What defines religion (split from correlation w/poverty)

[Phi for All]

Does anyone else get the feeling that "divine inspiration" is a sort of code for "Hey, I just thought of a fantastic way to make this whole book sound much more legitimate"?

 

Btw, I was divinely inspired to write that. I know because the screen on my laptop dimmed when I was finished.

[immortal]

That's not the argument that has been made, though. You said fundamentalists aren't religious. The response was that these fundamentalists are often informed directly by their religious texts. The position presented is that your conclusion is deeply flawed and broken. Can you see how that's not the same as "defending fundamentalists" or condoning their actions? Please say yes.

 

My position is that these fundamentalists are often misinformed and deliberately misuse their religious texts. Can you not see that you guys are blind towards the truth and implicitly defending the fundamentalists due to your ignorance and claiming that they are religious?

 

Of course. First, you completely fail to accurately comprehend the position of others. Second, you claim to hold the sole accurate interpretation of religious texts and assert that all others are wrong. You're a rather interesting fellow.

 

I very well know what you guys are arguing. Its evidence my friend, its evidence which says their interpretations are wrong and are often taken out of context completely than what their religious scriptures are actually saying, even Gandhi took his principle of non-violence from Bhagvad Gita, his entire life was based on Bhagavad Gita, one who has extensively studied the Bhagavad Gita knows that Gandhi was right and Heinrich Himmler was wrong, one doesn't need any special eyes to see who is wrong and who is right, its simple common sense and reasoning is all what it requires, if you argue otherwise it only shows your lack of knowledge about these religious scriptures and not that the teachings in these texts are inherently ambiguous, the teachings in these texts are perfectly fine and explicitly slams the acts and beliefs of fundamentalists something which you fail to recognize.

 

Those fundamentalists investigate the same texts as you, yet they arrive at a different conclusion. Just because they don't share the exact same interpretation as you does not mean they are not religious.

 

They don't investigate, they cherry pick those verses which could be effectively taken out of context to justify their gruesome acts and they continue to dogmatically believe in them despite all evidence contradicting such an interpretation, not even their own religious scriptures allows them to arrive at such a conclusion.

 

All of it.

 

Surely, your definition of religion sucks, I have not excluded any of the world religions in my definition of religion and none of them discriminate or show inequality towards women, in fact they strive for the opposite i.e. for the equality of men and women.

 

Oh, hello again, No True Scotsman. Didn't see you standing over there. Fancy a cup of tea?

 

Just because a majority of the population of the world emotionally hold on to false notions of religion and false notions of God and claim themselves to be the sole saviours of faith, morality and a religious society doesn't make them religious for one doesn't acquire the qualities of divine through faith but through knowledge and his way of life.

 

See a genuine example:

 

 

Ramayana

In the Ramayana, the term Arya can also apply to Raksasas or to Ravana. In several instances, the Vanaras and Raksasas called themselves Arya. The vanara's king Sugriva is called an Arya (Ram: 505102712) and he also speaks of his brother Vali as an Arya (Ram: 402402434). In another instance in the Ramayana, Ravana regards himself and his ministers as Aryas (Ram: A logical explanation is that, Ravana and his ministers belonged to the highest varna (Ravana being a Brahmin), and Brahmins were generally considered 'noble' of deed and hence called Arya (noble). Thus, while Ravana was considered Arya (and regarded himself as such), he was not really an Arya because he was not noble of deeds. So, he is widely considered by Hindus as Anarya (non-Arya).

The Ramayana describes Rama as: arya sarva samascaiva sadaiva priyadarsanah, meaning "Arya, who worked for the equality of all and was dear to everyone."

 

These evil people call themselves holy, sacred, religious, noble etc and do the exact opposite deeds and hence they should be qualified as according to what they deserve i.e. non-religious, hostile, envious, not liberal.

 

You won't become pure just by believing or just by breeding only with 6 foot tall, blonde haired, strongly built women and men, you become pure through self-transformation, following a path of perfection and by illumination and by imbibing the qualities of Jesus, Muhammad and Moses in you. After seeing your definition of religion you guys aren't any better than the Nazis, just clouded in the name of atheists, that's the only difference between you and them.

[Chad Makaio Zichterman]

 

My position is that these fundamentalists are often misinformed and deliberately misuse their religious texts. Can you not see that you guys are blind towards the truth and implicitly defending the fundamentalists due to your ignorance and claiming that they are religious?

 

 

Fundamentalism is a separate question from whether or not someone or something is religious.

 

All this side bickering over interpreting specific scriptures and/or adherence to specific doctrines of specific religions is irrelevant.

