Talk:Religion/ archive1

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[edit] Objection to Communism as a religion

...the near-deification of leaders... If you read the Communist Manifesto, that was precisely what Marx and Elgels were trying to get away from. 64.39.127.10 17:50, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Where religions differ - Move for Deletion/Change

I don't understand should either be a seperate page or should not exist at all. In fact, listing the differences between specific religions does not seem important to the Religion page at all. Agree? Disagree?

I completely agree. Having a statement saying that the god of Islam is a very different god from the Judeo-Christian god is... how shall I put this... not a good statement. My reasons: One could say that god takes on many different personalities in the Torah and the NT, so a different personality in the Koran shouldn't be taken as evidence against the same-god-argument. Also, some Christians (Nestorians) believe in two gods: God the Father/Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son. And in certain passages of the Torah, there seems to be a recognition of other gods, though Yahweh is always said to be the greatest in these instances.
--D.E. Cottrell, 18 December 2003.

[edit] Is religion a mythology?

I have removed the prominent mention to mythology here. Now, I could simply be misinformed about how "mythology" is used in religious studies, but my understanding is that it is usually used pejoratively when applied to modern, living religions. If I am right (as a Google search seems to indicate), it is inappropriate to refer to the stories associated with any given religion as its "mythology"--unless you're trying to malign the religion, or religion as such. Hence, having an article labelled Christian mythology seems (though, again, perhaps I'm just confused or misinformed) inherently prejudicial. If you want to argue that Christianity is false, do so on Usenet; if you want to present prominent, common, well-documented arguments against Christianity (as opposed to your own idiosyncratic arguments--in all likelihood, you, dear reader, are not a religious scholar of note), there is certainly a place for that here. We want as much detail as we can get about such prominent, common, or well-documented arguments. We also want an absolutely huge Christian apologetics section. --LMS

If I remember correctly, mythology can be applied to the body of stories and legends that have sprung up around a religion and not held to be part of the religion itself by the members of the religion in its current form. This would include such things as the various tales where saints or the Virgin Mary take the places of the more traditional fairies or human magic-users. Several examples can be found in Grimms.
Mythology is not necessarily a pejorative term, but it can be used pejoratively. Worthy of note is the fact that adherents of a particular religious tradition often consider their own religious mythology to be a fictionalized or apocryphal account of actual historical events whereas many anthropologists embrace the mythology of an exotic culture as a literal account of actual events as seen through the perceptive lens of another culture. -- NetEsq 00:48, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have traded 'Christian sects' for 'branches of Christianity'. The reason for this is that the word 'sect' also has a different, negative connotation. And that is not what is meant by this list, is it? Well, who doesn't agree can change it ofcourse. Another point: when adding some 'branches' I wondered for instance whether to type 'Methodists', Methodism, 'Methodist Church' or 'Methodist'. The list has all variations. Shouldn't we have some more unity here, or will the terrific new search function have to solve it?

"Sects" seems appropriate since they have "sectarian" views. Is there any difference between a "sect" and a "branch" other than the number of adherents? Is the distinction defined somewhere?

All mythologies should be treated the same, whether you call them religions or mythologies. --CD

[edit] Order of listing to avoid the appearance of bias

In order to avoid apparent bias would it be appropriate to alphabetize some of the lists on this page, eg.

Religions: Buddhism -- Caodaism -- Christianity -- Demonolatry -- Druzism -- Hinduism -- Islam -- Jainism -- Judaism -- Mandaeanism -- Manichaeism -- Paganism -- Process Church of the Final Judgement -- Santeria -- Satanism -- Scientology -- Shamanism -- Shinto -- Sikhism -- Taoism -- Voudun -- Yezidis -- Zoarastrianism

--Matt Stoker

I think that in order to institute some rational discrimination we should divide them first into "groups with more than 1 million adherents" and THEN alphabetize. I just followed the link for Puritan, which is a recent addition, thinking that someone had misplaced a Protestantism link. NOOOooooo. "Wikipedia is (evidently) an advertising spot for small religions." --MichaelTinkler


Michael: If we want to organize them by size here is a rough list taken from adherents.com of religions over 1 million adherents today: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Nonreligious, Buddhism, Chinese traditional religion (Confucianism, Taoism), Sikhism, Judaism, Baha'i, Jainism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Tenrikyo, Neo-Paganism

I deleted from the adherents.com list Juche (North Korean Communism) since I would question if it counts as a religion. I also took out "Indigenous/Primal Religions", "Yoruba Religion" and "Spiritism", because although they have over 200 million adherents, it is rather difficult to separate the three of them.

Also, we might want to mention some religions which are quite small (Zoroastrianism, Mandaeanism, Manichaeism, Samaritanism) which while small or extinct today, are of significant historical importance. -- Simon J Kissane

Looks like somebody's cruising to get "Yaohushuahim" filed under the "mock religions".  :-) Need to write myself a zapper... sjc

Added Spirituality here...my preference would be to change the home page Religion to Religion and Spirituality, or separate it completely, as well as move mythology.

[edit] Genetic basis for prevalence of religion?

Eob: The following passage which you added states highly controversial claims as fact, without any evidence or references:

From a scientific viewpoint the widespread existence of religious belief in societies around the world indicates that such belief is inherent in the human brain. In fact, recent studies in how epileptic siezures can cause transendent religious feelings has started to point towards a particular neurological basis for religion. It is not clear what is the evolutionary advantage of such belief. Perhaps it helped produce more stable hunter-gatherer societies.

Firstly, while there is some research that indicates that religious experiences have some link to particular structures in the human brain, I don't think this research at present provides an adequate total explanation for religion. And you totally ignore sociological theories, such as Rodney Stark's and the various other economic theories of religion, which are arguably equally scientific, yet they don't need to explain it in terms of specific features of the human brain. And "perhaps it helped produce more stable hunter-gatherer societies" is both pure speculation, and shows anti-religious bias (since perhaps it helps produce more stable modern societies also...) -- SJK

I agree that a section on a scientific view of religion needs some fleshing out to include other areas of science like sociology, and it needs some references to bolster statements that may be considered controversial. I will try to dig up some references on the neurological stuff. (I was thinking for example of Ramachandran work at UC San Diego. See also http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Eguae.html) I do not know much about sociology, or anything about Stark's economic theories of religion, so perhaps SJK that is something you could write up. By the way, I think it is valid to look at hunter-gatherer societies for evolutionary advantages to genetically determined behavior, because that was the last time evolution had any significant effect on us. Any advantages or disadvantages for living in modern societies is purely a side-effect. --Eob

[edit] Scientology: What category in Wikipedia?

Is Scientology more of a religion (in and by itself), or more of a cult, such as perhaps the Branch Davidians (though maybe not as evil/suicidal)? And, would cults be considered religions anyway?

Technically, a cult is "Religious practice; worship" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 1], and thus everything on this page is a cult. However, from what I've seen, quite a few Christian (and perhaps other) denomonimations prefer to use this one instead: "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious ... a minority religious group holding beliefs regarded as unorthodox or spurious; sect" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 4] If going with 4a, the question is then: Who calls the shots? Who says what is orthodox or not? In the case of Christianity, non-biblical doctrines are usually enough to get you into the cult category, but that includes a lot of major denominations -- thus 4b is probably the most used, since it implies a splinter group, or a minority. Strength in numbers.
As for Scientology, most people refer to it as a cult because Dianetics satisfies this definition to the 'T': "a system for the cure of disease based on the dogma, tenets, or principles set forth by its promulgator to the exclusion of scientific experience or demonstration" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 5] It also has elements of 4a, as its decidedly non-biblical structure would put it in the unorthodox realm, and additionally, elements of 6a, extreme devotion to a person. L. Ron Hubbard is considered inspired in the religion, and his words over-rule all other words authoritatively and without question. Ioa 22:47 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)

What are our priorities for writing in this area? To help develop a list of the most basic topics in Religion, please see Religion basic topics.


[edit] Persona of the Virgin Mary

I severely edited the following text regarding The Virgin Mary:

In her earlier origins she was worshipped, and many mysticsmysticism have asserted the female aspect of Deity but apart from Hinduism this has not been regarded as mainstream by major world religions for several centuries. Goddess is routinely recognised in Hindu Mahadevi, Mahayana Buddhism, Western Paganism and Goddess Spirituality, and it is little known that Mary was once also fully worshipped as Deity by the Collyridians and some Gnostics.

