What Religion Actually Is

[Mock Turtle]

Not in practice, because you and I are not one. We are 2 different things in time and space. And you can't make us one, without one or both of us disappearing.
You are doing philosophy.

But that hardly matters. What we experience or think or do - we still exist in the one reality - it might seem different for us both but that is merely an illusion.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Language is a social phenomenon. Words mean what the average educated person uses them to mean. That meaning is recorded in the better dictionaries, which are based on extensive surveys of usage. So, from the Oxford English Dictionary

If you tell a normal person that you have a religion but do not believe in a god or gods they will be somewhat perplexed.

The etymology of a word is irrelevant to its actual meaning. The Latin explodere meant 'to boo off the stage" — not much connection with bombs! The word "gentle" originally meant "well-bred".

The Latin religio meant "scrupulousness" — a person was religiosus if they were meticulous in performing their duties, whether sacred or secular. In the Middle Ages, a religio was a rule of life as practiced by monastics — that why "religious" as a noun is an old-fashioned word for a monk, friar, or nun. Calvin wrote a book about theology and the rules of Christian life and called it Institutio Christianae Religionis. It's widely believed that this contributed to the modern sense of the word "religion".

Then use this:
religion | Definition & List of Religions

Just the start above the picture.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But that hardly matters. What we experience or think or do - we still exist in the one reality - it might seem different for us both but that is merely an illusion.

I like the illusion and it works for me as real. More philosophy and what not.

So the illusion and reality is one?

 

[Bear Wild]

All of you people talking about books of faith (I won't call them holy books) as dusty old tomes, or stuff about goatherders and fishers, aee starting to come across as not only mean-spirited but also kinda ignorant.

Do you actually know the how and why about religion, or are you just making assumptions? So, I'll tell you what religion officially is according to World Religions class, and you can debate that if you want to. But hopefully that should stop some of the snotty behavior I've seen latelym.

First off, religion does not require a God or gods, nor a view of the afterlife, nor many of the other things associated with religion. You see, at its most basic, the word means to "reconnect" (you'll see some dictionaries give a false word origin of "to chain together" or something but this is not only a bad translation , but basically a jab at the role of religion, marking it as some sort of oppressive force).

How did religion start? Well, it's believed to be a survival method. The first believed religion was the cave bear cult. Basically, a group of humans tried to appease a predator by worshipping it, and offering food. You say, "How foolish!" But you'll notice, they didn't get eaten. Gradually, the thing they were trying to appease was less actual creatures, and more about concepts. In particular, humans trying to fend off death somehow, or the forces of nature. Whether this works or not is a matter of opinion, but I hope you understand something by the end of this. It isn't beliefs that are important, it's reconnecting.

What do I mean by reconnecting? Well, I've been watching an anime called Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions (Chuunibyou are Japanese students, typically 2nd year, who basically engage in fantasy as a way of breaking from from the extremely conformist Japanese culture). Anyway, it details this girl and a boy, who help set up a club for goofy ppl like themselves. But all the weird behavior isn't what's the point. Rather, this story is about the girl trying to come to grips with her dad dying and deciding to have fun with her friends. And, much like Don Quixote, when her guy forces her to face that her dad in fact is not coming back, her world falls apart. The club disbands, those friends disconnect from each other, and she just kinda... shuts down. She leaves town to go back to her grandparents, and her friends in turn stop being goofy and just kinda take apart all that the club did because "it wasn't that important anyway." Eventually, he tracks her down and convinces her that it's okay to wear a goofy eyepatch or whatever.

After death is tempting to say that only real is that nothing is beyond that, but don't actually know that. And more importantly, the point of religion is to form a club of souprts. To reconnect: with our true selves, with each other especially, and with the sense of wonder and mystery of the world. The idea is that people who are suffering or dealing with loss have a sense of hope, because they have other ppl giving them tidings. (And this is why atheists are ********)

That's my take on what religion means. What exactly are you "reconnecting" with?

Religion is the by-product of changes in the brain by natural selection promoting pro-social behavior as well as aspects of brain activity to reduce stress from unexplained aspects of the environment. Later religion culturally became a social control mechanism.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I like the illusion and it works for me as real. More philosophy and what not.

So the illusion and reality is one?

I would think the illusions are subsets of reality. How can they be anything different?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I would think the illusions are subsets of reality. How can they be anything different?

Reality is one, so they can't be a subset. The one reality is the truth, so either illusions are a part of the one reality and the truth or you are doing some form of dualism. Don't play philosophy with me. I am a skeptic.