 

Once you cut away that sideshow, we get back to the obvious:

 

Whether X group of people are arguably "getting it wrong" (with respect to a given religion) has no bearing on whether or not they are religious. Religious and mistaken or misguided is still religious.

 

When I was a kid, I was one of the ones you hear about who gets distracted and excited and accidentally scored a goal against my own team. I was, however, still playing the game (even though I was Doing It Wrong).

[Ringer]

 

I advice you to read the thread once before blindly accusing me of making a strawman. You guys defended fundamentalists by saying its all right and justifiable for them to do those acts because their religious scriptures often demands such acts, that's what you guys said. All it shows is that is your ignorance about religion, you guys have studied the wrong side of religion, further investigation reveals the truth as to what Jesus, Muhammad and Moses taught and their teachings are in sharp contrast with the belief systems of the fundamentalists, all these men taught the very opposite of what fundamentalists do and you expect me to call them as being religious? What part of in the definition of religion allows them claim themselves as religious? They just doesn't deserve it and even you guys are blindly dancing with their tone which is very much disappointing to see.

And I would advise you to not misinterpret and cherry-pick parts of texts when attempting to make a case against others who do so. It lowers your credibility as someone who can decide what the authors of certain books meant when you refuse to understand what people who can clarify what they meant.

 

Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in.

Again, who are you to chose which way of life is religious? More specifically, can a banker be religious?

[immortal]

Religion is the pursuit of Truth.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)


However Tom O'Golo declares that religious fundamentalists that use violence to further their cause contravene the root truth of all faiths:

 

A genuine fundamentalist is also a radical, someone who tries to get the root of the matter. A major weakness with many or perhaps most radicals is not that they don't dig, but that they don't dig deep enough. Consequently many fundamentalists end up defending or acting upon beliefs which are not really at the heart of their doctrine. For example any religious fundamentalist who harms others in the pursuit of his or her radicalism is strictly out of order as no true religion ever encounters anything but love, tolerance and understanding. 'Thou shalt not kill' is at the heart of all genuine faiths, certainly the three based upon Abraham and God. That trio comprehensively condemns intentional harm to others (and to the self as well) for what ever reason. Dying to protect one's faith is acceptable; killing to promote it isn't. Arguably, it is blasphemous to say that God needs an earthly army to fight Its battles, or perform Its revenge. God is quite capable of fighting Its own battles.

 

"No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate"

- Barrack Obama

I don't call fundamentalists as religious for the same reason I don't worship Satan because the truth is not with them.

[swansont]

I advice you to read the thread once before blindly accusing me of making a strawman. You guys defended fundamentalists by saying its all right and justifiable for them to do those acts because their religious scriptures often demands such acts, that's what you guys said.

Wow, did you misread all of that. The context was whether these were people following a religion, not whether the acts were right or justifiable. You claim that they aren't following the word of some god and therefore we should not be blaming religion, and others are rebutting that claim.

All it shows is that is your ignorance about religion, you guys have studied the wrong side of religion, further investigation reveals the truth as to what Jesus, Muhammad and Moses taught and their teachings are in sharp contrast with the belief systems of the fundamentalists, all these men taught the very opposite of what fundamentalists do and you expect me to call them as being religious? What part of in the definition of religion allows them claim themselves as religious? They just doesn't deserve it and even you guys are blindly dancing with their tone which is very much disappointing to see.

It would be the part about belief that lets them claim it as religious. It doesn't require your stamp of approval for their interpretation; you can disavow their inclusion into your particular flavor of whatever religion to which you belong, but not from religion in general. Basically your claim is equivalent to saying e.g. that of all the sects of Christianity, only one of them (at most) is a actually a religion.

Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in.

Your opinion. Not a fact.

[ydoaPs]

 

There are two main reasons why Timothy might not be divinely inspired.

 

1. It was not written by Paul and it was forged. I know there are many other Gospels which were not written by the authors as indicated in the name of the Gospels but there is no evidence of a deliberate forgery to deliberately suppress the views of the apostles and portray just the opposite view of the one held by the apostles in those texts where as in Timothy that's exactly what happened. If there is evidence for such deliberate forgery then the divinity of such texts too can be questioned.

 

NONE of the Gospels are written by the people attributed.

 

So, let's throw out all extra-Biblical Gospels as well as the four canonical ones. And let's throw out the Petrine epistles and all of the other forgery in the NT. Congratulations, the NT is now only like 5 texts long.

 

Also, why should we assume that Paul was divinely inspired? Should we just take his word for it (especially when it seems that he disagreed on quite large parts of doctrine with the people who actually heard Jesus speak)?

 

It looks like we need to dump Paul's genuine letters too. So, now the "real" NT is precisely 0 texts.

