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Religion that is instructive vs. religion that is descriptive

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
So from my point of view, it seems like most mainline religions, at least in the western world, tend to focus on instruction. Instruction about about how and where to meet god's approval, instruction about how to live your whole life, what to think, what to do etc. You meet god at one point or another by following a number of rules, by praying and believing, by fulfilling, and through all of this instruction you believe that you may activate god, and it might do something for you, either on earth or elsewhere. Or if you don't believe that, at least you will believe that it may not harm you for following tenets.

First of all, all of this becomes quickly antithetical, I might argue, to our native proximity to physical reality as apparent corporeal objects. Sine qua non, It crosses a fine line to embrace the metaphysical, and relieves the physical to a mere anecdotal spiritual standing.

A religion that is descriptive, arguably speaking to that which we lack, might show an infinitely more explanatory set of datums for that which is physical, concerning all of the things (all of the physically proximal real things of a vast multitude in standard reality) that mankind has so long grappled with understanding in the wake of a focus on following instructions.

In the Bible for example, genesis is the only book I find that shows some small reserve of interest in the descriptive qualities of human experience as opposed to the instructive. It of course, quickly becomes intensely instructive full stop. Adam is allowed to name animals and birds, but this of course is a grossly incomplete taxonomic act in proportion to nature. I'm skeptical that the insects, plants, and fish were ever so named. And so Adam may never have been brought in proximity to an anglerfish to name it, and thus implicit in the omission, the organism is not spiritually or instructively important.

Adam may not have even known much about the garden he was within, or the exotic forests thereabout. In there being a forbidden fruit, there is of course even a spiritual trepidation that he should even understand nature. (this trepidation has probably not served mankind well ever since) Thus, the descriptive value of natural reality, which is so very proximal to our own, seems to have earned here a taboo.

We modern people learn new things every day. Not so long ago, they would have learned for example, something about the highest mountain on mars, Olympus Mons. This mountain however, is as insignificant to common instructive religion as would be an anglerfish. Whatever the surface of Venus is like, or whatever is within Jupiter, all of that is not important to Adam. What was important to adam is specifically that he should focus on instruction, and in his embryonic case, actually the avoidance of learning some random particular about nature.

I guess my point is, I think that a descriptive religion may have worked to shape us in an opposite way, and at the expense of instruction, we might now be living in a more advanced age of information. (the river is going that way anyway folks) However, we may never know.
 
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Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
So from my point of view, it seems like most mainline religions, at least in the western world, tend to focus on instruction. Instruction about about how and where to meet god's approval, instruction about how to live your whole life, what to think, what to do etc. You meet god at one point or another by following a number of rules, by praying and believing, by fulfilling, and through all of this instruction you believe that you may activate god, and it might do something for you, either on earth or elsewhere. Or if you don't believe that, at least you will believe that it may not harm you for following tenets.

First of all, all of this becomes quickly antithetical, I might argue, to our native proximity to physical reality as apparent corporeal objects. Sine qua non, It crosses a fine line to embrace the metaphysical, and relieves the physical to a mere anecdotal spiritual standing.

A religion that is descriptive, arguably speaking to that which we lack, might show an infinitely more explanatory set of datums for that which is physical, concerning all of the things (all of the physically proximal real things of a vast multitude in standard reality) that mankind has so long grappled with understanding in the wake of a focus on following instructions.

In the Bible for example, genesis is the only book I find that shows some small reserve of interest in the descriptive qualities of human experience as opposed to the instructive. It of course, quickly becomes intensely instructive full stop. Adam is allowed to name animals and birds, but this of course is a grossly incomplete taxonomic act in proportion to nature. I'm skeptical that the insects, plants, and fish were ever so named. And so Adam may never have been brought in proximity to an anglerfish to name it, and thus implicit in the omission, the organism is not spiritually or instructively important.

Adam may not have even known much about the garden he was within, or the exotic forests thereabout. In there being a forbidden fruit, there is of course even a spiritual trepidation that he should even understand nature. (this trepidation has probably not served mankind well ever since) Thus, the descriptive value of natural reality, which is so very proximal to our own, seems to have earned here a taboo.