 

[Hawkins]

What humans lack while concerning is the ability to tell a future. We thus need faith to assume that either life ends here or it can go beyond.

Religion is all about how such a future going beyond our death is told by a God. If a religion doesn't fall into this category it's only optional, that is you don't need it.

All left is about how you can get to the info from such a God about the future of humans.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Reality is one, so they can't be a subset. The one reality is the truth, so either illusions are a part of the one reality and the truth or you are doing some form of dualism. Don't play philosophy with me. I am a skeptic.

OK we'll leave it there.

 

[Aupmanyav]

There is no absolute truth. All cases of truth are localized to specific parts of the world in practice.

There is sure an 'absolute truth', but we have not yet found it. Science has to work hard to get to know it. It will take time.
IM (not so) HO, it relates to the problem of existence and non-existence. To a 'Quantum Vaccum' and 'Absolute Nothing'.
Unfortunately, not in my life-time. It is going to take longer.

 

[dfnj]

That's my take on what religion means. What exactly are you "reconnecting" with?

Oh "reconnecting". When I first read your post I kept reading "resurrecting" which is a completely different experience to what you were saying!

I have said many times the purpose and reason religion exists is because people do not like uncertainty. People like everything nice and neat and well-defined. The problem is there are many things and issue about our lives that are really unanswerable questions. That is, certain questions about our lives do not have clearly defined and unequivocal answers. For some people the not knowing is unbearable.

So in response to these difficult questions people invent answers. Belief in the answers is called faith. There are entire disciplines of behavior we call religion which provide a set of answers and a context in which to live a meaningful life with a minimum amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

I think the questions themselves are important. Over the years I've synthesized it down to four essential questions that I think are the best set and the bases for every religion.

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. What does it all mean?
4. What is going to happen to me when I die?

I'm not exactly sure if your idea about "reconnecting" covers all the questions completely and accurately.

Sexual copulation is reconnecting. I once heard a short poem: Birth, copulation, death.

With regards to Chuunibyou and good story telling. I am huge fan of Joseph Campbell and all his work on comparative religious studies. He wrote a book called, "A Hero with a Thousand Faces" which he made a fundamental connection between religions all over the World that they were all telling the same story. Here's a video describing the one same story:

The picture being shown for this video does not do it justice.

There is something else that has really influenced my way of thinking about religion. Many years ago when I was in college I took several course on Artificial Intelligence. At the time I did not believe in unsolvable problems. I really thought at the time I could be the first person to write a true AI computer program. As part of my effort I started studying how the human mind works. This led me to the study of psychology. This then took me down a path of studying Jungian psychology which I've been fascinated with my whole life. But at the time I found a Jungian book on a particular set of psychology of types. At the time I thought it was extremely profound a true map of the human consciousness. I would then use this map to write my true AI computer program. If you are interest at all in Jungian psychology here is the book. It has a really great section and exploration into the source of human spirituality.

https://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/dp/0062506064

I'm not the only one who likes this book. On Amazon it is highly rated by a large number of people. So I was very close to solving the problem of true AI and start writing my computer program. And then I was completely destroyed by the work of John Searle. His ideas, although you can't prove a negative, gave me a strong intuition Strong AI on Von Neumann type computer was most likely not possible. So I lost interest in Artificial Intelligence completely. I think people who think AI will be like humans some day are deluding themselves. I think human consciousness is infinitely connected to the root of existence. This is not a typical quality of digital computers. Here is John Searle talking about AI at Google:

Recently my ideas about religion and God were deeply shaken and changed when I watch this video, "If God exists how does he or she work? Rupert Sheldrake 2018":

Since watching this video I have not been able to change my way of thinking not to include some form of Apophatic theology:

Apophatic theology - Wikipedia

Sorry for the long response. But not really.

 

[dfnj]

There is sure an 'absolute truth', but we have not yet found it. Science has to work hard to get to know it. It will take time.
IM (not so) HO, it relates to the problem of existence and non-existence. To a 'Quantum Vaccum' and 'Absolute Nothing'.
Unfortunately, not in my life-time. It is going to take longer.

I have heard some philosophers claim Kurt Godel's Incompleteness proof is the one and only absolute truth to ever have been discovered by man.

Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

Here's a very good simple video on the subject:

Some philosophers have argued Kurt Godel's proof has wider implications than just mathematics. Whether it does or not is clearly a subjective opinion and not something to be decided objectively.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There is sure an 'absolute truth', but we have not yet found it. Science has to work hard to get to know it. It will take time.
IM (not so) HO, it relates to the problem of existence and non-existence. To a 'Quantum Vaccum' and 'Absolute Nothing'.
Unfortunately, not in my life-time. It is going to take longer.