 

A strong case can be made that Paul was divinely inspired seeing the impact that it had upon his life after that experience.

No, it can't. At least not non-fallaciously. People have delusional episodes ALL THE TIME that cause dramatic changes in people's lives. And, in Paul's case, we've got plenty of reason to think that this was a delusion during an epileptic episode.

[Moontanman]

 

 

 

 

I advice you to read the thread once before blindly accusing me of making a strawman. You guys defended fundamentalists by saying its all right and justifiable for them to do those acts because their religious scriptures often demands such acts, that's what you guys said. All it shows is that is your ignorance about religion, you guys have studied the wrong side of religion, further investigation reveals the truth as to what Jesus, Muhammad and

 

No one said it was alright to kill in the name of god... any god...

 

 

Moses taught and their teachings are in sharp contrast with the belief systems of the fundamentalists, all these men taught the very opposite of what fundamentalists do and you expect me to call them as being religious? What part of in the definition of religion allows them claim themselves as religious? They just doesn't deserve it and even you guys are blindly dancing with their tone which is very much disappointing to see.

 

Your assertion about Moses as though he really existed shows your own ignorance immortal...

 

Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in.

 

Again you make claims about knowledge as though religion give some real world information that can be confirmed empirically... I call horse feathers... You have yet to show this to be true after what must be hundreds of pages of debate you still cling to this fallacy ..

[immortal]

Again, who are you to chose which way of life is religious? More specifically, can a banker be religious?

 

There are 613 commandments in the Torah which forms the Jewish Law, there are as many commandments in the Islamic law and there are even greater number of laws in the Vedas. These laws should be followed in their respective countries even if the laws in different countries, places and times are opposite to one another. It is the divine Logos as called by the Greeks or Rta as called by the Vedic people which is the ordering principle behind the universe which gave these laws to our ancients, even the Gods are subjected to these laws and it governs the righteous conduct of life.

 

Through out history these laws were in the hands of Rabbis for the Jews and Brahmin priests for the Aryans, there were not only a confusion on how to interpret these laws which still persists today, there is a great confusion on how to interpret the Islamic law but more importantly the elders or experienced priests could even change these laws and even add new laws after it was discussed and agreed upon by a elite group of noble priests and considering the amount of inequality and discrimination that exists in these laws its quite clear that these laws have been corrupted through time and we don't know what exactly was the divine law given to us by the divine Logos.

 

These laws were not meant to control people or something which should be enforced all over the world, these laws were meant to produce a righteous society which were based on the underlying working principle of the cosmos and it was a guiding means to seek the divinity with in us, that's why it was said that the Gospel of Thomas should be read after reading all the synoptic Gospels because you have been prepared to receive these higher form of teachings as it says seek you shall find and as the Brahma Sutras says “Now one should enquire into the Brahman.” This means that now that you have attained a human body, you should use your intelligence to discover what is really spiritual and what is the Absolute Truth. Then the second verse begins to explain what is this Absolute Truth: “He from whom everything originates is the Absolute.” Thus, as it refers to “He”, the source of all that exists, the ultimate point of creation, is a person.

 

This is the central tenet of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam which are quite explicitly expressed in Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Upanishads and in Sufism, the central tenet of religion is not to be obsessed with these laws and to discriminate women and show inequality and double standards in society, this was the message of Jesus, Shankara, Buddha and Muhammad i.e. to give equality to everyone whether one is a whore or a bishop. As long as you're in duality there is scope for discrimination and inequality but when you come to non-duality and realize that everyone and everything is of the same essence then where is the scope for discrimination and inequality to persist. The laws are important for social, theological and political constructs but what is more important is to realize whither we come from and whither we are going.

 

In today's Modern world which lacks wisdom these laws are given more importance rather than to the central tenets of these religions which has mainly led to all forms of violence for each of these religions want to establish their cultural laws to the far continents and colonize the earth and want to convert as many people as they can falsely believing that their acts are backed up by God which will inevitably leads to the destruction of the world as Nelson-Pallmeyer writes that "Judaism, Christianity and Islam will continue to contribute to the destruction of the world until and unless each challenges violence in "sacred texts" and until each affirms nonviolent power of God". This is the truth about religion and not just my opinion, can a banker be religious? Even a whore can be religious not by blind belief but by realizing the existence of divinity in oneself, only then you can see others in equal terms for God is not divided and he has made everyone including men and women in his own image.

 

Wow, did you misread all of that. The context was whether these were people following a religion, not whether the acts were right or justifiable. You claim that they aren't following the word of some god and therefore we should not be blaming religion, and others are rebutting that claim.

 

 

You people keep insist that they are following the word of God which means you are implicitly defending them.

