Just what is Religion?

[Quinfeldt]

RELIGION




Definitions
To effect a vital adjustment (even if tentative and/or incomplete) to whatever is worthy of serious and ulterior concern.

Recognizing that all things are manifestations of a Power that transcends our knowledge.

Ethics heightened, enkindled, and lit up by feeling.

Pure, reverential disposition… ‘piety.’


Characteristics
Supernatural beings (gods) exist.

Ability to distinguish between sacred and profane objects.

Ritual acts with sacred objects.

Feelings of awe, mystery, guilt, adoration that arises from ritual acts with sacred objects.

Morality approved by the gods.

Prayer or other communicative forms with gods.

Global view of purposeful existence and its relevance therein.

Individual organization based on global view.

A social group bound together by all or most of the above.


Types;
1) Location of the divine;
Sacramental; inanimate physical things, living things
Prophetic; Human history events, historical figures
Mystical; indivisible unity with no awareness to words, nature, or self

2) Response to the divine;
Sacramental; ritual preoccupation
Prophetic; acceptance of the message (ethics)
Mystical; self-torture to empty the soul and make it receptive for divine influence

3) Place of doctrine;
Sacramental; sacred objects and ritual
Prophetic; belief and morality
Mystical; immediate experience and feeling

4) Concrete application;
Sacramental; Hinduism religion
Prophetic; Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Confucianism religions
Mystical; Buddhism religion, philosophical Hinduism




Buddhism:
Founder = Siddhartha Gautama (aka Sakyamuni, Tathagata, or Jina)
Founding location = India (Buddhism exists marginally in present day India)
Time of first development = ~ 525 B. C.

The Four Noble Truths:




1) Existence is suffering.

2) The origin of suffering lies in craving and attachment.

3) The cessation of suffering is possible through the cessation of craving.

4) The way to total transcendence is the Noble Eightfold Path:

Preliminary frame of mind of the aspirant;
1) Right views
2) Right aspirations
Ethical requirements;
3) Right speech
4) Right conduct
5) Right livelihood
Meditative training required to obtain serene knowledge;
6) Right effort
7) Right mindfulness
8 )Right contemplation

Cause and effect; dependent origination (praytityasamutpada)
a - Ignorance e - Senses i – Becoming



b - Predisposition f - Contact j - Birth
c - Consciousness g - Craving k - Old-age
d - Name-form h - Grasping l – Death……..repeat a through l

The release of this cycle is the total transcendence called nirvana.



Characteristics of the individual;

1) Suffering

2) Absence of self and soul – In the skandhas of Experience, no self or soul is found.



Experience forms; 1) rupa – material existence
2) vedena - sensations
3) samjna - perceptions
4) samskara – psychic constructs
5) vijana – consciousness

3) Impermanence – All entity types can be analyzed as a series of transitory states.

The three main schools of Buddhism;

1) Theravada(Doctrine of the Elders)
Location – Ceylon, Burma and Southeast Asia

2) Mahayana(Great Vehicle)
Location – China, Korea and Japan

3) Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle)
Location – Tibet and Japan

These are just some basics. As in the ‘Religion’ summary, variations exist. Neither summary is designed to be complete, but rather, the most prevailing and fundamental attributes are noted.

[filghy2]

I think religion boils down to two things: some explanation for the purpose of our existence and a set of rules for how we should live. All the rest is just trappings to make the followers of a religion feel special relative to others. There's nothing wrong with that in itself - the problems arise when people try to impose their beliefs on others and persecute those who won't conform.

[broncofan]

I notice that the first post discusses religion in general but then focuses on Buddhism in particular. This is interesting because as Filghy points out religion tends to involve both a purpose for our existence AND a set of rules to live by. Buddhism is a religion but a lot of people in the west practice a secularized version of it. I'm not familiar enough with what they choose to disregard, but I imagine they disregard those elements that relate to divinity or the supernatural and are more focused on it as a personal philosophy.

From the little I've read about Buddhist philosophy I've found a lot of it insightful and useful. I have also been practicing a form of vipassana meditation for about a month and have found I feel better after I do it. Some of the reasons people choose to meditate are consistent with the Buddhist worldview, but one doesn't need to have delved too deeply into the philosophy to derive benefits from meditation.

I am an atheist in the sense that I don't believe in a supreme being and don't believe human beings have a special purpose or destiny. But I would like to investigate Buddhist teachings a little bit more.

I took this sentence from Wikipedia. I'm curious to hear people's reaction to it since I'm not sure what direction this thread would take otherwise:
The Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism: we crave and cling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na)
to impermanent states and things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra#Conditioned_things)
, which is dukkha, "incapable of satisfying" and painful.

There's a lot in Buddhism I don't agree with but I think this observation of dukkha is a good one. Our strong desire to acquire things in the vain hope acquisition will make us happy is a source of a lot of pain I think. Thanks for the thread!