First of all, the phrase 'earlier origins' seems to imply that she wasn't an historical figure at all, but a folk tale that evolved over decades or centuries. There is too much evidence to the contrary for that to be credible. Secondly, IF some Gnostics did in fact worship her, that should not be confused with Christian practice, as the two always differed in many respects. I would be interested to learn more about the Collyridians, as I've never heard of them before and there doesn't seem to be an article about them yet. Wesley


I removed the statement ", and it is little known that Mary was once also fully worshipped as Deity by the Collyridians and some Gnostics" because, besides being little known it is almost certainly not true. The only source for this idea is Epiphanios' Panarion. Look it up there and you will see that Epiphanios, as all too often, got carried away with a tiny bit of information and got too excited. -- Kleinecke

There is no contemporary evidence an actual Jesus existed, so any "evidence" of a Virgin Mary is doubly hypothetical. --CD

Just ask on any street corner in America, and you will find at least one percent of the people will give you contemporary evidence that they have personally seen the Virgin Mary--which about as good as the evidence that "convicted" O.J. Simpson. Rednblu 04:15, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Josephus (sp?) wrote in rather close proximity to the period in question, though account is biased due to the fact that he was producing a history of the Jewish people at a time where it was unhealthy to not be PC since the Romans could be quite uncivil about non-PC statements. He does allude to Jesus, who is also known as Joseph Bar Joseph; the passage contains some dubious lines, but those are ones which showed bias towards the person in question being the Son of God. A large part of the problem here, though, is that there are incredibly few contemporary histories / records that have survived to this day. The reasons for the paucity of sources probably has a lot to do with how well the Romans and the Jews got along. Given time and the inclination, which I lack, further documentation of contemporary and semi-contemporary sources might be possible. I leave this for others.

[edit] Treatment of "hostility to religion"

Hostility to religion comes either from an inability to feel spiritual states, a deep preference for rational explanations, or a reaction to unpleasant experiences within a religious context.

The above sentence really gets me annoyed. Consider the following:

Belief in religion comes either from the inability to seperate delusions induced from one's emotions from rational analysis, a deep preference for unfalsifiable speculation over empirical fact, and the subtle (or not-so-subtle) psychological pressure and indoctrination employed by followers of religions, including one's own family.

Now, I'm not suggesting that my alternative directly above is NPOV either, but hopefully it illustrates the point that the original sentence seems to me to be written with the attitude that being an atheist is some kind of mental incapacity or the result of childhood abuse.

In fact, that whole paragraph seems to me to be content-free and an introduction to flame. Is there any salvagable information in it? --Robert Merkel

In addition to being non-NPOV to the point of stating opinion as fact, the paragraph seems idiosyncratic and unnecessary to me. The only way to fix it would be to confirm that it is not just an idiosyncratic opinion and to insert logical counter-arguaments in a give-and-take. However, this shouldn't be an article about the merits either for or against religion (that discussion can be appropriate in other articles though). I vote for removal. --maveric149
The quoted statement above is simply false. There are other reasons to dislike religion besides the ones given, for instance the fact that religions have been the cause of wars. I'll ax the paragraph (that's why they call me the Axman). AxelBoldt
How about simply making it: "Some people believe that belief in religion comes either..." I think Bertrand Russell would fall in this category. --Chuck Smith
The first statement was previously in the article, the second was purely an example I dreamed up to show why I didn't like it. As Axel has pointed out, the first statement (the one from the actual article), was flat-out wrong. As to the argument as to whether the reasons for belief in religion belong here or not, the philosophical angle is, to a large extent, covered in pages such as the rationality of atheism. The societal and psychological angles are less well dealt-with so far. --Robert Merkel

I removed the following: These criticisms are not always religiously neutral, objective, or scientific, and are perceived as deeply offensive, and unjust by those who are targetted by them. But, they constitute a doctrine concerning god (or gods) and ultimate reality sincerely held by some atheists: functionally, a religion. This case of atheistic hostility toward other religions, as could be illustrated by any other religion which is openly hostile to others, shows how hostility is the cause of hostilities. Atheists, just like adherents of other faiths, may accommodate other religions, despite their deepest convictions concerning truth and the incompatibility of their social ideals, or they may be content as some other religious adherents are, to be the cause of religious hostility.

That was an unwarranted attack on atheists unrelated to the issues appearing earlier in the section. It implies that everyone who does not support a fundamentalist theocracy (e.g. the Danbury Baptists) is an atheist. If someone wants to mention that atheists with absolute power are no more immune to religious hostility than theists, that is fine in appropriate context. It is already in the article on atheism. Fairandbalanced 00:30, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The section has been modified from an egregious attack on religion, followed by a defense against these attacks in classic Wikipedia style: you have removed a mild rebuttal to the preceding paragraphs, which in comparison are off the scale on the attack-o-meter. Mkmcconn 04:39, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It is provided in contect of the separation of church and state, a topic that should be left to its own article. (Apparently it was supposed to support separation, but it is confusing.) That principle is not an attack on religion per se, but on the imposition of a religion. It is not an atheist issue, but a minority issue. I'm going to delete the whole thing because it does not belong there. This article already has a section on Communism that is not matched by a proper litany of religious tyrannies, so it does not need another remark about tyrannical atheists oppressing the suffering majority. Fairandbalanced 17:15, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't know which article you are reading: the section that you keep working on has to do with the Modern Causes of Hostility toward religion, and was only tangentially concerned with "separation of church and state". In that context, the little self-parody that was written originally by some fanatical anti-religion zealot was followed by a short, rather vague notice which drew attention to the hypocrisy, bigotry, and unprovoked hostility demonstrated in the preceding paragraphs. Mkmcconn 21:26, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Is "belief in God" an "ordinary" belief, as stated in this entry? Belief in what can be measured and confirmed would seem ordinary to me, while belief in something which had never been and (according to some who believe in God) can never be measured and confirmed is something other than "ordinary." William Trevor Blake 21:37, 7 November 2003 (PST)

[edit] Rationality and religion

I have added a paragraph to give a Rationalist's perpective on religion. GrahamN 18 July '02

I changed the word irrational to unempirical because I believe it more closely matches the sense of the paragraph. To call religious believers irrational without further qualification suggests that they are somehow mentally impaired. To call it unempirical suggests that their beliefs cannot be verified through scientific methods based on evidence gathered by the five senses. This seems to fit the contrast with science better. Wesley

I had occasion to look something up here recently. It seems to me the entire section "Controversies about changes in religious doctrine" is highly non-NPOV. I'm not clear on why it needs to be here. I've removed a reference to Orthodox Christianity in the last paragraph, where an ecclesiology was attributed to it that it does not in fact possess, but as I'm not a regular contributor here I'm unwilling to introduce the more drastic edit I think is called for. Csernica

Hmm ... I have to agree with you. The article is stronger without the material you mention. Although the topic of apparent changes in doctrine is certainly interesting to anyone interested in understanding religion, it's a poor fit in the context: an excursus on a parallel, but very subjective issue, in an otherwise information-oriented article. Perhaps the segment originated as a place for depositing a few of the lessons learned from the experience of some of our edit wars on Wikipedia? It's a bold edit; but, I think that it is appropriate to delete or to move the material, perhaps to Metawikipedia. I invite others to revert my action here, if you think I've misjudged the value of the material (it's too long to paste it all here).

[edit] Controversies about categorizing religious doctrines

Many religions (such as Catholic Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Islam) teach not only that their followers should accept a given set of doctrines as true, but also that these doctrines have never changed, and never will change ...
Mkmcconn 05:00 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

Under spiritual phillosophies, I think that Zen should be listed, but not Buddhism. To categoize Tibetan Buddhism as "philosophical" is clearly false. -Alex S

Zen it is. I won't challenge this, though I do feel Buddhism should have the link under spiritual phillosophies. Or perhaps, may I suggest using: Zen Buddhism. Linking Zen alone insinuates or possibly excludes Theravada and Vajrayana as not stressing any philosophical thought in its methodology. Usedbook 20:45 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
While Theravada and Vajrayana both certaintly involve phillosophical thought, I would hesitate to call it a "spiritual phillosophy" since Theravada especially is highly ritualistic and iconistic.
I've never heard this before. Perhaps you meant Tibetan Buddhism is highly ritualistic; the Theravada school is known for emphasizing more on the philosophical Abhidharma. As for Tibetan Buddhism, each of the main five schools focuses on its department, the philosophical one notably gets overshadowed by the camera friendly ritual ones. Usedbook 14:33 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Discussions on improving the structure of the Religion article

Someone peer review the addition made the article that I made and the person before me made (I just reformulated it a little). It may be that it doesn't fit in the article, but I didn't want to remove it because I have not written anything in this article. -- Ram-Man

1) I began with an edit to correct some typos such as [stucture or "concent"] in the following statement.

  • Although most cognitive psychologists agree that all religious ideas have the same origin, it is often useful to classify religions by their stucture or "concent." Following are several ways to classify religions:

And then I saw that the heading to the list SHOULD introduce the list--hence the change. Apparently, the list points to the different qualities in the sources of truth that the different religions consult. In any case, the reference to "cognitive psychologists" is out of place here and is probably wrong because of the unguarded use of the word "all."