 

 

It would be the part about belief that lets them claim it as religious. It doesn't require your stamp of approval for their interpretation; you can disavow their inclusion into your particular flavor of whatever religion to which you belong, but not from religion in general. Basically your claim is equivalent to saying e.g. that of all the sects of Christianity, only one of them (at most) is a actually a religion.

 

No, your examples should not be included even in the general definition of religion, the Talibanization movement is a movement just like the Nazi movement and they have their own specific required characteristics and beliefs to register someone into their group or to give membership. Your examples should be classified into the correct category and not into religion.

 

 

Talibanization (or Talibanisation) is a term coined following the rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan referring to the process where other religious groups or movements come to follow or imitate the strict practices of the Taliban.^[1][2]

In its original usage, Talibanization referred to groups who followed Taliban practices such as:

• usually strict regulation of women, including forbidding of most employment or schooling for women;
• the banning of long lists of activities generally tolerated by other Muslims—movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events;
• the banning of activities (especially hairstyles and clothing) generally tolerated by other Muslims on the grounds that the activities are Western;
• oppression of Shia, including takfir threats that they convert to Sunni Islam or be prepared to be killed;
• aggressive enforcement of its regulations, particularly the use of armed "religious police";
• the destruction of non-Muslim artifacts, especially carvings and statues such as Buddhas of Bamyan, generally tolerated by other Muslims, on the grounds that the artifacts are idolatrous orShirk (polytheism)
• harboring of Al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorists;
• a discriminatory attitude towards non-Muslims such as sumptuary laws against Afghan Hindus the Taliban regime enacted, requiring them to wear yellow badges, a practice reminiscent of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic policies.^[3][4][5]

 

 

 

Your opinion. Not a fact.

 

There is no accepted etymology of religion and my definition is universal not because majority of them agree with it but because it includes all the religions of the world in it and hence it is a fact.

 

NONE of the Gospels are written by the people attributed.

 

So, let's throw out all extra-Biblical Gospels as well as the four canonical ones. And let's throw out the Petrine epistles and all of the other forgery in the NT. Congratulations, the NT is now only like 5 texts long.

 

Also, why should we assume that Paul was divinely inspired? Should we just take his word for it (especially when it seems that he disagreed on quite large parts of doctrine with the people who actually heard Jesus speak)?

 

It looks like we need to dump Paul's genuine letters too. So, now the "real" NT is precisely 0 texts.

 

 

In the beginning was the word

and the word was with god,

and god was the word.

The word in the beginning was with god.

Through god everything was born

and without the word nothing was born.

What was born through the word was life

and the life was the light of all people

and the light in the darkness shone

and the darkness could not apprehend the light. (1:1-5)

No one can snatch or even alter the Logos, not even Gods can do it.

 

No, it can't. At least not non-fallaciously. People have delusional episodes ALL THE TIME that cause dramatic changes in people's lives. And, in Paul's case, we've got plenty of reason to think that this was a delusion during an epileptic episode.

 

Do you have any evidence for Paul's pathological record? All these silly excuses to sideline the numerous documented accounts of genuine experiences by healthy religious persons as saying its hallucinations, delusions or were on LSD should stop because there experiences are as real as what happens when a Crow sits touching parallel electric wires with a high voltage of potential difference.

[swansont]

You people keep insist that they are following the word of God which means you are implicitly defending them.

 

Not at all. I am merely observing that they think they are following the word of God, making their associated actions religious in nature. That's not an endorsement in any way. I personally think their actions are reprehensible.

No, your examples should not be included even in the general definition of religion, the Talibanization movement is a movement just like the Nazi movement and they have their own specific required characteristics and beliefs to register someone into their group or to give membership. Your examples should be classified into the correct category and not into religion.

I'm not aware that the Nazis were ever thought to be a religion. I don't see why you think bringing them up carries any weight.

 

There is no accepted etymology of religion and my definition is universal not because majority of them agree with it but because it includes all the religions of the world in it and hence it is a fact.

My computer's dictionary defines religion as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods" Your definition —with the caveat that you follow the true word of the god in question — pretty much implies that there are no religions at all. Everyone messes up in interpretation, somewhere along the line.

[John Cuthber]

Perhaps I should clarify something.

If I say someone does something because they are "following the word of God", I mean that they are failing.

 

If it is the right thing to do then they should do it because it is right.

If it is the wrong thing to do then they should not do it no matter what the "word of God" is.

 

So, there's no way that my view can be construed as defending maniacs who harm others in the name of their religion.

That applies to terrorist murderers like those responsible for 9/11 and it also applies to those who seek to damage the learning of children by coming up with BS like the creationists.

