JThunder Please read the title of the thread. Then, please read the OP.
I have had responses to what was a question not a claim. if you feel yourself unable or unwilling to answer then don’t. You seem to have misinterpreted my original question as an outright attack on religion. It is not. I am seeking answers from those who hold theistic viewpoints
For clarification, please read the post above from clairobscur. It is an example of what I am looking for.
Thanks
UnwrittenNocturne, you specifically said,
In other words, you implicitly claimed that religion IS a superstition. If you’re going to make that claim, and use it as the basis of your OP, then it’s only fair to call you on that assertion.
-Dictionary.com lists ‘superstition’ as a synonym for “religion”.
Their entry for Superstition defines it as:
While their entry for Religion defines it as:
It has been argued many times on this very board that the existence or nonexistence of a Creator or God cannot be proven. Whether you choose to see that as the inability to prove a negative, or choose to believe God hides himself in order to test our faith, theists believe in the unbelieveable, the unprovable.
That, to me, is the very definition of an “irrational belief”- and thus no different than believing that the positions of the planets at certain times will affect ones life in meaningful ways.
Doc Nickel, those two definitions are NOT the same. The definition for “superstition” explicity lists irrationality as a necessary condition. The definition for religion does NOT.
Unprovability is NOT the same as irrationality. I can not prove that the universe isn’t just some bizarre laboratory experiment, but it is rational for me to believe otherwise. I can not prove that you are not some elaborate computer simulation, but it is rational for me to assume that you are not.
Religion is NOT a synonym for superstition.
It’s not? Check my link above- Dictionary.com seems to think it is. Got a problem with that? Take it up with them.
So tell me JT, what’s the difference between a rational belief in the impossible/unprovable and an irrational belief in the impossible/unprovable?
-Quite true. However, the belief in the unprovable (and in this case, illogical and impossible) despite data to the contrary, is by definition irrational.
What is it about religion, generically, that distinguishes it from any other superstition?
Isn’t it obvious? A religion is true.
No, they say no such thing. Let me repeat what you quoted:
Do you see the word “irrational” anywhere there? No? That’s because it’s not there.
Look, we could debate the rules of evidence all week long if we want to, but that’s beside the point. The point is that dictionary.com only describes religion as belief or reverence in some supernatural power. It does not state that such belief must be irrational, and it does not even remotely hint at such.
A religion typically contains an explanation of the origin of the universe, the origins of man, the belief in some sort of afterlife, and a moral code that followers should live by. Superstitions don’t necessarily contain any of the above.
Marc
Even Dictionary.Com agrees with me folks. You want to know how to seperate an irrational belief from the rational?
My religion, my belief in the fundamental divine is the absolute truth. Your belief in your irrational non-existant God-Thing is superstition.
Or, as Mel Brooks put it, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die.”
(Believe it or not, the emphasis is Mel’s, although I’m interpreting it as such.)
Allow me to clarify:
If you look at the very first link I posted (dictionary.com seems to be down for the moment) it quite clearly lists “superstition” as a synonym for “religion”. Religion is therefore a synonym of superstition, if you want to pick nits.
Yes, I understand that you, personally, disagree, but apparently whoever compiled the dictionary listings (technically their thesaurus listings) feels otherwise.
Now, if you wish to argue the validity of that site as a reference, feel free. Please give a reason for your disagreement.
However, in your replies, I see that you are instead arguing the difference between the two dictionary definitions I posted. The difference between the two is, in my opinion, a rational belief in the supernatural, or an irrational belief in the supernatural. (I also realize it’s kind of a hijack of the original topic, for which I apologize to said poster.)
The word “irrational” is not found in the definition of “religion”, but it is indeed implied. “Supernatural”, by definition, is outside the known realm of science or provability. To believe in something that cannot be proven, and is outside the purview of science by it’s very definition (creating matter and energy from nothing, restoring the dead to life, supposedly residing outside this dimension of time and space, etc) is wholly irrational.