2) Probably, ALL occurrences of the word "all" should be removed from this encyclopedia entry. But at least the following paragraph is wrong to use the word "all."

  • While individual religions have many differences, all religions share many common traits, such as ritual, concern with the afterlife, regulation of social behavior, and belief in the supernatural.

Counter-examples to the above use of "all" include the "Non-religion religions" discussed in the final section of this entry.

3) Other simplifications of text around various typos. Rednblu 18:47 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This page needs some organization, I say. I am thinking of putting in some provisional headers to just label what is there.

Any ideas? Rednblu 04:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

  • Inserted headers--often a header for each paragraph--in order to label what is already there in the article. Some text was moved to keep paragraphs with the same topic together. Minor text changes for clarity, with an attempt to not change the substance of the text. Included all comments and suggestions made by email. I will refrain from further significant changes for a while so as to allow the community to respond to the changes made already. Rednblu 03:53 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] What topics should be in the Religion article?

To 203.51.27.104. Why did you put a link to atheism on the bottom of the religion page? I'm curious to know why you put it there. My first inclination is to think that the link to atheism is wrong here. But what was your reason for putting it there?

Surely it would be better to insert to the page a section on the atheism view of religion--with some explanation that would provide a purpose for the link. Since this is the only mention of atheism on the page of religion, I would say that the link is inappropriate--like putting a link to sponge at the bottom of the page on carbon. The reader can guess what the connection is, maybe. But surely it would be better that the connection between religion and atheism should be hinted at--at least by a picture or a diagram or some text. Rednblu 18:12 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

all other religions believe that man must build his way to God - this, surely, is not correct. In fact, most religions seem to have God reaching out to humanity in one way or another. Evercat 00:17, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I disagree. All religions have stipulations as to what man must do in order to reach heaven, nirvana, or whatever thier goal may be. Christianity is the only religion where God sent His Son to "pay the price" into heaven. I would like to know what other religion the God has done something like this in. Glenn Ansley

Could someone please explain why the section "Religion, Fairy Tales and Hallucinogens" is here? It's frankly silly, and adds nothing factual to the article. :Csernica 00:23, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I agree. I think the section is not only silly but probably disrespectful to a certain audience as well. Unless it is heavily edited and presented in more of an encyclopedia format than an editorial, it should be removed.  :Nullproductions 15:43, 23 Nov 2003 (EST)

[edit] "God's attempts to communicate with humanity"

God's attempts to communicate with humanity are common to many religions. That's how holy books are supposed to come about. Isn't this God "reaching out" to us? Evercat 00:26, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, this is how different religions say God speaks to them. But in most of those revelations, the god is explaining what the person must do to obtain "salvation" with him. Christianity is the only religion where God says, I'll send my Son to die for you to get into heaven. All other religions say man must do something. Glenn Ansley

As does Christianity, of course. But I take your point that Christianity has God playing a particularly active role. Hmmm. Evercat 00:30, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

True, that's all I'm saying. Something to think about though. Glenn Ansley

Well, I think what you wrote in the article needs a slight rewording - most religions have God "reaching out" to humanity in some sense, it's just that in Christianity this is in a very strong sense.

I do feel that with the article as it stands, that bit looks like an attempt to promote Christianity above other religions, which is a problem. I mean, this may be something special to Christianity, but other religions could say they too are special in other ways. So this particular thing that's special about Christianity probably shouldn't be promoted in the article in this way... Evercat 00:38, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Do what you want, but I think you can find that what I said is a well established fact, agreed upon by members from any of the religions mentioned. User:GlennAnsley

OK, I moved the gist of that to Christianity. I still wonder if this section places too much emphasis on the Big 3 if I can call them that. We seem to have a tendency on Wikipedia to discuss Christianity and Judaism in depth, with some discussion of Islam, and precious little on others. Oh well... Evercat 01:23, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Objections to recent changes under "Modern causes for hostility to religion "

It seems to me that the text that starts with

The cost of modern warfare and weakening of religious control over the state apparatus have eliminated religion as the direct cause of warfare by industrialized nations

is an expression of a lot of unsubstantiated opinion about cause and effect. A better way, it seems to me, would be summarize the expressions of "hostility toward religion" expressed by writers like Clarence Darrow, Robert Ingersoll, and Bertrand Russell.

I propose reverting this text to the previous version and cutting the recent speculative inserted text to this Talk:Religion page for further discussion. Rednblu 18:13, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The whole section is speculative. It would be much better, I think, to replace the section with quotations. I hope, though, that you aren't talking about reverting to the version immediately preceding my rewrite. (I share your opinion about the opening paragraph: there is a remarkable Christianity-centeredness in almost all statements of anti-religion, on Wikipedia; none more obvious than in this section). Mkmcconn 18:43, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)~
I think I started my comment before you made your last edit. In my opinion, you were quite generous in preserving much of the "rant."
What sources, what authors to quote, would give less "Christian-centeredness" to the Religion page? Rednblu 19:07, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
In my opinion, the attempt to find particular and universally applicable criticims of "religion", so broadly defined, is futile. Criticisms of "religion" in general can only be general: not every religion in the world is a derivative of Christianity, and for that matter there is no criticism of Christianity that applies equally to every derivative form of Christianity (some forms of "Christianity" aren't even theistic in any traditional sense!). The fact that no description of "religion" applies with equal appropriateness to all "religions" makes this article just as difficult to write from a hostile point of view, as from a positive standpoint. Mkmcconn \
None of the adherents of any particular religion are adherents in the same sense, of "religion": it is an abstraction derived from many diverse phenomena. Accordingly, the criticisms of "religion" will necessarily be abstract. Fuller, more concrete descriptions, positive and negative, will reside under articles that treat their subject more concretely, it seems to me. This does not eliminate the appropriateness of illustrating the abstract description, in terms of more particular concepts as the article currently does, but the full arguments can only be fleshed out in a more appropriate context. Mkmcconn \
There is simultaneously a line of criticism opened by the very fact that religions are so diverse that a universally applicable definition of "religion" will be of very limited relevance in any particular case. One of the causes of hostility to all religions, is that there are so many religions. In a pluralistic society, this is a problem: religions cannot operate in this context, as they do in a monolithic society (a theocracy, for example). I'm sure there are many sources we can quote, to illustrate a critical argument along that line ... Mkmcconn 20:05, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of Re-organization of Religion

Some suggestions for re-organization.

  • Faiths that assert man is made in a (single) God's image
    • Judaism
    • Christianity
      • sects with a centralized and (somewhat) authoritative hierarchy
        • Roman Catholicism
        • Eastern Orthodox
        • Greek Orthodox
        • Russian Orthodox
        • Anglican/Episcopal
      • sects with less or no hierarchy above community level
        • Quaker/Society of Friends
        • Mennonite/Amish
    • Islam
      • sects with a centralized and (somewhat) authoritative hierarchy
        • Shia
      • sects with less or no hierarchy above community level
        • Sunni
        • Sufi
  • Faiths that assert multiple or diverse dieties
    • Hinduism
    • Shinto
  • Doctrines or practices that make no such claim but tolerate deism
    • Taoism
    • Buddhism
    • Scientism
    • Confucianism
    • Mathematical Fetishism
  • Doctrines or practices fundamentally incompatible with deism
    • Atheism
    • Existentialism
    • Dialectical Materialism EofT

I'm not in favor of organizing this topic as a list. Mkmcconn 16:04, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Great idea. Could we organize around the various aspects of religion while going through the above religion and non-religion varieties? For example, all of the above listed religions have their own page already. So the religion page could be about the themes that run through the above list. The topics might be as follows. And the content of the current page would be scattered through the following topics.
  • Dimensions of transcendence; the supernatural
  • Developing a relationship with the transcendent dimension
  • Variations of privilege (such as being "saved" or "enlightened")
  • Initiation; becoming one of the privileged
  • Themes of Problem-solving
    • Theodicy; Why is there evil and suffering?
    • What does freedom mean?
    • Revelation
  • Historical influences of religion
  • Genetic influences on religion; Patriarchy; Parochialism
  • Justifications of religion
  • Rejections of religion
  • References
The above would be an outline and not a list. And I offer the above words as only a reply to your great idea, Mkm. Rednblu 03:28, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
There is no reason whatsoever not to include both the categorization of religions, and the theme list. Also see the recently updated ethics article which describes ethical traditions derived from religions and spiritual practices. It seems very likely that the ugly knot between ethics, politics, civics, knowledge and religion topics can all be unravelled if we work at it hard enough. The top-down Judeo-Christian categories are insufficient, certainly for a global work like the Wikipedia. See talk:ethics for some contention on that point, but, we really cannot avoid taking a sort of "global view" of religion, inheriting perhaps some ecumenism. For instance concern with an afterlife, motivations not to do evil, religious status of the state, and all that, require some detached focus. EofT
I think you might be responding to EofT idea? I only wrote one line. I don't know; I think maybe I should spend some time browsing a few comparative religion books, conservative and liberal, looking at the various schemes of organization. That is, if there really is such a strong feeling that the article needs to be reorganized. Another approach might be to turn the page into a meta-topic, a Wikipedia project, based on the "religious topics" page and Wesley's watchlist ;-) Mkmcconn 03:34, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Yes. I see that you are right.
I, for one, think this page should be re-organized--because I don't think it describes what Religion is. Rednblu 03:42, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Spiritual traditions tend to describe different things as important, so maybe there is no one thing religion is', but rather, constraints that different societies encounter that become ossified into spiritual practices and dogmas. First they get built into the language, then the faith, and etc....? Or other way around. See Confucius for how he for instance redefined li, as a consequence of yi and that as a consequence of ren. It's hard to even speak a language without dragging along its prior moral judgements. EofT

[edit] Why did you take out the examples of charismatic leaders that were teachers, reformers, or prominent persons?