 

Now, the point about religion is that it's what you believe because you were taught it by people variously labelled as priests or whatever- rather than because of (indeed, often in the face of) the evidence.

 

Just because you think that some group has misunderstood (deliberately or accidentally) the word, that doesn't mean that their belief is not religious.

From their point of view, it's you who has got it wrong.

[swansont]

Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in.

 

So how does an illiterate person become religious, in your view?

[Moontanman]

Of course. First, you completely fail to accurately comprehend the position of others. Second, you claim to hold the sole accurate interpretation of religious texts and assert that all others are wrong. You're a rather interesting fellow.

 

 

 

Interesting? Possibly, but not unique, I could throw a rock in a random direction from where I am sitting and have a good chance of hitting someone just like him...

[ydoaPs]

 

No one can snatch or even alter the Logos, not even Gods can do it.

 

 

So Timothy is still in then.

Do you have any evidence for Paul's pathological record?

Paul's letters. He described how people treated him.....exactly how people treated epileptics. He also described the incident.....exactly like a delusion from certain types of epilepsy. Guess what disease people with "Paul's Disease" have. I'll give you a hint: it starts with "E" and rhymes with "Depilepsy".

 

 

Also, Epilepsy Museum for the "Paul's Disease" thing, and pubmed for the matching of symptoms.

[ralfy]

Generally, any belief that involves a divine or supernatural being, although it may also be seen as a belief in some utopia. This might explain why some writers might consider Marxism and Capitalism as the two most dominant secular religions of the twentieth century.

[Dekan]

Could it be, that Religion is for people who are too thick to understand Science - Religion gives such people something to cling on to?

[iNow]

Could it be, that Religion is for people who are too thick to understand Science - Religion gives such people something to cling on to?

 

I would not be comfortable with this assertion. There are many quite brilliant people who are themselves religious. It would be unfair to characterize them as paste eating morons who don't read anything more than the on switch of the light into their bedroom.

 

What I've seen is that certain people are predisposed to rely more on intuition than on critical thinking. Many people prioritize gut feel over rational consideration. It seems these intuitive thinkers are much more likely to accept the god conjecture as true than those who question and challenge everything more robustly.

 

It seems to be less about intelligence and more about thinking style, itself an independent issue, IMO.

 

With that said, yes. People who are "thick" almost certainly rely more on gut feel than those who are not.

[swansont]

Could it be, that Religion is for people who are too thick to understand Science - Religion gives such people something to cling on to?

 

I agree with iNow that this isn't true, and also think that it's not the topic under discussion, which is not why people are religious, it's what constitutes being a religion, or being religious.

[Prometheus]

typically something along the lines of:

1. Assertion of an authoritative moral code (a religion clearly has something to say about notions of right and wrong);

2. Some form of arbiter(s) of the faith (a group of people institutionalized as authorities upon interpreting that religion's principles);

3. A ritualized orthodoxy covering belief and action, typically (but not always) canonized in some kind of scripture or other record;

4. (*Common, but not absolutely necessary) A belief in some form of supernatural or singular causality.

 

What is meant by authoritative moral code here? I only ask because Buddhism does not teach right and wrong in the same way as monotheistic religions. Instead of evil, Buddhists might speak of unskilfulness.

 

Can a religion include man-made morality, or must it be allegedly divine?

 

 

We should also keep in mind that while many different practices and beliefs may share a broad name, it is the substance of one's beliefs and conduct which renders something religious or not. There are religious Buddhists and philosophical Buddhists, just to cite one example.

 

What differentiates the two? (I have heard the same of Taoists - is there a Christian analogue?). It's probably the most important question when determining what constitutes a religion.

 

 

There are many religions that do not have specific stated beliefs of the supernatural, a less strict definition has to do with beliefs of the cause and purpose of nature, but the problem is without the supernatural using words like 'cause' or 'purpose' have no meaning in the context. When those things are removed, it just turns in to philosophy. I would like to know what specific sects do not have supernatural beliefs so I could make a better argument.

 

I am not sure if Buddhism in the west will ever coalesce into a coherent and distinct sect. Whichever culture Buddhism has encountered it has become assimilated into that culture, hence we see quite different sects of Buddhism. However, in the West instead of just receiving one form of Buddhism and assimilating it as in the past, we are exposed to various forms of Buddhism, into various places in the Western world. Anyway, this isn't a study of how religion spreads in the modern world. Bottom line there are some Buddhists who ignore the supernatural elements of Buddhism. Stephen Batchelor is probably the most famous example. Asked if religious, most seem to answer 'don't care'.

 

 

I agree it would be fallacious to assume all religions, or more specifically their sects, support violence (association fallacy I believe). But that's not the argument, the argument is that those who commit violent acts in the name of religion are still religious.