You, I’m sure, feel that your belief is not irrational. Do you, in turn, feel that a child’s belief in the Easter Bunny is rational? How about the Raelian’s belief in the mother spaceship? Rational or not? The Chinese belief in the flow of life energy of buildings and objects, and how that energy can be harnessed and directed by the placement of furniture? The belief that if you break a mirror you’re due for seven years of bad luck?
Why are any of these beliefs any more or less irrational than your belief there’s an entity out there somewhere that can create entire planets with the snap of his fingers, raise the dead or stop the Earth from orbiting the sun for an hour?
David Koresh believed in Jesus Christ as well, why was his belief “irrational” and yours is rational?
astrology could have had the same grave position in peoples hearts as christianity has… it depends on them… minds others than mine are obscure to me… what does frog feel?.. what does christian feel?.. these two are comparable mysteries… there is no use to bother with them…
That’s a very good question you pose (aside from your implication that religion is a superstition). I had to think about it for a while, because I find superstitions rather foolish (though sometimes in an endearing, sometimes in an annoying, and sometimes in a dangerous way), while I can respect religious beliefs (some of them at least), even ones I do not personally share. But when I try to define the difference, it gets a little tricky.
For one thing, “superstition” usually refers to a specific belief or practice, while a “religion” is a whole integrated system of beliefs, practices, traditions, ethical rules, cultural norms, communities, hierachies, etc.
But the question is really, what’s the difference between a superstitious belief and a religious belief? Well, after thinking it over for an hour or two, here’s what I came up with:
In the words of Stevie Wonder, “When you believe in things that you don’t understand,” that’s superstition. That is, a superstitious belief reflects a lack of understanding, specifically of cause and effect. If you believe that X causes Y, without any notion of how or why, that’s a superstition.
For example, if you claim that riding a motorcycle without a helmet brings “bad luck” or misfortune, this is not a superstition if you have a pretty good idea how it can lead to misfortune. If you claim that breaking a mirror brings bad luck, or that carrying a rabbit’s foot brings good luck, without giving any good reason how or why this could work, that’s a superstition. If you claim that that there is a God (or one of the gods) who decides to punish mirror-breaking by inflicting misery on anyone who does it, I would not call this a superstition but a religious belief (probably a wrong or silly religious belief, at least unless you could show me some bigger picture within which such a belief makes sense, and/or provide statistical evidence of a correlation between mirror breaking and misfortune; but still, a religious belief as opposed to a superstition).
Astrology, for example, I consider a superstition rather than a religious belief, because I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for how the position of the stars on the date of ones birth could influence ones personality or lot in life.
It’s true that some people have superstitious beliefs mixed in with their religion, or hold religious beliefs for superstitious reasons. It’s also true that some people have superstitious beliefs mixed in with their science, or hold scientific beliefs for superstitious reasons. One person might kneel when he prays because he thinks that his prayers “work” better that way or God hears him better when he’s on his knees (without really thinking about why he thinks so): superstition. Another person might kneel when he prays because it helps him concentrate and get in a prayerful frame of mind, or it’s his way of humbling himself before God: not superstition.
There is some good insight here into the distinction already, but I want to put forth my thinking anyway. Let me first insert the concept of “non-rational” to forestall the stormclouds I see brewing on the horizon. A “rational” human being will do many things in the course of his life for non-rational reasons; marriage is for most people a non-rational decision – not irrational but not demonstrable by rational principles as a desirable action to take, without reference to irrelevant issues like emotions (which would have to be classified as non-rational motivators). And any decision taken on the preponderance of admittedly insufficient reasons, where an immediate choice is incumbent and there is not enough data for a truly rational decision, is non-rational. “Irrational” I hear as drawing a line that need not be there. It means “contrary to reason” while non-rational simply means “not entirely based on reasoning.”