It seems to me that in the following paragraph, the examples make the text clearer and easier to understand.

Many religions have been deeply influenced by charismatic leaders, such as Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, Billy Graham, Adi Sankara, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekanada, Sai Baba, Joseph Smith, Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, etc. These leaders may be the central teacher in the religion, like Muhammad, Jesus or Gautama. Or they might be reformers, like Martin Luther. Or they may be merely prominent persons like Billy Graham -- who is an influential speaker but not the head of a large organization or movement.

When you took out the examples, you left a paragraph that is abstract and harder to understand, in my opinion--to make it read like the following.

Many religions have been deeply influenced by charismatic leaders, such as Jesus Christ, Adi Sankara, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekanada, Sai Baba, Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, etc. These leaders may be the central teacher in the religion, like Muhammad, Jesus or Gautama. Or they might be reformers or prominent persons.

So I would suggest that you restore the examples. Alternatively, you might explain why you so radically changed what the text says. Rednblu 13:29, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Religion and MONEY

This discussion of religion completely ignores the obvious: every religion requires its adherents to contribute some of their money to the religion.

Wrong! What about pantheism and all its variants? What about Hinduism? Or animism? Wicca? Donations are generally only required by religions that have some sort of formal clergy or religious structure that requires the economic support of a larger populace to remain viable. — No-One Jones (talk) 21:44, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And some of those churches, which I won't name, bring in a massive profit. --DanielCD 21:22, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lack Of Balance

All your ideas are great but this page is woefully unbalanced in favor of Judeo-Christian religions. The other pages, like faith, etc. are no different. Your whole approach to sin and evil and faith assumes, often, a personal singular godhead as in Judaic religions.

Also, Hinduism does have diverse deities, but it is a monist faith, so all the deities are but manifestations of one, impersonal infinite Truth-Conciousness-Bliss that goes a step farther than the Judaic personal, anthropomorphic God.

Strive for more balance.

[edit] NPOV

Re recent changes:

  • Why can't non-primitive religion exist before writing? Seems like we are defining primitive or making a value judgement. i.e. non-NPOV
  • Implied is that an atheist must be a scientific materialist. This I think questionable.

Psb777 01:43, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Writing and Religion

Institutional religion came into being about 4000 years ago, coincident with the invention of writing. It is likely that the advent of writing, which was not universally understood, was deliberately kept as the exclusive preserve of the priestly classes, who used it to communicate what they were able to claim, due to the ignorance of the masses, were the words of God, and thereby preserve their power and privilege.

I am unconvinced that Institutional religion came into being about 4000 years ago, coincident with the invention of writing. If one preceded the other by 100 years then the cause and effect claim seemingly made is groundless. I reckon one could just as easily claim that Institutional religion came into being about n-thousand years ago, coincident with the invention of agriculture.

Psb777 02:19, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Then there is the fact that the whole idea of the invention of writing as being about 4000 years ago is inconsistent with the train of thought that writing has been around since the time of Adam. Genesis shows some signs of having been compiled from older written documents, with each section having the name of the author at the end. Thus Genesis 5:1 refers to the "written account of Adam's line". Evolutionary/secular thinking is that man has progressed through time, and it naturally follows that at some point on that timeline, writing was developed. The Biblical view is that man was created perfect, but as a result of the fall, he has deteriorated. On this view, mankind was clever enough to have invented writing right from the beginning (if it wasn't in fact God that invented it). Thus the idea of the invention of writing necessarily being sometime after the appearance of man is not a NPOV. Philip J. Rayment 14:45, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A radical solution

Maybe the best thing to do is break up this article into several "views" - e.g. "Religion: traditional Abrahamic view", "Religion: Eastern Views" and probably some sort of "Common ground view"? My personal feeling is that there is in truth no consensus on what the word even means. Some of the issues involved can't be helped except by agreeing to disagree - for instance, there are those who view Marxism, Atheism and/or Science as religions, and those who think that Buddhism is not. It really depends too much on context and on how one defines the word. Attempting to have a sole article is both NPOV and coherent may prove to be impossible. Just my opinion. Luis Dantas 02:02, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Written Tradition

The Vedic (i.e. Hindu) oral tradition preceded writing by thousands of years. With the break down of the Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory, the Vedic religion is thought by many to have existed in structure and as a Brahminical tradition for thousands of years before writing as an indigineous culture to Indian soil. At the very least, if one accepts the Aryan supposition, the Vedas were still memorized to perfection and transmitted orally for centuries before they were written down. That writing corresponds to the coalescing of a firm and reliable religious/spiritual structure is a myopic and uninformed view.


The article needs this info! Psb777 17:15, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable statements about Jesus

"...Jesus was very critical of some aspects of established religion, indeed declaring himself as coming for all peoples, 'Jews and Greeks', so transcending even the notion of religion. The Christian church was not founded by Jesus, nor did Jesus instruct his followers to form a religion. The organization, structures and denominations of Christianity came into being after his death."

I removed the above material because:

1. Is there a place in the Gospels where Jesus explicitly stated that he "came for all peoples 'Jews and Greeks'"? I don't remember (and cannot find) it.
2. Many Christians hold that Jesus established his church immediately following Peter's profession of faith (see Matt. 16:18).Johnstone 00
51, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted editorializing

I have reverted a recent edit by 205.188.116.147 because it amounts to editorializing and does not fit NPOV. Would you like to talk about your desired changes? - Tεxτurε 01:29, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

The changes in question are similar (but opposite) to the section immediately above it, "Modern causes of hostility to religion", which also appears to be editorializing. If one is removed, the other should be too. - Johnstone 22:03, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Differences between religions

It is possible that this section of the article is not sufficiently abstract, and will attract increasingly specific elements of religious doctrine and spiral out of control. Trc | [msg] 17:24, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific attempts to explain religion

I removed this sentence fragment:

Although some would argue that the scientific point of view is simply one more belief system, and therefore no more valid than a religious world view.

because it seems to be arguing against a claim that was not made. The paragraph to which this sentence fragment was appended does not claim that the scientific view is more valid than the religious one. The section title just above the paragraph makes it sufficiently clear that scientists are only "attempting to explain". -- Heron 21:28, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the reason why a caveat is needed about science being potentially a belief system is that while the header states "attempts", the text clearly indicates that an authoritative way of bypassing religion is being proposed. What proposes it? Another belief system. Personally I see no contradiction between science and religion, but that's just me. I haven't really looked at this section yet. Trc | [msg] 21:45, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Who claims that "Jesus" came from "Zeus"?

Is this christianity bashing or is someone out there really supporting this claim? - Tεxτurε 00:24, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Approaches to the study of religion- possible NPOV violations

The whole section on "Hebrew Thought" seems dubious; it links to an article of disputable scholarly merit which seems to be entirely drawn from a single book. I suggest deleting it, or at least moving it to a section that's further down, but I'll leave that decision to more experienced Wikipedians. - Didactohedron

It's included because there are many people, especially in American society, whose world view is based on Hebrew thought, including their definitions for what is religious. Not knowing that there exists these different rational methods of defining what is religious has led to misunderstanding, and worse, among well meaning people.
-66.81.73.111
Still, I would argue that if this section is to remain, it should be edited for a greater range of views- if we're going to spend time discussing how religion is defined, then we should get more opinions than just the two that are currently in the article. Furthermore, the section seems to me to viloate the NPOV rule in its bias towards "Hebrew thought". Examples:
  • saying that "some people 'want to' see a distinction between religious and secular thought" (paraphrase) implies that no such distinction exists
  • saying that certain circumstances may "make it difficult to recognize the function of any particular religion" implies that such a function always exists
As there is disagreement on both points, I believe that more neutral wording is called for. I keep trying to find suitable wording, but someone (the same person?) keeps changing it back. Perhaps we could discuss the subject here to come to some consensus?
- Didactohedron, June 26

Didactohedron:

If you want to talk about NPOV, then the majority of this article, based on Greek thought, is NPOV. It appears to me that you do not understand how Greek thought operates, nor Hebrew thought.

