In this Pit threadClothahump poses an interesting question (although he entertainingly refuses to share his answer with us)
Now my own answer was:
but I’d be curious to review what others think here. Clothahump implies that anyone who studies comparative religions throughly can only conclude that all religions brainwash their followers. He has not convinced many in that thread of his position. Opinions of him are best kept to The Pit, and do not belong here. Any with thoughts that differ significantly from mine? Is even a God(s)-concept essential to all religion? (is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy?)
One of the posters up at the youth center of my church says “A Baptism is Not a Brainwashing.”
Q.E.D.
More seriously: I think the one thing that all religions have in common (even non-theistic religions like Buddhism) is that they attempt to provide meaningful answers for ontological questions: What does my existance mean? Why do I exist? etc.
I’d just add a fifth category to your list – religions provide structures for systematising and exploring portions of experience. (The structures and systems vary depending on the religion.)
I would say this overlaps with some of your categories somewhat (but they already overlap with each other somewhat, IMO), but is distinct from them.
I don’t tend to think so. And even those religions with concepts of the divine differ strongl in what that means. (I know of a number of people who consider gods to be nearly the same as Jungian archetypes, and interactions with them to be explorations of the human psyche in symbolic form. And people will have howling arguments about whether or not this counts as theism.) I get frustrated with discussions around here frequently because they often default to discussing ‘god’ in terms that only make sense from within an Abrahamic monotheist framework.
Buddhism is interesting to me because it can be (not necessarily according to its theology, but in the practice of people) implemented as both a religion on its own and as a philosophical approach or overlay to another religion. (It shares this trait with a couple of other systems; the ones I know of off top of head are Satanism and Discordianism.) It’s also worth noting that some forms of Buddhism do include gods; they just hold that the gods are caught on the wheel of samsara just like everyone else. (I think that’s also the Buddhist form that includes boddhisatvas, who are free of the wheel but continue to participate to give others a hand. Don’t depend on me; I got a C in that class. )
Religions make all sort of wild-eyed guesses as to why things are the way they are. Science, OTOH, has a much better track record – especially because it doesn’t turn itself into a pretzel, starting with an assumption and trying to make facts fit said assumption.
Agreed. So do social clubs.
A “sense of surety” based on what? Answer: faith.
Bottom line. There are many thing we don’t know. Difference being, non-religious people lack the (faux) security blanket provided by faith.
The one thing that all religions have in common is a group of people trying to extert control over another (usually much larger) group of people. Today’s political organization is yesterday’s religion. Republicans/Democrats and Catholics/Prodestants = idiots trying to control the rest of us. Preists, cardinals, bishops, popes = senators, congressman, presidents, etc.
Do religions, or at least most religions, offer a sense of empowerment? “Life here may suck, but soon it’ll be great!” or “Just do this and you’ll be rewarded!” or “This is how you take control of your environment”?
RedFury, there was no claim that only religion provided those functions. DSeid was simply looking for traits that are common to all religions. If the same functions are provided by other societal agencies, that does not mean that religion does not provide them.
50million, I think you’d have a hard time establishing that modern neo-pagan religions attempt to exert control over anyone beyond those who have already accepted the beliefs. I’m pretty sure that we could find other historical religions of which the same could be said. (E.g., Zoroastrianism had a brief fling with exerting control over the Prersian empire, but one would be hard pressed to find any modern Zoroastrians imposing much of anything on anyone. Similarly, the Baha’i are not known for any attempts to impose their will. (This was the logical error in which Clothahump indulged, deciding that because there have been periods in which notable religions have acted in certain ways, those exercises are inherent in the practice of religion.)
I also find this claim “Today’s political organization is yesterday’s religion.” to be a bit odd, as both parties mentioned arose at a time when Catholicism was a distinctly minority religion in the U.S. I cannot think of any U.S. parties (and rather few Europeans ones) that actually arose from “religion.” (although there have occaionally been overlapping populations in a few countries on some specific historical periods).
A religion is a shared supernatural understanding of how the universe operates.
Religions differ from regular day-to-day superstitions (i.e. “walking under a ladder is unlucky”) only in that they’re not one-off stand-alone supernatural beliefs. Rather they’re systems of interlocking & self-supporting supernatural beliefs that combine to create a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the universe and human existence.
You get too fixated on lists of attributes and you find you run into exceptional qualities of some-or-other faith that tend to confound more concise descriptions.
Metacom - I may be speaking with in sufficient knowledge, but I do not see any of the Chinese myths, or even Greek myths, as addressing ontologic questions.