Religion, being based on a decision to model one’s life on a standard derived from unfalsifiable assertions, is emphatically a non-rational decision. In some cases (Koresh was given as an example) it may be an irrational decision – but, for obvious reasons, I would be inclined to say that it need not be, and usually is not.
This is not to say that poor logic from that life-commitment may not be irrational – it will not be at all hard to find examples of this.
This brings me to the distinction I see:
A superstition is a single isolated belief in a single non-rational cause:effect phenomenon. A religion, by contrast, is by virtue of the beliefs found in it a life-shaping (and often life-changing) commitment to a system of belief.
I’ve been careful to avoid reference to God in this – although most major religions focus on a commitment to God or a god or gods, or behavior in accordance with principles said to have been laid down by him or them. Buddhism is perhaps the classic example of a non-theist religion ( ::: hoping nobody brings up Spong in this thread ::: ) and I tried to shape my definition to include its principles.
I have a feeling that definition needs further explication, but I’m going to submit this now, and see what questions and arguments come up about it.
Look, to understand what “superstition” means, we have to ask: what is a “stition?”
Dictionary.com defines a stition as:
“No entry found”
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=stition
That means that a “super”-stition is some sort of SUPER-“No entry found”
Seriously though Polycarp, I’d make a much stronger objection than that. Rationality applies to the character of arguments: of ordered thought. That means we can dump all this stuff about emotions being “non-rational motivators” and the like as being as unecessary as describing lampshades as “non-oboe-playing objects” or pigs as “non-basketball playing porkchops.” Yes, rationality isn’t the question: but no one should even have thought it was in the first place, because the things we are talking about aren’t the sorts of things that the concept of “rational” can apply to. People’s motivations aren’t rational or irrational: they are facts. Their thinking about these motivations may itself be rational or irrational, but that’s a different ball of wax. But “rational/irrational” is not a distinction that makes sense to apply to every noun or verb.
First, my thanks to those who have been posting here for their insights. The reason for my OP had much to do with the nature of the two things (and thanks to Polycarp for noting non-theist religion), and how people seperate them - an epistemelogical distinction if you will.
Apos, you speak of motivations as facts, and I would agree with that, but doesn’t that ask for the causes of motivations (are motivations, usually emotional and non-rational, based on whatever unlying premises we have)? If yes, and i cannot see them coming into being in a void, then can we speak of them in terms of rationality or nonrationality? Just a thought.
Polycarp said:
That is possibly the most concise answer I have come across, and will set me off now wondering at how religions perhaps grew from a seeking of causes for observed effects.
Thudlow Boink. Thanks, and good analogy. In your thinking does the positing of a higher power mean that:
x --> y for superstition (where x=cause and y=effect)
but:
Universal z(x --> y) where z is the existence of a higher power
I apologise for the messiness of that form, but I do not have a char set that will display symbolic logic characters.
I ask that because you mentioned, to paraphrase, without an explanation and I am seeking to clarify that for myself.
Again, thanks for your insights
Apos, a good point. But people tend to use “rationality” in social contexts – adherence to libertarianism or socialism is considered “rational behavior” by most people, while adherence to a certitude that invisible elves from the Earth’s hollow core are influencing the decisions of the President and Congress is considered “irrational.”
And my point was simply that religion is not and is not intended to be “rational” as proceeding logically from a commonly held set of facts – it develops from convictions as to the nature of a godhead (or reasonable facsimile – as in the nature of the universe which makes nirvana a desirable state) and of humanity, on rational trains of thought given the presumptive convictions, but with no common consent as to the factuality of the convictions themselves.
For one thing, a superstition has no reason it is, whereas a religion is generally an informal or codified attempt to understand reality and the human experience with reference to extra-human forces. In that sense, sciecne and religion are the same.
Superstitions simply say: do this and its bad, do this and it is good. But no one can rationally describe why or how it is bad. Science and religions seek to understand the basic nature of existance.