One of the things involved in Greek thought is defining that religion involves the acknowledgement of some sort of supernatural reality, while secular is defined as the absence of such. This is reasoning according to form. Hence the repeated distinction between religious and secular beliefs is made dependent upon the content of the answers the different belief systems give, even to the same, religious questions.

Hebrew thought, on the other hand, takes a functional approach, saying that any belief system that fulfills certain functions are religious. That includes the belief systems that are agnostic, even atheistic, as long as they fulfill religious functions.

As for people who ascribe to "secular" beliefs, it has been my experience when discussing beliefs with them, that they become defensive, even angry at times, when I refer to their beliefs as "religious". Where their beliefs fulfill the function of religion, I and many others view them as religious. From their reaction, it is very clear that they do not want me, nor anyone else for that matter, to call their beliefs "religious" or even to think that they are.

There are "secular" studies: the hard sciences like physics, chemistry and mathematics come to mind, so the distinction does exist. But this is not what we're talking about.

I don't know of a single case where one's beliefs didn't have an effect on his life, attitudes, values, morality and actions. The question is, which beliefs does he use as his guiding principles? Are the publicly stated ones true, or are there other ones buried deep in his psyche? Does he live consistently according to those beliefs?

In closing, this section is included to try to explain why there are sometimes some greatly different answers as to why some people consider certain beliefs "religious" while others consider the same beliefs "secular". And there is no way to bridge the gap because they are based on vastly different views of the universe. In particular, the use of Hebrew thought will override the self description of certain beliefs as being "secular". This is not intended to push a particular view, merely to give an explanation.

A new note: the paragraph

"If the conclusions of a discussion are to be accepted by people from diverse religious backgrounds, then that discussion must make as few assumptions as possible. Such discussions typically begin by answering questions about uncontroversial, easily verifiable facts, such as "What beliefs do different groups of people hold?", "What practices are inspired by these beliefs?", and "What institutions arise as a result of these beliefs and practices?". Hopefully, answering these questions will create a body of data upon which all further discourse, including the answers to the aforementioned "basic" questions, can then be based."

The open-endedness of the questions, nor their content, are necessarily Greek thought. The first one can very well be from Hebrew thought--where belief systems demand that people gather themselves into groups of like-minded believers. Not all belief systems have such a requirement. Hebrew thought by default emphasizes the individual: and the group as an outgrowth of the individual. The second question likewise can come from a person using Hebrew thought, in fact, it is mentioned in different words under the paragraph on Hebrew thought as to how to recognize what belief system person professes in his attitudes, morality and actions. The third question about the institutions is an outgrowth of the first and second questions.

What is Greek thought is the context, to "begin by answering questions about uncontroversial, easily verifiable facts". What are those facts, if not outward, observable forms? Secondly the juxtaposition of the questions implies that the second question is not dealing with all of life, but just ritual practices, again outward forms. Further, it is making the assumption that there is a recognizable difference between religious and non-religious beliefs, actions and institutions, and that difference is known. Finally, that these are the first questions asked, which in Hebrew thought are considered secondary if not tertiary, indicates the assumption of Greek thought.