[trish]

I’m not so sure I’m opposed to the idea of taking joy in impermanence, for we ourselves are impermanent: we live, we change, we love, we die. Laughter itself lives for a convulsive moment and then dies away with a few murmurs and hiccups. Still I wouldn’t advise anyone to avoid laughter, or pleasure, or love, or life on the basis that they’re impermanent. Just don’t seek those pleasures selfishly at the expense of others. The universe itself it impermanent. What we know of it had a beginning, and it’s been expanding and changing ever since. Perhaps the expansion itself is eternal. One can seek to understand it intellectually, but it’s too far too big and far too impersonal a thing to seek and become one with. Our lives are here, loud and vibrant right now - and we will be nothing but diminishing chords and echos in the tomorrows to come.

[holzz]

religion is jjust some priest or government mandating what God says is real.

Name any major world religion that doesn't have splits, based on what some group's interpretation of their holy book, or teachings?

Christianity has Catholics and Protestants.
Islam has Sunni and Shi'a.
Hinduism has Sanatan, and even atheist Hindus.

If there is a God, it's not what some priest, minister, imam, or what have you says.

[Ben in LA]

religion is jjust some priest or government mandating what god says is real.

Name any major world religion that doesn't have splits, based on what some group's interpretation of their holy book, or teachings?

Christianity has catholics and protestants.
Islam has sunni and shi'a.
Hinduism has sanatan, and even atheist hindus.

If there is a god, it's not what some priest, minister, imam, or what have you says.
I fully AGREE

[trish]

religion is jjust some priest or government mandating what God says is real.
This claim already concedes there’s a “God” who says things and merely maintains that priests and governments confirm that what He say is “real.”

Most of us experience religion at a very early age through the semi-formal teachings passed on to us by priests, reverends, ministers, bishops, rabbis or imams in synagogs, churches, mosques or other places of worship. Our experience is of an already long established hierarchy of teachers and leaders, with lawyers and accountants. But the actual origins of religion ( or of any given religion) is something different. The origin of Mormonism and many other religions revolve around charismatic cult leaders who are in some cases serious in their pursuit of enlightenment and in other cases more serious about their pursuit of power and profit. But I imagine some religions are simply the result of stories passed on from one generation to the next around communal campfires: stories that preserved tribal behaviors, ways and understandings, only later to be codified and worked into more formal settings of worship by teachers and priests either appointed or self-appointed.

What I don’t understand is the apparent propensity of vast numbers of humankind toward worship. I understand humility. I understand incomprehension. I understand what it’s like to be awestruck. But I don’t understand the impulse to bow down and worship. I suspect its origin is in a deep and ancient fear; fear of death and an inability to conceive one’s personal end - fear kept alive with promises of eternal life and warnings of perdition and brimstone.

If one can manage to put aside these silly metaphysical distractions, religion I think - can offer moral guidance and encouragement to live life bravely and with purpose. Yet, being an atheist myself, I can confirm there are other ways toward those ends. However we find our way - I hope we manage to do it without causing hurt and harm to ourselves and each other.

[holzz]

the bible isn't 100% true. nor is any other holy book. so then when did God tell these priests what his word is?

[broncofan]

Curious people are reasonable to object to any religion that tells its followers that there’s a deity and an immutable set of rules handed down by revelation. Even where the rules seem to have a practical purpose, the appeal to authority and the failure of the scripture to provide reasons for its rules should make people skeptical.

I think one reason you find that there are a decent number of people in the scientific community who have flirted with some Buddhist ideas is that one is able to divorce its supernatural elements from the philosophy, which is often fully explicated and reveals certain truths about human existence.

The big takeaway I’ve gotten from Buddhist philosophy is that people, myself included, tend to measure happiness by objective metrics. We assume there are prerequisites to being happy, such as the esteem of others, material things that signify prestige, achievement that brings accolades, but are reluctant to consider the subjective component of it. I’m not saying objective things can’t place constraints on us that make it hard to be happy or hard not to be miserable, but our orientation towards what we think, feel, and observe also matters.

I recently read a book by Evolutionary Psychologist Robert Wright called Why Buddhism Is True. It’s not the best writing on Buddhism, nor the best science writing, but was a bit of a personal story about how he became acquainted with some Buddhist practices. His observation was that the evolutionary imperative favors traits that improve our chances of surviving, but isn’t concerned solely with our happiness, nor with helping us see things as they are. In some cases delusion may provide a survival advantage. He said that he saw meditation as a way to escape some of these delusions.

