A theory backed by evidence isn’t an assumption. There are some things we can say about ancient religious practices that are backed by a lot of evidence. But this started with something you said: if you’re going to argue that Discordianism has its roots in ancient Greece, you need to post evidence for that. However I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. I’m not aware of any evidence anybody worshipped her. And the ancient Greeks would have called her Eris. Discordia is the Roman equivalent.
My bad. I dug a bit deeper and found out I was wrong.
Modern Discordians agree:
“Modern Discordians and Erisians worship a very different goddess than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans.”
Cite: Eris – Ár nDraíocht Féin
How about the “fad” for freshmen college students to wear beanies and fur coats? That lasted for close to a century (the fur coats did, the beanies might have only been a few decades). It was passed down from “generation to generation” by upperclassmen every year. Was that a fad?
What about Phrenology? Or Alchemy? Were those “fads”? How about the “fad” of every holy man in Europe claiming to have Christ’s bones, pieces of the True Cross, the holy grail, etc? That lasted centuries too.
I’m not saying religion itself is a fad. But individual beliefs could vary through time in just such a way. I could see how someone would view it as a fad.
Personally, I would say religion takes fads, ossifies them into sacred rituals, and forces them to persist hundreds or thousands of years after they would have been jokes on VH1’s “I love the AD 90s”.
I think you are confusing “fad” with “tradition.”
How about:
-“snake handling”-a weird activity practiced by a few adherents of backwoods Pentecostal churches. Seems to be dying out.
-“Speaking In Tongues”-uttering gibberish. Strange, as nowhere in the NT is uttering gibberish considered a gift.
-“Christian Science” the belief that illness and death are illusory…most people have figured ot that is is incorrect.
I think there is a really interesting question here.
There was a religious fad for Utopian communities starting in around the 1830s and pretty much petering out by 1900. Most of them were religious based. I like that movement - they were all so naive - and a little nuts.
There has been a fad for paganism that seems to come and go - 1920s, 1960s, 1990s. It stablizes and comes back. There are serious long term pagans who treat it as a serious religion, but every so often it has a faddish popularity cycle.
Fundamentalsim comes and goes in waves. The Puritans were a huge wave of fundamentalists, they got less serious, and their evolutionary descendents are back (although, surprisingly, Unitarianism has its roots in Puritanism, you can diverge fairly quickly).
Kabbalah as a study for non Jews went through a faddish cycle about ten years ago.
There is The Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, etc. They might be fads - or they might be evolutionary periods in religious thought.
I originally took “religious fads” to not mean the religion itself, but beliefs that, at one time were considered a significant part of the religion, but now aren’t.
Perhaps one example is the urge to uncover and kill witches by Christians. Perhaps we could call this a fad, referring to the fact that at first the idea was not that important, later it became fairly important, and later still it died out again, with Christians today looking back on these times with a hint of embarrassment. Much as you might do when remembering that pet rock, Tamagotchi or whatever you used to have.
The difference between a religion and a cult is the number of people that belong
The OP is based on an odd definition that makes no sense.
A fad is an event embraced fervently and excitedly by a group of people, then abandoned. The various Awakenings could be considered fads. Witch-hunting could be considered a fad. Several thousand middle-class, Christian, North American kids suddenly claiming to embrace various Eastern Philosophies while never bothering to take the time to actually learn the actual faiths and beliefs upon which they were built could be considered a fad.* Labeling all religions, or even a large number of religious movements that have continued for centuries as fads is simply a misuse of the word fad.
There may be some sort of point to the OP, but as expressed, it made little sense.
*(Many other middle-class, Christian, North American kids actually did take the time to study and embrace those philosophies or religions. I make no claim that everyone who every found a different faith was a faddist. However, there was clearly a faddish element to the very large number of kids who joined and fell away from such Eastern systems between the late 1960s and late 1970s.)
Can I bitch a little bit?
What bothers me is that so many religious traditions evolve from overly excited people extrapolating an event from (what they consider) history and thinking its supposed to be mandated.
I’ve heard that Muslims don’t like dogs because Mohammed didn’t like dogs. I don’t know how true that is, but if I were Muslim, I would say “So what?” So the founder of our religion doesn’t like dogs, I like them and I’m a different person.
Same thing with the Vatican tradition of having only male priests. The way I hear it, it was because Jesus only had male apostles, but so what? He didn’t say there couldn’t be any female ones, just that they didn’t have females ones available at the time (unless you could Mary Magdeline). That, to me, is more a fad, because it was based on literally nothing, just some shit that someone made up because of a reason he also pulled from his ass. A different person could have said there could only be 12 bishops or cardinals or whatever the rank is right below Pope because that’s how many Jesus had. It doesn’t make sense, and that’s why its a fad to me
Shit, I would make a great religious person, because I would certainly do things because my god told me to specifically and not do things just because he did it that way thousands of years ago
Applying the word “fad” to every belief or tradition with which you are in disagreement hardy makes your case. Clinging to the word “fad” when it clearly does not apply weakens your case.
You may have a legitimate criticism of religious belief, but your insistence on using the word “fad” makes hash of your claims.
I do believe that the word religion has bad connotation.
When ppl say one thing and do another they are just like all those religious Jews that killed the Messiah.
No wonder there are so many religions.
Many want to know the truth yet religion and all the lies make one step back and look twice.
Okie
You misspelled “Romans.” The Jews had no authority to execute anyone once Palestine came under Roman authority.
I will also note that no mainstream Christian denomination continues to promote the “Christ killer” theme, so your comment is both inflammatory and inaccurate.
(And that is without even getting into the whole notion of whether any Jew would consider Jesus of Nazareth to be the “Messiah,” whatever Christians my believe.)
Gah! Stop it with the pedantic semantic quibbling. It was perfectly clear what the OP meant by using the term “fad”, and you don’t actually change anything by quibbling over the definition. If you were confused, that would ignorance that you need to work on.
And don’t act like his post was undecipherable. Many others got it. He’s discussing how religions are similar to fads. Yes, fads are shorter. Great. You’ve shown one difference. If you think that invalidates his premise, you are fooling yourself.
If the only argument you can come up with is that someone used a word incorrectly, then you have no argument at all. There’s a reason we consider semantic arguments to be stupid.
What you are doing is a common tactic to avoid arguments you don’t want to discuss. I’m sure there’s even a named fallacy for it. And it pretty much ruined this thread.
There’s glory for you.
Thank you H. D.