First, let me just say that I'm glad that you're finally willing to talk, anonymous user whose IP always begins with 66.81. I'll try to address your points in order.
And my answers are interspersed throughout.
As are my answers to your answers. Let's hope that the result is readable.
  • "If you want to talk about NPOV, then the majority of this article, based on Greek thought, is NPOV. It appears to me that you do not understand how Greek thought operates, nor Hebrew thought..." I assume you mean that the rest of the article is not NPOV. And I do understand the distinction that you make between "Greek thought" and "Hebrew thought". You should realize, however, that this dichotomy is itself the product of one of many POVs. I don't know enough about the ancient Hebrews to talk about their thought, but the proposition that the entirety of the ancient Greeks' varied and multifaceted beliefs can be reduced to a single system strikes me, and would strike many people, as rather absurd. If you want to make more than a passing reference to "Hebrew thought", you have to ackgnowledge this fact, which IMHO would take the section too far off track. If you think that a discussion of the difference between "Greek thought" and "Hebew thought" is necessary, than I would suggest moving this section closer to the bottom of the article, where extended digressions might be somewhat more appropriate.
I suppose that you could say that there even exists such a thought method as Greek thought already reflects thinking along Hebrew thought lines, though the two terms, "Greek thought" and "Hebrew thought", are from Western philosophy. Greek thought does not refer to the ancient Greeks' varied and multifaceted beliefs, rather to the thought patterns used to express those beliefs, which were the same thought patterns used by ancient Greek philosophers to express their philosophizing.
I considered whether to put a reference to Hebrew thought and how it effects one's view of religion at the end, where it didn't really fit, spread throughout the article, which would be a real mess, or at the beginning. I finally put it at the beginning because it deals with the "basic" questions, what is a religion and how do we recognize one? Because it is a minority position, I figured it best to list it, how it differs from the majority position, then be done with it.
I confess that I don't entirely understand what exactly you mean by "the thought patterns used to express [the ancient Greeks' varied and multifaceted beliefs], which were the same thought patterns used by ancient Greek philosophers to express their philosophizing". Are you saying that underneath all of those varied beliefs lay some set of assumptions shared by all Greek philosophers? If so, how do you reconcile this with the fact that many of those philosophers constantly accused each other of being fundamentally wrong in their methodologies? The gulf between the pre-Socratics, whose philosophy bordered on proto-science, and the Platonists, whose philosophy bordered on outright mysticism, is particularly noticeable. Does "Greek thought" refer to the set of thought patterns common to all of these different groups, or does it include only the thought patterns of some subset of the Greek philosophers?
(To avoid clutter, you're welcome to answer that question on my talk page, or not at all.)
  • "One of the things involved in Greek thought is defining that religion involves the acknowledgement of some sort of supernatural reality, while secular is defined as the absence of such. This is reasoning according to form. Hence the repeated distinction between religious and secular beliefs is made dependent upon the content of the answers the different belief systems give, even to the same, religious questions." This is not the approach for which I am arguing. I'm arguing for an approach that makes as few a priori assumptions as possible- that's the only reasonable thing to do when trying to write an NPOV article.
But you are making those assumptions as a priori assumptions. Look at the first paragraph of the section, listing "basic" questions, one of which is "Are religions individual or group activities?" Your first question directly answers this question, and because it is your first question implicitly, at least partially, answers "What things constitute a religion?" and "What methodology shall we use to investigate these questions?" That's three of the four listed "basic" questions where at least partial answers are a priori assumed before any data have been gathered.
This approach alienates people who do not agree with those assumptions. Based on my Weltanschauung which utilizes Hebrew thought, I disagree even with the order of the questions, let alone the a priori assumed answers. There are millions who share the same Weltanschauung.
I admit that my questions could be worded more neutrally. Don't read too much into them, however- they're not meant as the ultimate questions, but merely as a means by which facts might be gathered. As I've said before, the reason I'm focusing on these particular questions is that they're easily verifiable- a statement like "Person A, an adherent of religion P, holds belief X, while person B, an adherent of religion Q, hold belief Y" is something that everyone can agree on. By themselves, such statements aren't very interesting, but if you collect a whole lot of them, you can derive (in theory) more interesting statements, like "people who hold belief A are very likely to engage in behaviour X".
And ultimately, one might very well come to a conclusion of the form "there is no causual connection between belief A and any significant behaviors". I'm not saying that beliefs, actions, and institutions are the things that matter- I'm saying that analyzing them is the best way to understand what does matter.
And I'm not saying that we should come up to adherents of different belief systems and literally ask them to tell us what they think we should know about their beliefs; I'm saying that we should examine the outward manifestations of different belief systems and try to figure out, based on those, what the real nature of those belief systems is. This strikes me as the most scientific thing to do.
This shows a direct assumed answer to the question, "What methodology shall we use to investigate these questions?"
The way your questions are posed, assume, at least partially, answers to all four of the listed "basic" questions. Furthermore, this is restricting the discussion to one point of view.
If you really wanted to be scientific, you would step further back and ask, "Is there such a thing as a religion, and if so, how would we recognize it?" That you have not asked that question already assumes, a priori, an answer. That I have brought in Hebrew thought calls into question the a priori assumed answer to "How would we recognize it?" Furthermore, this is a scientific position to take.
Well, I could step even further back and ask "Is there a way to recognize whether there is such a thing as a religion?", or "Is it possible to know whether there is a way to recognize such a thing as a religion?", etc. But while I could ask such questions, I don't see the point. IMHO, the best way to answer the question "is there such a thing as religion?" is to assume for the sake of argument that there is, and then try to figure out what it is; and if all of my attempts to answer that are in vain, then I can tentatively conclude that maybe the assumption that there is such a thing as a religion is wrong. How is giving an a priori answer in any way a better approach?
  • "As for people who ascribe to 'secular' beliefs, it has been my experience when discussing beliefs with them, that they become defensive, even angry at times, when I refer to their beliefs as 'religious'." I'm not surprised- telling people that you know what they think better than they do is a good way to anger them. Really, it's only a matter of common courtesy to allow different groups to define themselves however they like. Besides, there's no reason that you can't discuss "secular" ideologies as if they were religions- just don't call them that, and I think you'll find that more people will be willing to listen to you.
Again your answer here is POV. You are so accustomed to Greek thought that you don't even recognize that there is another way of looking at the world, a different Weltanschauung, that sometimes gives radically different answers to "basic" questions.
When I entered college, I did not know it, but my default thinking was Hebrew thought. When I took philosophy courses, logic was an easy "A" because Hebrew thought and logic fit well together. But other philosophy courses often mystified me because Greek thought looked at the form, in this case the terminology used, and often would see big differences between one philosophy to another, while Hebrew thought looking at the function beneath the terminology would often see a minor difference, if any, between the two. The same thing happened in a survay of comparitive religions: the professor and students using Greek thought saw many differences, I using Hebrew thought saw underneath the terminology the same pattern repeating itself over and over again, like variations on a musical theme.
What I am trying to do here is not to bridge the gap between Greek and Hebrew thought, I think it is unbridgeable, but to show that this gap exists and to show how it applies to the question of "What is a religion?" Greek thought says, "I state that my belief is not a religion, ergo it is not a religion" while Hebrew thought answers, "I don't care what you call it, if it fulfills the function of a religion, it is a religion (the duck question, if it acts like a duck, flies like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, builds nests like a duck, lays eggs like a duck, and so forth, it doesn't matter what you call it, whether "Ente" or "aap", it is a duck)." In an effort to be NPOV, I considered it best to list that there is a minority position, what that position teaches, how it differs from the majority position, what are its strengths and weaknesses compared to the majority position, then graciously get out of the way. That it is a minority position means that I want to keep its discussion short.
As for those people who don't want me to call their beliefs "religion", once I show them where I come from in terms that they understand, they are mollified. They still don't want me to call their beliefs "religious", but now they understand why I and others like me call their beliefs "religion". Giving understanding bridged the communication gap. That is why I added this section.
I'm not suggesting that people should be taken at their word when they say that their beliefs aren't religions- I was only saying that it's good practice to let them call their beliefs whatever they like. Your ability to discuss those beliefs is in no way limited if you refrain from calling them religions- just call them "secular ideologies" or something, and do everything else the same. My point is that if it flies like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, builds nests like a duck, and lays eggs like a duck, but insists on being called a giraffe, then you're better off acting like it's a duck, talking to it like it's a duck, and discussing it like it's a duck, all the while calling it a giraffe. Like you yourself said, it doesn't matter what you call it, it only matters what you do with it.
  • "What is Greek thought is the context, to "begin by answering questions about uncontroversial, easily verifiable facts". What are those facts, if not outward, observable forms?" Well, how else are you going to talk about religion? I confess that I'm at a loss to understand how any discussion between different parties can take place if you haven't even established what facts you agree on. Sure, if you're discussing religion with someone whose philosophy you already share, you can use that philosophy as the common ground upon which further discourse can be based; but if you're talking to someone whose methodology you don't already share, you need to establish some common ground before a discussion can take place, and identifying uncontroversial facts is the easiest way to do this. Otherwise, you'll just be talking past one another. That's not "Greek thought", it's common sense.
Sorry, but these "uncontroversial facts" are controversial. Don't you see that? Showing how and why they are controversial will aid in communication. Trying to sweep the differences under the rug won't.
Basically, do outward forms define a religion, or inward beliefs? Is it stated beliefs, or acted on beliefs? Is it the rituals, or how a person acts in his daily life? Is it any belief that affects a person's attitudes, morality and actions, or only those beliefs specifically called "religion"? Showing how different Weltanschauungs define "religion" aid in communication.
I don't see how these facts are controversial, and I suspect we're talking about different things. When I refer to "uncontroversial facts", I refer to statements of the form "Person A holds belief X", "Institution Q advocates ritual practice P", etc. Anything that's easily verifiable is by its nature uncontroversial. Now, you might find the statement the view that those facts which concern beliefs, practices, and institutions are important a controversial one, but I'm not advocating that view. These facts are meant to serve as a basis for discussion, nothing more.
So why bother finding these facts? Because you have to start somewhere, and IMO possibly meaningless facts are a better basis for a discussion than arbitrary assumptions. Perhaps you're right that the very fact that I'm asking these particular questions is indicative of certain assumptions on my part. My argument, however, is that I'm not assuming anything when asking those questions- I'm simply asking the most easily verifiable questions possible. If I could ask "what is the function of this religion?" and immediately receive an answer that everyone could agree upon, I would do that; given that this is impossible, however, I'm left to ask easily verifiable questions and hope that I can figure out the more important stuff from the answers to those.
  • "Secondly the juxtaposition of the questions implies that the second question is not dealing with all of life, but just ritual practices, again outward forms." I removed the word "ritual" a few edits back, for this exact reason.
  • "Further, it is making the assumption that there is a recognizable difference between religious and non-religious beliefs, actions and institutions, and that difference is known." I've already talked about this above, but to reiterate- whatever you might think of "Greek thought", the approach I'm arguing for makes no assumptions at all (or at least as few as possible).
That said, I'm not inherently opposed to the idea that some secular belief systems may be functionally identical to some religious belief systems- I just object to this statement being used as an axiom. If you'd like to write a section which starts with some uncontroversial facts and goes on to show that this is the case, then I think that would be a valuable addition to this article (or perhaps worthy of an article in its own right). Incidentally, why not register a user account? -Didactohedron 03:32, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)
In closing, I think you still just don't get it. The axiom is not that some "secular" belief systems may be functionally identical to some "religious" belief systems, but what is our Weltanschauung, how we view the world? The axioms are: do we use Greek thought with its emphasis on form, or Hebrew thought with its emphasis on function? Greek thought with its emphasis on the stated or Hebrew thought that probes under the stated to analyse the effect? Greek thought that looks at the ritual, or Hebrew thought that asks where a person's heart is in relation to the ritual? Greek thought that discusses the "is" or Hebrew thought that asks "how it acts?" That some "secular" beliefs systems may be functionally identical to some "religious" belief systems, hence considered religions in their own right, is a derivitive of the Weltanschauung, not an axiom per se.
Thanks to your suggestion, I got a user account.
I think I adequately adressed this above. To recap: whatever you think of "Greek thought", the view that I am advocating- which, I believe, is a view shared by many people- does not involve assuming anything. The fact that it begins by focusing on the external forms which religion takes is not indicative of the fact that it views these forms as being particularly important; the reason that it begins with these forms is that the only alternative is to make arbitrary assumptions about the nature of religion prior to collecting any data on it, which is ascientific, and borders on intellectual dishonesty. -Didactohedron 05:06, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Didactohedron:

The nesting got a little deep. You wrote:

I confess that I don't entirely understand what exactly you mean by "the thought patterns used to express [the ancient Greeks' varied and multifaceted beliefs], which were the same thought patterns used by ancient Greek philosophers to express their philosophizing". Are you saying that underneath all of those varied beliefs lay some set of assumptions shared by all Greek philosophers?

Yes.

If so, how do you reconcile this with the fact that many of those philosophers constantly accused each other of being fundamentally wrong in their methodologies? The gulf between the pre-Socratics, whose philosophy bordered on proto-science, and the Platonists, whose philosophy bordered on outright mysticism, is particularly noticeable. Does "Greek thought" refer to the set of thought patterns common to all of these different groups, or does it include only the thought patterns of some subset of the Greek philosophers?

As mentioned in the article on Greek thought, there are two sides to an analysis by form. There are the physical forms which are particulars, varying, verses the universal forms that are unifying and mystical. From what I have seen, where the ancient Greek philosophers disagreed, was not on the analysis of reality based on forms, but the application of which forms are more important. The one side usually tries to subsume the other. For example, in modern usage of the method, the West tends to deny reality to the spiritual while Hinduism claims that the physical is but a dream (Maya).