Liliaren- Thank you for the information. You are right that some do overlap some. Part of the “problem” with religion is that the pillars overlap so much. Consequently when society no longer needs religion for one particular function, such as for “folk science”, but still has a need for it for other functions, some will resist letting any pillar for fear of collapsing the whole structure. Which brings me to
Red Fury- Certainly some of religions functions have been, to large extents, supplanted by other entities in the modern secular world. Democracy and postulates like “all men are created equal” also can provide a basis for rules and laws and can transcend individual faiths, allowing multiple religions to share a common set of behavioral expectations. Science indeed provides models more consistent with the observable world than Holy texts. Social clubs just don’t do it though for group identity. For whatever reason we do seem to have this need to have some group memberships bigger than immediate family and smaller than citizen of the world. They may be, as Vonnegut called them, granfalloons, but we do seem to create them and defend their existence vigorously. As to faith, do not mistake me for a Bible-thumper. Faith most valued when it is held not only in lieu of evidence but despite evidence to the contrary. When Rabbi Akiba was burned alive after the failed Bar-Kokhba Rebellion he (so the story goes) was smiling as the flames began to lick him. Why? He answered because he had always wondered if he’d have the faith to recite the Shma under these circumstances and now he knew that he did. This is a story told as a model for true religious faith. Do I have such faith? No. But I can understand how such faith has the potential to provide great comfort in a very unsure world. And why once someone has it, they’d be wont to give it up. I don’t have a security blanket but that doesn’t mean that do not see the attraction of one. And unlike Snoopy, I realize that Linus is better off with his blanket than without.
50mill- Just not true. Quite a few religions do not have a small group of leaders at the top. Quakers, Aboriginal faiths, Buddhism … even Judaism - Rabbis are not in charge so much as they are considered the most learned.
Quicksilver- Well dogma is really just a different word to say that there are some given postulates that are just accepted as true without the need for proof. Sure religion does that, but so does every system of knowledge and belief.
js- Actually I think that many religions do not. For example, ancient Judaism hardly dealt with afterlife at all and today’s Judaism is scarcely concerned with it. but I would include that in the “sense of surety in the face of a very unsure world” … there is little many would like reassurance about more other than what happens to our sentience after our death.
On preview - I agree Tom and Pochacco I think that’s covered under the folk science grouping.
From the point of view of an athiest, all religions are incorrect. More accurately, from the point of view of someone who does not believe in the supernatural or transcendental, all religions are incorrect about gods and/or purposes and/or underlying structure and meaning.
>Religion is needed by society for several reasons:
>1) Religion provides a common set of moral postulates on which to base behavioral expectations. That is, it provides the moral justification for the rules and laws.
But there are other ways to get these! As an athiest I crave happiness and deplore suffering for all living creatures.
>2) Religion provides a folk science, a set of explanations for why things are the way they are, a stab at thus predicting future events and possibly exerting some control over them.
Science provides these, and in a way that is generally correct rather than misleading.
>3) Religion provides a common bond for members of a group, cementing a kinship relationship be it real or fictive.
Lots of things provide this.
>4) Religion provides a sense of surety in the face of a very unsure world. Doubt is uncomfortable; faith succors.
This is very true, but it is not a reason we need religion. It is a reason we hunger for religion. Many athiests comment that they surely wish they could believe, because it would be so much more comfortable, and reassuring.
I think my definition is a bit broader and deeper than just your folk science point. The key phrase is Shared Supernatural Understanding.
Shared – A large group of people all have the same set of beliefs. The ravings of a lone crackpot are not a religion.
Supernatural – The beliefs revolve around entities or processes that transcend normal physical existence. Although science provides a shared understanding of how the universe operates, it’s not a religion.
Understanding – The beliefs are integrated into a comprehensive worldview. Simple superstitions just explain localized properties of the universe, but religion allows a believer to understand its totality. (Even if that understanding happens to be wrong.)
Some of your other propositions are not true of all religions. A religion doesn’t need to have a moral component, although many do. Neither does it need to promote fellowship, although again, many do simply because of the shared belief requirement.
At the bottom line of most religions is kindness to others. I am sure there are exceptions because the word religion paints a broad stroke. I believe that religions begin in peace, compassion, and honesty, but as time goes by hierachies are formed and authority becomes more important than kindness. If all believed in a higher intelligence and this “God” wanted us to honor and respect each other, would everyone do so. No, I don’t think so, but it might be better than it is now.
This is a link to one of the basic beliefs of more than a dozen religions.
Is there any significant religion that doesn’t believe in some sort of afterlife? Even those Buddhists who don’t believe in any god do think there is an afterlife.
I do not immediately recall a religion that does not describe an afterlife. On the other hand, the notion that the afterlife is “just there” and does not address the issue of reward and punishment has occurred on a few occasions, notably the ancient Greeks (Hades) and ancient Judaism (Sheol) which, in both cases, was simply a gloomy repository for the spirits of the dead, regardless how they had behaved in life.
As far as I can tell, all religions (and only religions) provide a system of ritualized practice for orienting one’s life (i.e., a system of worship, where worship is defined as a ritual orienting of human life) and the appropriate focus or foci towards which all of life should be oriented, both of which are generally contained within and supported by a coherent system of beliefs.
Other phenomena, including philosophies, governments, economic systems, art, fraternal societies, etc., may contain various elements of religion, but generally lack one or more componants, usually absoluteness (the claim to be the appropriate focus for one’s entire life or the entire life of a community) and/or ritual as a means of so ordering one’s life or the life of a community.
It is worth noting that absoluteness is not necessarily invasive. Many religions make minimal demands of adherants in day to day activity, but all, AFAICT, claim to tell you about What’s Really Important.