We modern people learn new things every day. Not so long ago, they would have learned for example, something about the highest mountain on mars, Olympus Mons. This mountain however, is as insignificant to common instructive religion as would be an anglerfish. Whatever the surface of Venus is like, or whatever is within Jupiter, all of that is not important to Adam. What was important to adam is specifically that he should focus on instruction, and in his embryonic case, actually the avoidance of learning some random particular about nature.

I guess my point is, I think that a descriptive religion may have worked to shape us in an opposite way, and at the expense of instruction, we might now be living in a more advanced age of information. (the river is going that way anyway folks) However, we may never know.

Descriptive of physical reality? A religion that tells us how nature works?
 

MikeDwight

Well-Known Member
I understand the author's point. Many will have narrow institutional instruction in religion. Nevertheless, I see religion in History in terms of that which isn't a Culture, Culture: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. Formed over the top of these was a Community of Nations which were the Christians. Or maybe the Muslims. The Muslims believed in a single Caliph, Caliphate, or Ruler, or Empire. The religion does impose Arabic language. Nevertheless there's Arabic, Berber, national cultures perhaps. Religion historically looks at the international organization of the Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire. These spheres of Religion are truly highly studied today. These basically form the Catholic and Orthodox split of the united religion. I think religion is where scholars used to call home. A man who wanted to learn anything became religious and a scholar. The alphabets follow the mindset of the varying church traditions between nations.
 

MikeDwight

Well-Known Member
behold.. I am the author
Well, you the author are the one dismissing all "mainline" religion from Western Civilization. "Western Christianity' then? Chalcedonic Christianity, to become Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran Christianity? If you want to be talked and instructed to like a 5 year old then you should read the Quran, and a General is writing down all sorts of things for you the listener to Actively think. Hey, you listener. If you liked the Oddessey, Homer, and Greek story telling then you'd be able to engage in the 'descriptive narrative' format that is the Bible.
 

MikeDwight

Well-Known Member
A man who wanted to learn anything once became a philosopher

Or the Arian and Gnostic Christianity of a time when the Christian religious domain was less stratified
Really? Some sort of, pre-Renaissance court Thinker? Some sort of paid thinker? Nostradamus? Why wouldn't you join the men that eat and think and pray.

Arians never reached more than a collection of barbarians, the visigoths?
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
extend that even to artificial things , engineering , things we could do but haven't
Religion is not about telling human beings how to make physical things or how to learn science :) Religion only teaches us how to look within and how to find the way back to a God or heaven (Buddha, Nirvana)
Time on earth is actually like a punishment for religious people, because we experience suffering when we are in the physical realm. So the goal is to go back to non physical life.
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
Religion is not about telling human beings how to make physical things or how to learn science :)

My paternal ancestors being Irish , there in that root we find the druids, who at one time had a vast religion approximately centered around an "inquiry into natural causes and phenomena." So that kind of attitude did exist at one time, you are judging what religion is about from our present moment

Time on earth is actually like a punishment for religious people, because we experience suffering when we are in the physical realm. So the goal is to go back to non physical life.

So oft repeated by many, this maxim. However, I doubt many regular people who aren't suffering grievously would spend the majority of their daily moments contemplating that. People generally try to feel good
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
My paternal ancestors being Irish , there in that root we find the druids, who at one time had a vast religion approximately centered around an "inquiry into natural causes and phenomena." So that kind of attitude did exist at one time, you are judging what religion is about from our present moment



So oft repeated by many, this maxim. However, I doubt many regular people that aren't suffering grievously would spend the majority of their daily moments contemplating that. People generally try to feel good
The Buddha do teach us that physical things does not matter, because when we die we can not take them with us in to the next life, or in to Nirvana. Nature is guiding us in the physcal life,but it is only by contemplating each experiance as to what we did in the past, why do i suffer tody? Because of something i did in the past. But my goal is to only live in the moment. Not in the past or in the future :)
 
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