kind of thing archaeologists label as “religious”. Catal Huyuk, in Turkey, probably better example of ritual et cetera, but I believe it was later on.

 

Okay, now we're getting to the root of the issue.

 

There are similar types of archeological finds as the one you mention, and others too. I will post this link, the same as above, for those who missed it. Fascinating stuff:

 

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

 

I have a book in Paris that I read about 10 years ago, along a similar line. I think the author is a behavioral anthropologist. I should be getting my hands on this book shortly. From what I remember, according to the author, much of the ritualistic behavior involved in religious practices resembles that of people afflicted with mental illness (the author of the link above seems to corroborate this through archeological evidence). So the origin or certain practices may have originated by monks, or shamans, who themselves were, how should I say, 'way out there.' More on that soon...I need to read up on it again, so as not to say something offensive to those who follow these types of practices.

 

 

Let’s remember that archaeology paints a very incomplete picture. We can be sure this type of behavior is older than these sites, but at least we know its as old as permanent sedentism in humans.

 

Good point. We can only interpret the available archeological evidence, and keep looking for more.

 

Let's take it further back still. Not so much from the archeological/paleontological/geological perspective, but from a behavioral one.

 

In this Wiki article Evolutionary origin of religions, for example, it is written:

 

Humanity’s closest living relatives are common chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a common ancestor with humans who lived between four and six million years ago. It is for this reason that chimpanzees and bonobos are viewed as the best available surrogate for this common ancestor. Barbara King argues that while non-human primates are not religious' date=' they do exhibit some traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of religion. These traits include high intelligence, a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self" and a concept of continuity...

 

Dr. Frans de Waal and Barbara King both view human morality as having grown out of primate sociality. Though morality may be a unique human trait, many social animals, such as primates, dolphins and whales, have been known to exhibit pre-moral sentiments. According to Michael Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:

[i']"attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group"[/i].

 

And further down:

 

The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species.[20] Ritual burial thus represents a significant advancement in human behavior. Ritual burial represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."

 

The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in Spain...

 

The latter would date back 600,000 to 400,000 years ago.

 

Of course that does not answer the OP, what is religion? But it leads to insight about the origins of it; perhaps deeply ingrained in the human psyche, past on through evolutionary processes from our distant ancestors. The point of interest would be to see what still remains today, from its inception, whenever that was.

 

[edit] No matter what religion is, I think it is still very primitive, animal, primal. Despite advances in science, it remains attached to it's roots, to the psyche. If one thing has changed over time, it is the massive amounts of money involved.

 

 

 

CC

[coldcreation]

This I just happened upon. Kind of interesting too:

 

MU anthropologist develops new approach to explain religious behavior, Physics.org/news, Sept. 2008

 

"Instead of studying religion by trying to measure unidentifiable beliefs in the supernatural, we looked at identifiable and observable behavior - the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims," said Craig T. Palmer, associate professor of anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science.

 

"We noticed that communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent."

 

And further down:

 

"Almost every religion in the world, including all tribal religions, use family kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister and child for fellow members," Steadman said. "They do this to encourage the kind of behavior found normally in families - where the most intense social relationships occur.

 

Once people realize that observing the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims is how we actually identify religious behavior and religion, we can then propose explanations and hypotheses to account for why people have engaged in religious behavior in all known cultures."

 

This still does not define religion though.

 

 

 

CC

[HydrogenBond]

Words attempt to label and differentiate things, actions and meanings. The dictionary is full of words and their meanings. The word God is very unique, because it is not readily subject to any exact differentiation of meaning, which is agreed upon by all humans, because the word is implicit of infinite possibilities. Even the atheists, by claiming god is a figment of the imagination, has added additional definitions. In language, god represents the outer limit of all words, in terms of all its possible human meanings if we consider the word through human history.

 

When language was forming, one could point and say tree, run, water, etc. We may argue the sound of the word, but end of story. But once they said God, a debate breaks out as the human mind tries to add detail to evolve or change previous definitions. The human mind constantly tries to put the squeeze on the word, God, so it becomes like the other words, very differentiated. But it is never stays static. Religion carries on the tradition of the word. In the beginning there was the word and the word was God. God is the only "the word", alive.

[freeztar]

IMHO, religion is a belief system that incorporates worship.

[coldcreation]

IMHO, religion is a belief system that incorporates worship.

 

Nice definition freezy.

 

Let's look again at religion from the anthropological/archeological/paleontological/geological perspective.

 

Certainly, some form of religion dates back as far as human civilization; when exactly the first religion began nobody knows. Prior to that the archeological record is sketchy at best.

 

For all we know it may have been germinating in the mind of Ardipithecus ramidus, aka Ardi, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago.

 

 

Reasonably, we can go back to the Egyptians, Judaism, the Mesopotamians, and even earlier to the Chinese, to some degree of accuracy.

 

Animism, though much more primitive, bares characteristics of more modern religions: Objects in the environment (including humans) are thought to be inhabited by Spirits. This would appear consistent with aboriginal beliefs mentioned above by sman, dating back circa 60,000 years.

 

 

Sheila Coulson (Associate Professor, Oslo University) claims to have evidence that humans began performing rituals 70,000 years ago in Botswana, Africa. This would be the oldest known ritual site ever discovered.

 

But worship of an object is not exactly the same as worshiping god.