I think I adequately adressed this above. To recap: whatever you think of "Greek thought", the view that I am advocating- which, I believe, is a view shared by many people- does not involve assuming anything.

It is impossible to make any study without starting with a priori assumptions. At the very least one starts with assumptions concerning observation, logic, language and communication. What I see in the way you keep editing the section is that you make other a priori assumptions, assumptions not shared by all religions. One of your a priori assumptions is that you approach the study without a priori assumptions. For example, you wrote:

When I refer to "uncontroversial facts", I refer to statements of the form "Person A holds belief X", "Institution Q advocates ritual practice P", etc. Anything that's easily verifiable is by its nature uncontroversial. Now, you might find the statement the view that those facts which concern beliefs, practices, and institutions are important a controversial one, but I'm not advocating that view. These facts are meant to serve as a basis for discussion, nothing more.

How do you know that person A holds belief X? What is the basis for that claim? How can you verify it? What if there are conflicting claims concerning his beliefs, how do you resolve them? How can you tell whether or not he is being hypocritical? What about "Institution Q advocates ritual practice P"? What about the silly balloon drop at a political convention? It's a ritual practice, does that make a political party a religious organization? (I overstate the case here as an illustration) Such a claims are not "uncontroversial facts". That you should even think that they might be indicates that you hold to other, unstated, a priori assumptions. What are they?

The fact that it begins by focusing on the external forms which religion takes is not indicative of the fact that it views these forms as being particularly important; the reason that it begins with these forms is that the only alternative is to make arbitrary assumptions about the nature of religion prior to collecting any data on it, which is ascientific, and borders on intellectual dishonesty.

This is making an arbitrary, a priori assumption that studying the external form can lead to answers concerning the inward reality. From a functional standpoint, that's backwards. It is also an arbitrary assumption made before collecting any information. It is also making arbitrary decisions concerning methodology and the nature of religion.

Talking about "ascientific", did you see the Wiki article on scientific method? (BTW a pretty poor article, it contradicts all the science textbooks I studied back in college) To paraphrase the method in the article, one starts with an assumption, then design an experiment based on that assumption, make the experiment, then compare the results of the experiment with the original assumption to see if the assumption needs to be changed, repeat as necessary.

For you to decry the functional approach that states that anything that acts like a religion is ipso facto a religion, while practicing that anything that looks like a religion is ipso facto a religion, is like the pot calling the kettle black.

I'm not suggesting that people should be taken at their word when they say that their beliefs aren't religions- I was only saying that it's good practice to let them call their beliefs whatever they like. Your ability to discuss those beliefs is in no way limited if you refrain from calling them religions- just call them "secular ideologies" or something, and do everything else the same.

This borders on intellectual dishonesty. If the discussion hangs up on this ground, I show the hypocrisy of this name calling by answering that "Christianity is not a religion, it is a historical ideology" or something to that effect. "If the two belief systems both fulfill the same function, then they should be called by the same term." ---User:66.81.78.196.

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Inserting Boman's dichotomy of Hebrew thought versus Greek thought does not work here on the Religion page--because Boman's argument says nothing about "religion." Boman makes a distinction about the Greek language versus the Hebrew language--a distinction that does not make sense to people who know either the Greek language or the Hebrew language. [1] For example, Boman says that the Hebrew language is "dynamic" and the Greek language is "static." [2] If that is so, it may make a hypothesis about thinking and language--but says nothing about Religion as compared with Mythology or Science. Hence, I suggest that the "Form" and "Function" sections of the Religion page should be cut to another page which would summarize the various controversial views on how the very structure of a language expresses or contradicts the World view of the people that use the language. ---Rednblu 23:49, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Rednblu: did you read Boman's book?

One of the puzzles Boman mentioned is that the ancient Hebrew language, which had no tenses to indicate time, was used to express a historical religion while the ancient Greek language, which had elaborate tenses to indicate time, had ahistorical religions. From the structure of the languages, one would expect the opposite finding. Similarly, the New Testament, which was written in Koiné Greek, also used Hebrew thought. Language is not the determining factor.

"Hebrew" and "Greek" refer only to the original languages the most important documents in Western tradition were written in, not to how languages affected beliefs.

The reason this section is included is because there are controversies based on these two differing ways of deciding what is and what is not to be considered "religion", for some the decision is based on function, for others, form. ---Melamed

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Yes, I read Boman's book. And that is why I say that Boman's argument says nothing about religion. And that is why I say that the comparison of "Hebrew thought" and "Greek thought" does not belong on the Religion page. The comparison of Form versus Function is not a comparison of "Approaches to the study of religion." An appropriate listing of approaches to the study of Religion might be something like the following.

  • Approaches to the study of religion
    • Historical, archeological, and literary approaches, including the attempts to discover the sacred writings at the "dawn of humanity" as in Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East
    • Anthropological approaches, including attempts to lay out the principles of native tribes that have had little contact with modern technology as in John Lubbock's The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man
    • Sociological approaches, including attempts to explain the development of the ideas of morality and law, as in for example, August Comte's Cours de philosophie positive hypothesizing that people go through stages of evolution 1) obeying supernatural beings, then 2) manipulating abstract unseen forces, and finally 3) exploring more or less scientifically the social laws and practical governmental structures that work in practice
    • Psychological approaches, including attempts to explain religious urges as invasions from the unconscious, as in William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience
    • Philosophical approaches, including attempts to derive rational classifications of the views of the world that religions preach as in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and the categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”
      • Boman's theory, the comparison of "Hebrew thought" and "Greek thought," and the comparison of Form and Function are only a minor subset of the Philosophical approaches to religion based on Boman's misunderstandings of Hebrew and Greek languages. [3]

Hence, I would say that the Form and Function sections of the current Religion page should be cut to a page with an appropriate title something like World view (linguistics). The Form and Function sections speak as much to science as to religion and therefore might be appropriate on a breakout page under World view. ---Rednblu 06:00, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Non-minor edits by User:LordSuryaofShropshire

The last few edits by User:LordSuryaofShropshire (before my non-minor edit to make note of this) were not minor. Could the user in question please refrain from marking their edits as minor when they are not? - Korpios 00:12, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I deemed them minor as they were corrections of limited amounts of text which contained blatant and self-evident errors. I also described the nature my changes, and thus your admonition is, I feel, misplaced. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:18, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
Anything which changes the import of the content, regardless of whether you believe you are correcting an error, is a major edit. Changing one word, unless it's purely a grammatical correction, is a major edit. Furthermore, your notion of "self-evident" will bring you dangerously close to making POV edits.
Please read Wikipedia:Minor edit and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view before making any further edits. Thanks!
- Korpios 20:34, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The protocol of naming an edit minor (or implicitly major by not marking it) is well-noted, though I would object, once again, to your implication of POV (though tentatively stated it is). --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:54, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
I did review your edits before commenting, and (based on my limited understanding of Hinduism) couldn't find anything explicitly POV in them; it was more your assertion in your earlier comment about the edits being "self-evident" that gave me pause. If I came across as unduly harsh, please understand it as based out of concern.
As for your noting the protocol for minor edits, thank you. :)
- Korpios 16:37, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)


[edit] User:DanielCD's recent edits

(Section reformatted for better thread-flow.)

DanielCD, your post-revert changes (see above section) are quite major edits which are IMHO damaging sections which were already fairly NPOV. It isn't POV to state that secular humanism, environmentalism, etc., are considered religions under some perspectives. It is POV to make an edit such as "remove Evolution - It is in no way a religion".

Furthermore, your edits were in no way minor, so you should not have marked them as such. (I just finished explaining the protocol for minor edits to another user... argh!) :/

I'm reverting everything after your vandalism-revert; please make your case here for them if you still feel they're valid. (And please, in the future, mark every edit as major unless it's purely a grammatical change or whatnot!)

Thanks! - Korpios 16:53, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's way against my better judgement, but I'm going to leave it be because I enojy Wikipedia too much to fight over it. I admit no mistakes. Perhaps I checked the minor box absentmindedly. Gee, Whoops! --DanielCD 19:22, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hey, if you thought the edits were right, all I was asking for was justification and discussion; from what I could tell they were POV, so I said/did something about it. I'm not trying to be an ass here. As for the minor edit thing — everyone makes mistakes, so if you marked it by accident, so be it. I wanted to bring it up in case you weren't aware of minor edit policy.
Again — I'm open to discussion if you want to defend/discuss the edits.
- Korpios 21:29, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I admit was wrong in making such drastic changes; I was just in a mood this morning. I apologize if I was roude; let's clear the air, eh?