Another reason I like the idea of meditation is that it provides the possibility of personal transformation. I don’t believe people have free will because we cannot will our thoughts into being. Nobody wants to believe they are passive victim to automatic patterns of thought they cannot escape but then what is their alternate narrative? The first thing you are taught when you meditate is that no matter how hard you focus on the meditation object, often the breath, you cannot really stop the flow of thoughts that pull your attention from it. But you can recognize them and observe them. You cannot negate your hard wired tendencies to have thoughts motivated by greed or selfishness, but you can change your orientation to these thoughts.

Anyhow, I thought I'd at least propose that there are a few decent ideas mixed with some of the dangerous or bad ones.

[holzz]

The government has some "good rules" - don't steal, don't kill. Doesnt mean the government should be worshipped as gods.

[Stavros]

Doesnt mean the government should be worshipped as gods.
Tell that to your President and his supporters in and outside Congress!

[Stavros]

Buddhism is a strange religion that, like Islam, has evolved into different schools of thought that have different ways of attaining enightenment, and may have provided Scientology with the 'steps' or 'tasks' that are also found in Freemasonry. The idea of a evolutionary process is key to Buddism, to some extent to Hindu ideas too, so that, for example, Therevada Buddhism has 'eight steps', and 'five precepts'. The Sangha that were crucial to the dissemination of Buddhist ideas existed before any rules and precepts were written down and thus became as it were, 'above' the people in terms of their knowledge, much as one found with the Chrsitian clergy and the Muslim Ulema, notably when writing and printing did become available but when most people could neither read nor write. And it is only one step from Monk, Imam and Priest to the Party Cadres that Lenin believed would guide the people through the revolution. Buddhism, depending on where you are between India and Japan, and not excluding California, probably has more dietary rules than any other religion, but rules that change according to geography and school.

You can find many of the ideas in Buddhism in Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit where an origin in 'the nothing' leads the mind/spirit through a dialectical process to attain a form of 'absolute consciousness' that sounds like Nirvana, but without all the rules and regulations found in organized religion.

If we can agree as Trish has suggested, that as humans congregated in social groups to which they were not related, having realised that incest produces progressively inferior humans who cannot re-produce and thus condemn the family to extinction, and that in doing so developed rules that enable society to retain its integrity, one can add in God as the definition of non-human power that was -and is- evident to all. GS Kirk in his study of Greek Myths presents a compelling argument for the invention of gods to explain extreme and normal weather events that people either rely on -clean water, productive land, hygienic flesh- or fear: volcanic eruptions, floods and tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes, and so on. Hardly surprising if people give god-like powers of life and death when they have seen their loved ones die in a flood or an earthquake. And hardly surprising if, when people ascribe such phenomenal power to God, that if a much respected elder tells you that heaven awaits those who do good, and hell those that do bad, that a moral code develops that, in a secular society, can be coded in laws that people agree should bind them in an orderly and non-violent society.

Thus the Evolution Institute has examined, and produced seven basic moral rules which it claims are found in all human societies--

love your family, help your group, return favors, be brave, defer to authority, be fair, and respect others’ property – appear to be universal across cultures.

because

Kin selection explains why we feel a special duty of care for our families, and why we abhor incest. Mutualism explains why we form groups and coalitions (there is strength and safety in numbers), and hence why we value unity, solidarity, and loyalty. Social exchange explains why we trust others, reciprocate favors, feel guilt and gratitude, make amends, and forgive. And conflict resolution explains: why we engage in costly displays of prowess such as bravery and generosity; why we defer to our superiors; why we divide disputed resources fairly; and why we recognize prior possession.
https://evolution-institute.org/the-seven-moral-rules-found-all-around-the-world/

[morty]

Religion is a man made form of control it's that simple.

[trish]

I don't believe it's that simple. Religion can be used to control people, but that doesn't explain the root origin of religion or even how it can be used as a mechanism of social or political control. Religion, I think, is based in humankind’s deep need for meaning. This craving, as any craving, can easily be - and has been - exploited by those who seek wealth, power and sometimes just self-aggrandizement. Still, the pursuit of meaning quite justifiably persists independently of those who would use it perversely.

[Stavros]

Religion may be 'man made' (I think woman must have had a role in it too), it cannot be simple -what is sin? Does it exist independently of religion? I am also not sure the word evil has any meaning beyond its religious origin, if that is true.

But if people need 'spiritual nourishment', why? Isn't that what music provides?

[holzz]

Tell that to your President and his supporters in and outside Congress!

i'm not an American, dummy. i wouldn't want to have been born in that racist fuckhole.

but then keep on with your holy book that' been distorted by humans over millennia, or Popes, bishops, preiest and gurus.

if you're that holy, why are you on a porn site anyhow? it's not biblical.

[Stavros]

Being interested in reigion does not make me a believer. If I was holy, I would probably be dead. And as I am no angel, I am here instead.

[broncofan]

I am an atheist because I don't believe in God or a God. For a time I read books by atheists who were convinced that many of the problems in society were the product of religion and while I believed it for a time and think religion does present a conceptual problem because there's no clear dividing line between the secular and religious world, I've found atheism to be a mania for some.