 

So long as that religion endorses violence at some level. Or is it enough that the person believes themselves to be religious?

 

 

 

But using a description of nature as a guideline for life is the naturalistic fallacy. Just because things do happen doesn't mean hey should happen, or we should do them. I don't believe science should, or even can, attempt to create a moral framework for a few reasons, but that's a different discussion all together. Suffice to say when a scientist is attempting to create a more framework they take off their scientist hat and put on their philosopher hat.

 

I have similar thoughts, but it's an interesting movement none the less.

 

My computer's dictionary defines religion as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods"

 

I don't think this definition is broad enough to include Eastern religions. Even the most orthodox Buddhism doesn't fit this bill.

[swansont]

I don't think this definition is broad enough to include Eastern religions. Even the most orthodox Buddhism doesn't fit this bill.

 

Even more evidence that immortal's definition is not "universal"

[John Cuthber]

I wonder: if I were to go back through immortal's old posts, would I find one where atheism is described as a religion?

 

Edit.

Well, I guess it's only fair to say I checked and it seems he didn't.

But then, since he doesn't include a lot of religions as being religious, that's no great shock.

Edited January 10, 2013 by John Cuthber

[Ringer]

 

There are 613 commandments in the Torah which forms the Jewish Law, there are as many commandments in the Islamic law and there are even greater number of laws in the Vedas. These laws should be followed in their respective countries even if the laws in different countries, places and times are opposite to one another. It is the divine Logos as called by the Greeks or Rta as called by the Vedic people which is the ordering principle behind the universe which gave these laws to our ancients, even the Gods are subjected to these laws and it governs the righteous conduct of .

. . .[snipped]

 

 

The amazing thing is in that wall of text you never really answered my question.

You people keep insist that they are following the word of God which means you are implicitly defending them.

 

That's assuming we believe if it's the word of God, it's correct or justified. That is not the case for anyone I've seen. On the contrary, most of us have probably read the Bible and thought, "That's guy's a dick, I wouldn't want to follow him even if he was real."

No, your examples should not be included even in the general definition of religion, the Talibanization movement is a movement just like the Nazi movement and they have their own specific required characteristics and beliefs to register someone into their group or to give membership. Your examples should be classified into the correct category and not into religion.

 

Which Christianity also has, so that argument makes no sense whatsoever.

 

 

 

 

There is no accepted etymology of religion and my definition is universal not because majority of them agree with it but because it includes all the religions of the world in it and hence it is a fact.

 

 

 

 

Any definitions of religion include religions that fit the definition, you're using a tautology. It's not universal because it doesn't include what most people consider religions.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2013 by Ringer

[John Cuthber]

If I was to start a thread saying that Immortal is channelling the spirit of Humpty Dumpty

"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

would it get merged with this thread?

[immortal]

So how does an illiterate person become religious, in your view?

 

Just by having a Phd you cannot escape from the cave, you're still a prisoner of the cave, the person who is an illiterate and the one who holds a Phd is even when it comes to religion. When I mean knowledge I'm not talking of knowledge acquired via sense organs, I'm speaking of experiential knowledge, knowledge acquired via immediate insight.

 

 

Meditation

 

It was obvious that I would not answer such questions through mere argument and reason. As both Eastern philosophy and mystical writings make very clear, knowledge of subtler levels of consciousness comes not from reading, or from studying the experiences of others, but from one’s own direct experience. So I began to look into meditation and other spiritual practices.

 

It happened that several Buddhist teachers and Tibetan lamas, including Trongpe Rinpoche who had recently escaped from the Chinese invasion, were teaching in Cambridge. At that stage in my exploration, Buddhism appealed to me because it was the most non-religious of the Eastern philosophies. It was as much a psychology and a philosophy as a religion. It made a point of not discussing God; its focus was removing the causes of suffering in oneself. So I started attending classes in Buddhist meditation, listening to various teachers, and reading some of the great Buddhist texts.

 

Several months later, the direction of my inner exploration suddenly changed. Hunting through the esoteric section of my local library for works on consciousness, I noticed a book titled The Science of Being and Art of Living by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi–the Indian teacher who had recently made the headlines when The Beatles renounced their use of drugs in favor of his technique of Transcendental Meditation. I added the book to my pile and took it back to my study, where it sat, unopened, on my desk for two weeks. Finally, little knowing how much my life was about to change, I took a look. Within minutes I was riveted. Maharishi was saying the exact opposite of nearly everything I’d heard or read about meditation, yet he seemed to make perfect sense.