This sentence: Another problem is that some individuals feign one religion for public consumption while actually practicing another religion, or practice multiple contradictory religions at the same time, thereby making it difficult to recognize the function of any particular religion, or if any definite function exists.

It doesn't seem to make any sense. Anyone could be said to be 'feigning' a religion. Where is the line between figning and actual practice? I don't see what's being said here.

As for the evolution thing, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. It seemed to me at the time that it was being put in to disregard the science of it. These things (Communism, etc.), even though they are regarded by some as 'religions', I don't think it's proper to mention them as being religions because they don't claim to be. Sure people think that, but you could do a lot of thinkgs with "some people think that"...like in the article on Bill Clinton, you could put in the into: "and according to some, he's a raving sex maniac", and presto, it colors the whole article as anti-Clinton. But it is true right? People think this; it's a fact...but it's not really relevant to mention in that spot. It is kind of a judgement call, and while I disagree with its being there, I'm not going to call for removal. I may come up with some suggestions as I think on it more though.

As for the other edits, I'll have to look back and remember what they were. --DanielCD 01:37, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the orginal poster. There was no reason to revert "undermines secular government" in the religion article. This is a Major issue for some muslim countries and a not-inconsequential issue in North America.
What? I don't recall ever reverting anything of that nature. If I did, it was certainly not intentional. --DanielCD 21:53, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
apologies if I was mistaken (I really must get an account)
The "feigning" point is valid. I believe the issue can, at the very least, be restated in a more NPOV manner (if it hasn't already; there have been a lot of edits on the article since I last checked in). As for the "some believe X is a religion according to Y basis", well, it's a small-enough point in the scope of the whole article that, IMHO, it won't taint the article as a whole as long as it's not stated in a POV manner. - Korpios 14:19, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User:198.103.53.5 edits

I moved the following from the section about why people turn from religion as it sems highly POV:

* Corruption of Government: Seperation of Church and State is a prerequisite for democratic governance. The will of the people is, in civil society, pre-eminant to the will of a putative deity (and its self-appointed spokespeople). Modern states threatened by fundamentalism include Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America.

It is POV to state that the U.S. is "threatened by fundamentalism" as it is not an indisputable fact, and many would argue that separation of church and state is not a prerequesite for democratic governance, and that it is not inherent in civil society that the definition of the will of the people might not include religious elements or beliefs.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 16:00, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK -- the US threat "debateable" but the fact that religion is a threat to secular government, as I wrote more recently is not, IMHO. Also, I think the link to "separation of church and state is a useful addition to the article. User:198.103.53.5

Now reads:

  • Undermines Secular Government: some religious adherents argue that all human endeavour, including government, is subordinate to "God's Law." This undermines the legitimacy of secular government. For this reason, modern democracies demand a separation of church and state.

I agree that this is a reason some people reject religion, or at least extremist religion. Separation of Church and State is an extremely important issue because without it the entire premise of the Constitution is undermined (as I see it). --DanielCD 21:48, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What is the basis for saying "modern democracies demand a separation of church and state"? What do you define as "modern"? How does a "democracy" demand anything? By its constitution? I believe that I am right in saying that the Australian constitution (more "modern" than the U.S.A.'s) has no such provision. Also, many democracies were founded on Christian principles. They generally provided for a separation of government from the institutional church, but not from Christianity per se. Philip J. Rayment 14:29, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Religion vs. Mythology

As an academic student of Religious Studies, the term 'Myth' refered to a story that holds or held 'spiritual meaning' at any time to any people. This is, though, perhaps a little out of touch with modern parlance. I would perhaps suggest this: a 'Myth' is a story that a group of people, past or present, hold to be true. Thus one could refer to "the myth of a flat earth", or "the myth of divine visitations", or even "the myth of alien abductions" without any inherent POV. Applying this to the issue at hand, the heading "Religion vs. Mythology" is quite misleading. Indeed, most if not all religions contain a mythos. Furthermore, the reason that the "Ancient polytheistic religions" are "often studied under the heading of mythology" is that for a long time, the mythology was the only available information on these religions. Other information now used in the study of such religions is archaeological, for instance. --Fendrin

I thought that the sociological meaning of the term myth is, a story, not necessarily untrue, that is important for the group. Andries 10:38, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Hm... a slight variation, that I personally find to be an acceptable definition of myth. --Fendrin

Unfortunately, what people mean by "myth" drifted from its dictionary meaning -- most people seem to believe it means "That's a popular, but totally untrue, belief". If I said "The story about Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong going to the moon is a myth", what would you think I meant ? Alas, I am forced to avoid words like myth and gay and evolution and anarchy because they don't mean what many people think they mean. What else can I do ? --DavidCary 22:13, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) (see Apollo Moon landing, Apollo moon landing hoax accusations, MythBusters, [4], [5] )

Well, consistent use of the myth link might help. --Fendrin

[edit] Difference between USA and Europe: social function of religion

I have noticed and heard many times that the social function of a religious organization in the USA is much bigger than in continental Europe. Any research on this subject? Then it could be included in the article. Andries 10:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pasting from MS Word / other word processors

Please, please, please, do not paste from MS Word or other word processors unless you know for certain that you have all non-ASCII characters turned off! Example: "true" quote characters, as recently inserted by 66.81.76.75. - Korpios 17:22, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have not pasted from any word processor, but have included true quote characters in all my writing. They are a simple key-stroke ([OPTION]-[ [ ] and [OPTION]-[SHIFT]-[ [ ]) to include, the same way to include special characters as ä for many languages, å for Scandinavian languages, ñ for Spanish, ß for German, and so forth. Where do they cause problems? Which OS/browser does not include support for basic Latin based characters as these?
You need to read meta:Help:Special characters and ISO 8859-1 before making any more edits. In short, anything not in the ISO 8859-1 table must not be input into the source for the English Wikipedia; your quote characters as-is are invalid. If you need to represent a special character not included in that table, you need to escape it first; you would escape "proper" quotes by inputting “ and ”. However, this looks horrible in the source, is a waste of bytes, and will likely be replaced when someone comes across it.
In short: Stop using "true" quotes. Thank you.
- Korpios 22:21, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Correct use of terminology

Make sure one understands his terminology. Check it up before posting, if need be. For example, I replaced “verges on the metaphysical” because it is a nonsense statement. “Metaphysical” refers to the non-observable portions of all beliefs, including the axioms of “secular” belief systems.

[edit] Differences between religions section

The first thing I notice is that the Messianic Renewed Judaism bit seems out of place around the Christianity and Islam. I am all for smaller religions and sects but we need to have perspective. The paragraph also seems to lack a neutral point of view. Could others here comment.

The section also only has Abrahamic religions in it. There is no real comparison. I suggest removing the section or restructuring it.

- Sunborn

I say the line should be removed; you're right, it seems completely out-of-place given the broad perspective of the article. - Korpios 05:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I vote for complete removal. If any of the material in the section isn't duplicated at Abrahamic religion, it could be moved there, though a cursory glance of that article suggests that this isn't the case. -Didactohedron 07:24, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I was just making sure. I am new to major editing of the Wikipedia. I am going to do some work on the religion section. Glad to make your acquaintance. Now, if only I could know when to use the minor edit feature... --The Sunborn 16:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
In a nutshell, you make a minor edit only when you're 1) fixing grammar, spelling, or markup mistakes, 2) rearranging sections without changing their text, and/or 3) making a link out of text that's already there. If you add, remove, or edit even one word for anything other than fixing a grammar/spelling/markup mistake, you shouldn't mark it as minor. If in doubt, don't mark an edit as minor. :) - Korpios 20:14, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Parts removed

Okay, I removed the line:

Messianic Judaism has seen a great deal of growth over the last forty years.

The article already has a link to Judaism, which in turn links to Messianic Judaism.

- Korpios 20:19, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I just removed as well:

Messianic Renewed Judaism believe, just like Judaism does, that there is only ONE "Elohim" (the original word in the Tanach, the Jewish Scriptures)but millions of Gods. Moreover, they maintain this Elohim has three Parts, or Dimensions, just as man has three parts: spirit, soul and body, as per 1st Tessalonians 5:23, since he was created by this same Elohim-in-three-Parts/Dimensions. Thus, the Rebbe Yeshua is the physical manifestation of the Jewish Elohim, and not an idol, but simply the ultimate enunciation of an all Powerful Elohim, who chose, in His omnipotence, to take human form, a decision expressed in the prophecied name, "Emanu´El", meaning "Elohim with us:El=Elohim; Emanu=among us."[6] This, it claims to have solved the long standing difficulty of Yeshua claiming to be a Part of Elohim/"God."

- Korpios 20:22, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I added a link to Messianic Judaism in the second paragraph of the "Origin of religion" section, where Messianic Judaism is briefly mentioned. - Korpios 20:29, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)