You don't know that. It is nothing but a belief in your mind.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

Read the criticism on the same page. Nothing goes uncontested in science, not even Godel.
Science is not a revealed scripture. Science does not go by circular reasoning.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Read the criticism on the same page. Nothing goes uncontested in science, not even Godel.
Science is not a revealed scripture. Science does not go by circular reasoning.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

Check out Agrippa the Skeptic. That also applies to science.

 

[Aupmanyav]

You don't know that. It is nothing but a belief in your mind.

If I knew I would have tried to explain that. But as I said, it is something for future. The basic question is 'From where the energy arose at the time of Big Bang?" It is at present beyond our event horizon. We will know only when we cross this horizon, perhaps with the help of "Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation" or some other method. Why do Black Holes blow up? Does energy arises along with space? I am not a scientist. Perhaps you can find these questions in the "Unsolved questions of science". Science does not hide anything.
Lists of unsolved problems - Wikipedia
What Happens When A Black Hole Dies?, etc.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Check out Agrippa the Skeptic. That also applies to science.

I did, perhaps because you mentioned him earlier also. I have no judgment, I only have questions.
I respect Greek views just as much as the Indian views. They had sharp minds. Don't know much about China.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If I knew I would have tried to explain that. But as I said, it is something for future. The basic question is 'From where the energy arose at the time of Big Bang?" It is at present beyond our event horizon. We will know only when we cross this horizon, perhaps with the help of "Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation" or some other method. Why do Black Holes blow up? Does energy arises along with space? I am not a scientist. Perhaps you can find these questions in the "Unsolved questions of science". Science does not hide anything.
Lists of unsolved problems - Wikipedia
What Happens When A Black Hole Dies?, etc.

You use in effect a set of assumptions about what your first person experiences are about other than being your first person experiences .
But you can't use reason, logic/proof/truth, evidence or what not on them. They are the base assumptions from which you derive how you explain your version of what objective reality is, other than being just objective reality.

You are doing philosophy in the end and so am I. I just know that there is no positive privileged position possible for any set of assumptions over other assumptions.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I did, perhaps because you mentioned him earlier also. I have no judgment, I only have questions.
I respect Greek views just as much as the Indian views. They had sharp minds. Don't know much about China.

There are no answers to the questions other than your own answers. Objective reality won't answer!

 

[Samantha Rinne]

@Samantha Rinne

Your position is fairly common in atheists. In fact, you will get very little argument from them about the origin of religion as a body of superstitions and stories that help pre-scientific humans to better understand and operate in their world. The difference is that you see this as a good thing while most atheists see it as either superfluous or downright hurtful when those supersititions and stories no longer help or even reduce the ability of humans to operate in their world. Atheists are of course opposed to the pronouncement of absolute truth that some religious people make about their particular body of superstitions and myths.

Essentially, as I say, I was watching some anime.

They showed how this girl was basically not helped by her family religion (which was Shintoism or Buddhism, I think), almost being forced to go through the ritual of pouring wine/water over the grave. This too was technically a philosophy of how the dead live on. But it was making her face the death of her father once with her seeing his picture surrounded by flowers, and again later when she dumped stuff on his grave. In orher words, Buddhism/Shintoism, her official religion failed her.

But you could tell her actual religion was her club. They had a denial approach but as a group they helped her cope with her loss.

You say how hurtful it is to be surrounded by religion or whatever. But what about how hurtful it is to want to believe that your brother/sister/parents/spouse/pet is still with you, and get a stick-in-the-mud tell you "Sorry, they're gone forever. And your life is pointless"? That's surely it least as hurtful as being in denial. You're crushed by grief and unable to function. This is why I contend that the actual important component of religion is to have a sense of community, not faith or any of that stuff. Because it all comes down to what other ppl tell you when events happen.

 

[Aupmanyav]

You are doing philosophy in the end and so am I. I just know that there is no positive privileged position possible for any set of assumptions over other assumptions.

I do not differentiate between science and philosophy, both are search for truth. As I mentioned do have my guesses and modern science (Quantum Mechanics) points to some strange things. Space/energy arising out of 'absolute nothing' is not something which is not being considered today.

There are no answers to the questions other than your own answers. Objective reality won't answer!

Objective reality does not answer today, but tomorrow it can (as I said, not likely in my life-time). I have no problem with that. After all, billions of people have died without knowing objective reality. Something for future.