 

Most of the books I had read on meditation talked about how much effort it took to still the restless mind and achieve a state of deep inner peace and fulfillment. Maharishi looked at the whole matter in a different way. Any concentration, the least bit of trying, even a wanting the mind to settle down, would, he observed, be counter-productive. Any effort would promote mental activity rather than lessening it.

 

He suggested that the mind was restless because it was seeking something–namely, greater satisfaction and fulfillment. But it was looking for it in the wrong direction, in the world of thinking and sensory experience. All that was needed, he said, was to turn the attention 180 degrees inward and then, applying his technique, encourage the mind to settle down just a little. Being in a slightly quieter state, the mind would taste a little more of the fulfillment it had been seeking. By repeating the practice, it would be spontaneously drawn on to yet quieter and more fulfilling levels of its own accord.

 

 

Maharishi’s ideas appealed to my scientific mind. They were simple and elegant–almost like a mathematical derivation. But the skeptic in me was not going to take anything on faith. The only way to know how well his technique worked was to try it. The nearest teacher I could find was in London, so I traveled down from Cambridge each day for a week to take some instruction. It was a little while before I got the practice right, but once I did, I realized Maharishi was correct. The less I tried, the quieter my mind became.

 

Journey to India

 

The following summer, I traveled to Lago di Braies, a lake high up in the Italian Alps, for a meditation retreat with Maharishi. I was instantly charmed. With his deep, warm, brown eyes, long flowing black hair and beard, dressed only in a single sheet of white cotton artfully wrapped around his small body and a simple pair of sandals, he looked the classic Indian guru. Bubbling over with joy, he never tired of talking to us novices about finer levels of being and higher states of consciousness. This was not book knowledge, but wisdom that was coming from someone who clearly had direct personal experience of these states. I knew then that I wanted to study further with him.

 

As soon as I completed my undergraduate degree, I earned some money driving a truck, then set off overland for India. My destination was Rishikesh, an Indian holy town, about 150 miles north of Delhi, at the foot of the Himalayas.

 

The plains of Northern India do not gradually rise up into mountains, as do the Alps; the landscape looks more like the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. One moment it is flat, the next there is mountain. Rishikesh nestled right where plain became mountain, at the very point where the Ganges tumbled out of its deep Himalayan gorge.

 

On one side of the river was Rishikesh the bustling market town, its crowded streets a jumble of market stalls, honking cars, bicycle rickshaws, and bony cows. On the other side was Rishikesh the holy town. The atmosphere here was very different. There were no cars for a start. The one bridge across the river–strung high over the mouth of the gorge–was deliberately built too narrow for cars. Along this side of the river, and sprinkled up the jungle hillsides, were all manner of ashrams. Some were austere walled quadrangles lined with simple meditation cells; others gloried in lush gardens, fountains and brightly colored statues of Indian deities. Some were centers for hatha yoga, some for meditation; others were devoted to a particular spiritual teacher or philosophy.

 

About two miles down river from the bridge was Maharishi’s ashram, the last habitation before the winding track disappeared into the jungle. Perched on a cliff top, a hundred feet above the swirling Ganges, were half-a-dozen bungalows, a meeting hall, dining room, showers, and other facilities providing some basic Western comforts.

 

Here just over a hundred of us, of all ages, from many countries, had gathered for a teacher training course. Many were like myself, recent graduates looking for deeper intellectual understanding of Maharishi’s teachings as much as for deeper experience of meditation. There were Ph.D.’s in philosophy, medical doctors, and long-term students of theology.

 

Over the coming weeks we listened to Maharishi expound his philosophy. We asked question after question, virtually interrogating him at times. We wanted to tease out everything, from the finer distinctions of higher states of consciousness and subtle influences of meditation, to the exact meaning of various esoteric concepts. Maharishi’s willingness to share his knowledge never tired. Often, when the day’s program was complete, a few of us would gather in his small sitting room, where we stayed late into the night soaking up yet more of his wisdom.

 

Pure Consciousness

 

As well as furthering our understanding of meditation, Maharishi wanted us to have clear experiences of the states of consciousness he was describing. That could only come from prolonged periods of deep meditation. At first we were meditating for three or four hours a day, but as the course progressed, our practice times increased. Six weeks into our three month stay, we were spending most of the day in meditation–and much of the night as well.

 

During these long meditations, my habitual mental chatter began to fade away. Thoughts about what was going on outside, what time it was, how the meditation was progressing, or what I wanted to say or do later, occupied less and less of my attention. Random memories of the past no longer flitted through my mind. My feelings settled down, and my breath grew so gentle as to virtually disappear. Mental activity became fainter and fainter, until finally my thinking mind fell completely silent. In Maharishi’s terminology, I had transcended (literally "gone beyond") thinking.

