Reply to Re: Religion
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I like to add just a little bit to this discussion. I'll probably get out of this discussion after a few posts because:
A) An internet forum really isn't the place for very deep discussions as reading too much makes my head hurt and constantly quoting each other makes my head hurt even more with such a time span between posts.
B) I'm afraid SkeleTony and me are mostly talking about semantics and we'll probably just not agree on them. Me taking the meaning closest to every day use and SkeleTony taking a more fundamental meaning.
But for now another yet another reaction:
A) You state that "the fact that people can possess traits such as atheism and Buddhism at the same time does not mean that they put each on the same 'rung' for self-description." I agree entirely. This is exactly what I'm talking about that I take a meaning closer to what the word 'atheist' means for most people. Your meaning might be more suitable for an academic discussion, I like to keep the meaning closer to what most people feel with the term. (Yes I know most is very vague, and it might have to do with my feeling for language.)
False. That is like saying that a tree can be a rainbow. This can only happen for the guy who is trying to redefine the words for his own agenda.
A christian is a type of theist.
A tree is a type of rainbow.
Proof by analogy is fraud, proven once again.
We no longer live in a time when people simply would say "I'm christian and I am member of this and this congregation." Nowadays there are many people who believe in life after death and in a caring God but not in Jesus or Mohamed, what's their religion? I could describe it with either 'theist' or 'somethingist' in which case I prefer the former as a description of their religion. Which brings me to your next point:
"Religion" has a pretty specific meaning and involves ritual, a belief in something transcendent, a hierarchy of appointed(even self-appointed) clergy/holymen, doctrine etc.
I have great difficulty with this explanation of religion, I'll tell you why. I know of people around me who are what they call 'home preachers'. These are often people who think that every church in existence isn't strict enough in their stances, so they hold small church service in their own house, usually with only their family. They're usually reading the writings of 17th and 18th century pietism leaders in their service. According to your definition they are not member of a religion as they (often)don't have a hierarchy. But they're clearly christians to me, and christianity, for me, is a religion.
I just like to take a slightly different meaning, not because it fits my agenda best, but because it explains life around me better. If you like to take a different meaning: More power to you. You might even be more right from a fundamental point of view.
My conclusion? This sentence in my first reaction:
Though one may argue that atheism is a religion in itself...
Should have been written as:
Though one may argue that what most people call atheism can be a religion in itself...
This is closer to what I meant. Though some people I know will replace 'can be' with 'is'. All boils down to the definition of religion I suppose. I could ramble on for a couple of pages. As it is right now my argumentation has still got quite a few holes in it, but getting them all straight will cost more text than I'm willing to type right now.
I also have something else to add that I've been noting in this thread:
You state that you think that the judeo-christian god can be logically disproved. I have two fundamental problems with this:
A) It assumes that the laws of logic are applicable, not only to the natural world but to the supernatural world as well. I can't see why you can be 100% sure about this. If you don't believe a supernatural world exists, this makes sense. But that really is a believe if you can't apply logic to this world.
B) Your application of logic might not be the correct one. The ancient Greek used their logic to make conclusions about how the universe worked. Sometimes they were right, more often they were wrong. Does that mean that logic is not applicable to this world? Of course not, it means that you have to check with experiments if the logic you applied was applied correctly. As doing experiments on supernatural beings is a bit difficult (they tend not to cooperate) you just can't know. You can only hope you don't end up having used the wrong assumptions. Which is essentially the same as for people who do believe in the supernatural.
A) An internet forum really isn't the place for very deep discussions as reading too much makes my head hurt and constantly quoting each other makes my head hurt even more with such a time span between posts.
B) I'm afraid SkeleTony and me are mostly talking about semantics and we'll probably just not agree on them. Me taking the meaning closest to every day use and SkeleTony taking a more fundamental meaning.
But for now another yet another reaction:
A) You state that "the fact that people can possess traits such as atheism and Buddhism at the same time does not mean that they put each on the same 'rung' for self-description." I agree entirely. This is exactly what I'm talking about that I take a meaning closer to what the word 'atheist' means for most people. Your meaning might be more suitable for an academic discussion, I like to keep the meaning closer to what most people feel with the term. (Yes I know most is very vague, and it might have to do with my feeling for language.)
False. That is like saying that a tree can be a rainbow. This can only happen for the guy who is trying to redefine the words for his own agenda.
A christian is a type of theist.
A tree is a type of rainbow.
Proof by analogy is fraud, proven once again.
We no longer live in a time when people simply would say "I'm christian and I am member of this and this congregation." Nowadays there are many people who believe in life after death and in a caring God but not in Jesus or Mohamed, what's their religion? I could describe it with either 'theist' or 'somethingist' in which case I prefer the former as a description of their religion. Which brings me to your next point:
"Religion" has a pretty specific meaning and involves ritual, a belief in something transcendent, a hierarchy of appointed(even self-appointed) clergy/holymen, doctrine etc.
I have great difficulty with this explanation of religion, I'll tell you why. I know of people around me who are what they call 'home preachers'. These are often people who think that every church in existence isn't strict enough in their stances, so they hold small church service in their own house, usually with only their family. They're usually reading the writings of 17th and 18th century pietism leaders in their service. According to your definition they are not member of a religion as they (often)don't have a hierarchy. But they're clearly christians to me, and christianity, for me, is a religion.
I just like to take a slightly different meaning, not because it fits my agenda best, but because it explains life around me better. If you like to take a different meaning: More power to you. You might even be more right from a fundamental point of view.
My conclusion? This sentence in my first reaction:
Though one may argue that atheism is a religion in itself...
Should have been written as:
Though one may argue that what most people call atheism can be a religion in itself...
This is closer to what I meant. Though some people I know will replace 'can be' with 'is'. All boils down to the definition of religion I suppose. I could ramble on for a couple of pages. As it is right now my argumentation has still got quite a few holes in it, but getting them all straight will cost more text than I'm willing to type right now.
I also have something else to add that I've been noting in this thread:
You state that you think that the judeo-christian god can be logically disproved. I have two fundamental problems with this:
A) It assumes that the laws of logic are applicable, not only to the natural world but to the supernatural world as well. I can't see why you can be 100% sure about this. If you don't believe a supernatural world exists, this makes sense. But that really is a believe if you can't apply logic to this world.
B) Your application of logic might not be the correct one. The ancient Greek used their logic to make conclusions about how the universe worked. Sometimes they were right, more often they were wrong. Does that mean that logic is not applicable to this world? Of course not, it means that you have to check with experiments if the logic you applied was applied correctly. As doing experiments on supernatural beings is a bit difficult (they tend not to cooperate) you just can't know. You can only hope you don't end up having used the wrong assumptions. Which is essentially the same as for people who do believe in the supernatural.