Some people want to maintain that anyone interested in religion is a fool. They don't have an interest in discussing anything about the human condition and our interest in philosophical questions but simply get a charge out of saying those who believe are stupid.

For a while I found Christopher Hitchens amusing and not because he could insult religious people, which I regarded as cheap in many cases, but because he did occasionally point out some of the arbitrariness of our religious beliefs. When asked about whether he thought the religion of my childhood, Judaism, represented an advance over polytheism because it was the first monotheistic religion, he quipped, "Yes. It's closer to the real number."

For some, they appreciate Hitchens not for his erudition and occasional good observations but for the derogatory and mean-spirited things he said. And since this is all they can mimic, we're left with the worst of all worlds.

[Stavros]

The interesting question about Jews I pose is this: why does it appear possible to be a secular Jew, but not a secular Christian or a secular Muslim? Or, is it possible to be a Jew and not believe in God? I am sure there are Jews whose instant reply would be that it is not possible to choose -a Jew must believe in God and observe God's laws, or not be a Jew. I don't think either Muslims or Christians could say they believe in the teachings of Muhammad and Jesus, but don't believe in God. If the relationship between man and God is linked and only linked through religious belief, must it also mean religious observance -theology and/or orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy? And if one does not believe in God, what does it mean to be a 'cultural Jew'? Isn't that rather like the UK leaving the EU but wanting all the benefits of membership?

I wonder if, aside from the role played by science and the Enlightenment, the creation of the modern state and democracy has weakened that link to religion that is both personal and social -there have been times when the State was ruthless with people who violated the State religion, Tudor England being a ghastly example -savage acts against the body in the name of relgion are observed in some Muslim States today- whereas the argument, found somewhere (I forget where) in Zeldin's studies of France, is that democracy, by endowing the individuals with political power, grants them the ability to be different from others in society, and thus makes social cohesion or social norms less secure than they were in, say, Feudal times. Individuals lend their loyalty to a state that at one time demanded it. Thus governments must earn their authority, rather than impose it on people without allowing any opposition.

Thus the benefit of democracy in the modern state is that it liberates those who simply don't believe what they have been raised to believe, or who welcome the chance to escape a constriction on their behaviour that might be imposed, for example by family and social rituals, hostile attitudes to sexual identity, partisan political differences and so on -the USA thus becomes the ideal country in which to live because it has no official religion and where there is no requirement to believe in one. So, should Americans be actively engaged in the repudiation of any attempt to Christianize public life and laws in the USA?

[buttslinger]

One consideration in considering a Saintly life is the incredible amount of work and dedication it would take to bear fruit. I did a report in School about Zen Buddhism, it's the Japanese version of Buddhism, they took it apart, scrapped the unnecessary parts, and reassembled it as 16 hour days of meditation. Of all the different Schools, the Zen Buddhists claim the most Enlightened Souls, slackers get whacked with a Zen Stick.
While I believe whole heartedly that the work would be worth it, no way in hell do I have what it takes to find out fer sure.

[Laphroaig]

1154850

[yodajazz]

I don't believe it's that simple. Religion can be used to control people, but that doesn't explain the root origin of religion or even how it can be used as a mechanism of social or political control. Religion, I think, is based in humankind’s deep need for meaning. This craving, as any craving, can easily be - and has been - exploited by those who seek wealth, power and sometimes just self-aggrandizement. Still, the pursuit of meaning quite justifiably persists independently of those who would use it perversely.

I agree with your description of religion, as providing meaning. However, to this I would like to add the concept of 'connection'. On a lower level, one often forms a connection, with a personal religious community. Then there is a movement, sometimes called a denomination. It is a connection to people unknown personally, but with the connection that these people share similar beliefs/ideology. But in addition, the ideology I know intimately, connects one to nature, all humanity, the earth, and to the greater universe, since God is defined as the creator of all. I will add that sometimes the connection is about about all people in act inn certain ways towards others regardless of their belief system. Jesus put forth this concept in his well known story, about The Good Samaritan. some background of that, was I learn that Samaritan did believe in God, however they did not believe the entire scriptures of the time. So they were looked down upon by a large segment of Hebrews. Another fact I heard, about the story, but have not personally confirmed, was that the Samaritan community, had rejected Jesus message directly, shortly before he told the story. If this is true, and I believe it is, then he was saying that a person's actions were more important, than following him, (and this would include worship, in my book). In one of favorite Bible passages, Jesus says. "That which you to to the least of them, (or my brethren), you do unto me." And those that did not, he tells to get our of his presence. And this was an allegory about judgement Day. So you can guess where those others,(the goats), were headed.

So in summary, the religious aspects of 'connection' is also about how we treat each other.