 

The word religion is derived from "religare," meaning to have union with, or to bind. Homosapiens have been seeking union throughout history.

 

See too Urreligion.

 

So the search for union with some form of supernatural 'entity, or the spiritual, appears to be something all religions have in common.

 

The oldest information written down of religious nature (in Sanskrit) would be Hinduism (c. 5,000 years ago).

 

Tracing back in time to the roots of "religion" undoubtedly leads to a better understanding of not just its origin, and how it has evolved over time, but of the meaning or raison d'être of religion itself. Thus religion can be better defined.

 

Finally, on a personal note, it is this primitive signature of religion (which lingers still today) that I dislike, that leads me to believe religion is outdated, obsolete, archaic, something that should be vacated from contemporary society, misinformation, misinterpretation of natural processes, should be definitively exposed and debunked, replaced by a more pragmatic world-view, one not at variance with empirical evidence, one free of the supernatural, free of the monetary momentum engendered by religious groups - from sects to the Vatican. Then, and only then, will humans be at harmony with nature (however unattainable), free of deception, misconception, misbelief.

 

So, in answer to Alexander's OP, if I could define religion with one word, it would be delusion. :rolleyes:

 

 

 

CC, aka Resident Bright

[Qfwfq]

Thus it would be more correct to say that my friend follows the buddhist philosophy, but does not follow buddhism... can we call him a buddhis or do we need a term denoting philosophical movement following vs religious movement follwing?

You could definitely say that he embraces philosophical Buddhism but not religious Buddhism.

 

There are religions which definitely don't proselytize, with Judaism being one of them:

 

Judaism 101: Jewish Attitudes Toward Non-Jews

 

However, unlike Zoroastrianism, it does accept converts who are judged sincere and suitable after rigorous examination by a Bet Din (religious court):

 

Conversion to Judaism Resource Center

Conversion to Judaism Resource Center

Conversion to Judaism Resource Center

 

IMHO, religion is a belief system that incorporates worship.

Yes, as I said in the other thread, the Latin word religiòne meant reverent care or consideration of something. Even today we sometimes talk of folks "taking religious care of" something (their books, their stamp collection &c.).

 

The word religion is derived from "religare," meaning to have union with, or to bind.

This conjectured etymus of religiòne is the reason why monastics are said to be "living in religion" but it is disputed, the interpretation re-lìgere prevails over that of re-ligàre.

 

So the search for union with some form of supernatural 'entity, or the spiritual, appears to be something all religions have in common.

Indeed, I would call it the essence of what is meant today by religion. :)

 

Finally, on a personal note, it is this primitive signature of religion (which lingers still today) that I dislike, that leads me to believe religion is outdated, obsolete, archaic, something that should be vacated from contemporary society, misinformation, misinterpretation of natural processes, should be definitively exposed and debunked, replaced by a more pragmatic world-view, one not at variance with empirical evidence, one free of the supernatural, free of the monetary momentum engendered by religious groups - from sects to the Vatican. Then, and only then, will humans be at harmony with nature (however unattainable), free of deception, misconception, misbelief.

You say all this after having shown how radicated it is in human nature. Personally, I don't even see the point of extirpating religion, the important thing is to avoid bigotry and various forms of abuse which use religion as an excuse.

[sman]

This conjectured etymus of religiòne is the reason why monastics are said to be "living in religion" but it is disputed, the interpretation re-lìgere prevails over that of re-ligàre.

 

 

Etymologies are unhelpful. I am of the opinion that the word comes to us, through Norman French, from the Latin verb ligare(prefixed) meaning to tie like ligament. But the history of word meanings are often resolved by great leaps of parsimony. If it turns out that we borrowed it from Norwegian rigga, to bind, or even rijl, a West-Semitic noun foot, no one would change their minds about how the word is being used now.

 

We could define religion as a synonym for delusion, so that my feeling that I am smarter and more capable than most people is a religion. Or we could narrow it to a closed category “Christianity”. That’s fine. Many christians, after all, think of it this way. But now we are left needing a term for this thing we are trying to discuss; this phenomenon that surrounds us; that consumes human lives; that cuts our world with economic and political boundaries. I don’t care what we call it, so long as we keep our eye on the ball.

[modest]

Revision 3 :evil:

 

1) they all offer salvation

2) they all follow precise system of beliefs in a spiritual being/place/power

3) they recruit people into their ranks, as i have said either passively or actively

 

I think Q makes makes a good example of Judaism.

 

It seems enough for a belief system to have moral persuasions on conduct with a sense of the divine. A great example would be certain sects of ancient Judaism such as the Sadducees. If they didn't proselytize nor offer salvation, I think we can still call their ideology a religion. It seems enough to avoid riding a horse on Saturday because a divine book says so.

 

So, I prefer Freezy's definition:

 

religion is a belief system that incorporates worship.

 

Sufficient and necessary conditions to be a religion (IMHO):

1. belief system
   
2. worship
   

 

~modest

[freeztar]

This thread was spun off from the thread "The new atheists; a cult of science". There was some discussion there as to whether a cult is considered a religion.

 

If we use belief system and worship as the two qualifiers of religion, it would seem that a cult could be considered a religion, and some cults would not be considered religions. The main difference being worship.

 

Alex (or anyone else), what do you think of these qualifiers? Would you change or add anything?

[C1ay]

Just wondering, is faith an element of religion?