 

Indian teachings call this state samadhi, meaning "still mind." They identify it as a fundamentally different state of consciousness from the three major states we normally experience–waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In waking consciousness we are aware of the world perceived by the senses. In dreaming we are aware of worlds conjured by the imagination. In deep sleep there is no awareness, neither of outer world nor inner world. In samadhi there is awareness, one is wide awake, but now there is no object of awareness. It is pure consciousness–consciousness before it takes on the various forms and qualities of a particular experience.

 

- Peter Russel, From Science to God.

 

Religion is not about believing, its about doing. According to religion people who hold Phd's are as illiterate as people who doesn't know to read and write because both the former as well as latter people are still prisoners of the cave. Your definitions of religion sucks which is devoid of any wisdom and an ignorance of how religion works. I told you if you need to be a Christian you need to become Christ, if you need to be a Brahmin you need to become Brahman, if you need to be a Jew you need to become Ein Sof, if you need to be a Buddhist you need to become Adi Buddha.

 

 

Even more evidence that immortal's definition is not "universal"

 

Can you please clarify based on what part of my posts or based on what you arrived at that conclusion? My definition includes both eastern religions as well as western religions, so can you make it clear for me?

 

So Timothy is still in then.

 

I guess you didn't understand what I meant, Logos, the word of God is not something which exists in a Holy Book like the bible, Koran or the bhagavad gita, just as numbers and mathematical truths exists in a platonic realm even the word of God exists out there in the numinous, its imperishable and incorruptible unlike the word of God which exists in our holy books which are corrupted and even forged. So Timothy is definitely out.

 

Paul's letters. He described how people treated him.....exactly how people treated epileptics. He also described the incident.....exactly like a delusion from certain types of epilepsy. Guess what disease people with "Paul's Disease" have. I'll give you a hint: it starts with "E" and rhymes with "Depilepsy".

 

Also, Epilepsy Museum for the "Paul's Disease" thing, and pubmed for the matching of symptoms.

 

So if a person experiences a motor impairment or a seizure just once in his entire life time you conclude that he is a symptomatic epileptic patient? Wonderful, that shows your own confirmation bias and one of the strong reasons why I criticize those people who hold on to an atheistic position that they have not researched religion completely, anyone who has performed a specific ritual to make an ascent to heaven knows that the ecstatic experiences are sometimes blissful and at other times horrible and painful and in scientific terminologies the latter can be classified into different types of seizures, there will be a severe blow to the head, loss of consciousness and severe motor impairment, tonic and atonic seizures etc.

 

I had researched extensively about ecstatic experiences of making an ascent to heaven, these people are quite healthy and actually seizure attacks usually happen only at the time of performing the ritual and not at other times and as I said in an another thread meditators can not only self induce a high amplitude gamma synchrony which is a very blissful experience sometimes they can self induce the opposite that is desynchrony and motor impairment, the subjects in these cases are healthy and show no sign of any pathology and any record of past symptomatic seizure attacks.

 

Comparative studies which I did a year back while researching about Mithras Liturgy show something else is going on and that the world is a mystery.

http://wordtrade.com/religion/bible/corinthians.htm

 

There are also other hypotheses that Paul was not influenced by Roman mithraism but actually by Persian Mithraism and that would make his ascent to heaven a very likely event and not something which can be easily dismissed as a TLE or a hallucination or as delusion.

http://jdstone.org/cr/files/paulandthepaganreligionofmithraism.html

 

Comparative studies push the evidence favouring the theist's side.

[John Cuthber]

 

Just by having a Phd you cannot escape from the cave, you're still a prisoner of the cave, the person who is an illiterate and the one who holds a Phd is even when it comes to religion. When I mean knowledge I'm not talking of knowledge acquired via sense organs, I'm speaking of experiential knowledge, knowledge acquired via immediate insight.

 

 

Can you please clarify based on what part of my posts or based on what you arrived at that conclusion? My definition includes both eastern religions as well as western religions, so can you make it clear for me?

To take the second part first: you said "Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in. "

 

That excludes a lot of what people call religion.

 

 

Since you say that the "knowledge" involved isn't the actual things I find out from my senses, what is it?

 

Does my recollection of once having dreamed that I was a fish mean that I "know" what it's like to be a fish?

More importantly, where does this "knowledge" come from?

Are you seeking to pretend that it's not derived from what people are told (via their senses- specifically that of hearing) as children.

Isn't this "knowledge" really just blindly believing what the priests say?

How can you distinguish it?

 

We are back in the world of Humpty Dumpty- you use "knowledge" to mean something other than the usual accepted meaning of the word.

At best, this makes it impossible to understand you.

Edited January 12, 2013 by John Cuthber