Religion is culture, but not all culture is religion. It is hardly fair to try to artificially inflate the definition of religion to encompass culture in general. The big beautiful thing we need, is culture, we don't need religion... well, I don't.

Definition of RELIGION

the service and worship of God or the supernatural

commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness

a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith


V.S.

Definition of CULTURE

the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations

the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time

the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization

the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic

And I'm telling you, thats a very white Christian centric definition that academics aren't using anymore.

We all know the dictionary isn't the answer to complex cultural questions, right?

The stories are mythologies, nothing more, nothing less.

Stories can be a part of a culture, but they aren't a culture and should be open for discussion of context, they don't deserve respect on their own. All ideas should be open for scrutiny. People should be treated with love and respect, but ideas are fair game.

Yeah, Saya, but words mean things and having good definitions for the words we're using is a good point to jump off from, otherwise we're just swimming around in vagaries.

Some stories are historical in nature. They might be wrong, but so often is what we understand as history. There's also laws, parables, poems, very realistic stories, etc. Not all fit what academics understand of mythology nor would be studied under such context.

The stories can't be lifted out of their context. Academic mythologists don't study them that way, or at least ideally they shouldn't. You can't really read Thunderbird stories to your kid without explaining colonialism and why we only have west coast aboriginal mythology and ignore stories of how the dead will rise and kill white people, can you?

I study this academically, I know what I'm talking about and I'm trying to extend the same knowledge so we're all on the same boat. Its pretty bad to use definitions that are pretty awful historically and limiting.

Just to make sure we're on the same page about my original assertion. I would like to restate that the bible is not the ultimate source of truth, and while it may contain references to historical happenings, it isn't a good source of historical knowledge.

I am not against the study of mythology, especially with in cultural and historical context. What I am saying is that mythologies aren't good sources of factual information.

I admit to bird walking off of that as I noticed you were wielding an incredibly broad definition of religion that I am not familiar with, hence I thought it might be a good idea to treat that. The whole point of posting the two definitions, is that it had seemed to from the way you were talking about it, that you were using the definition of culture and religion interchangeably. So, what is the actual definition you are working with? I hate to continue running on assumption.

Its historical stories might not be totally right, but they actually tell us a lot about ancient culture. Face value, not fact, but still very telling and a good source. We can cross reference some things and oh hey, the Biblical assertions actually holds up, cool! Like, for example, when Micaiah goes to Jehoshaphat and mocks his court prophets, or when Elijah challenges the Baal prophets, that tells us something, that the prophets the Bible holds as canonical were probably minorities of the prophet community, prophets held a political station and we can cross reference that with surviving religious stories from other ancient kingdoms of Mesopotamia, who also had court prophets. Its really neat and pretty helpful in gaining an idea of what ancient court life was like. The study of mythology in ancient Greece or Rome, for example, isn't studied academically on its own, its part of the Classics department where you learn Latin or Greek and study whatever else we know about the culture. Taking stories out of their context, no, they might not be true, but back in the context, it can tell us a whole lot. Its why its such a shame we know very little about religious Norse life, despite the fact the mythology survived as a Christian curiosity.

Culture and religion permeates each other, its no good studying one without the other to understand a culture or religion as a whole. Even if you're not religious, you participate in a religious culture. Doesn't mean your personal beliefs don't matter, but we still work with a Christian framework, even without realizing it, you know? Even your definition isn't very clear on the divide, if there can be a divide. Like Mulan is kind of a religious story, her ancestors and Mushu play a big part, but its a very white, Christiancentric telling of the story that lacks the religious complexity of lets say Hunchback of Notre Dame, which Disney was pretty culturally comfortable with. And you can enjoy either without really being concerned about the religious stuff, but it doesn't change they're religious stories and lots of people connect with them. Well, at least with Hunchback...The Last Unicorn, same thing, very religious story that is subtle enough to ignore if you want, but people do pick up on it and respond.

So, do you not have experience with people who push a completely literal interpretation of the bible? That's what I've got a problem with. There's a very big difference between a literal interpretation of the bible and a study of it in context. I agree that there is much to be learned from mythology in context.

Kindly, define religion for me, so I have a better understanding of what we're talking about.

Seriously, pasta all the way!

May you be touched by His noodly appendage. RAMEN.

Yes, I have family who are "literalists", but honestly who ever says they take the Bible literally is very delusional, because they don't. They just say that when they want to take a passage totally out of context and hold it up as literal truth.

Like, the Bible literally says nothing about being gay. Even the passages in Leviticus doesn't actually say "kill men who sleep with men", the original Hebrew is a really weird phrase, I can't remember offhand exactly but its something like "a man shall not lie with a man who lays like a woman", and in historical context that could mean no penetrative sex, which would make sense since they were very concerned about physical hygiene as they were spiritual cleanliness, or, as is the case of the New Testament, it could have been talking about the slave sex trade.

Its more apt to say you're taking the Bible literally by appreciating its contexts and time and trying to understand what they were driving at, than take whatever the English translation you're using at the mercy of the interpretation of the translator and investigate no further. When you do that, Christ is a unicorn.

I already stated a definition earlier, its a cultural phenomenon that addresses what it means to be human, what it means to be mortal, our relationship to the divine and the subhuman, provides a sense of community and tradition, and holds a vision of the future. Its found in Authentic Fakes by Chidester but I find no conflict with that definition with how even more classical academics view religion (I have a professor who's brilliant with the New Testament, and he thinks capitalism can be argued to be a religion.). It only conflicts if you hold Christianity up as the religion that defines all others.

I agree that a literal translation of the bible reduces it to nonsense as much of the bible tends to contradict itself. But people still do it (despite that many who make that assertion are woefully ignorant of its contents), and try to make it work for their own purposes, this is a practice I disagree with. I don't go around picking fights with religious people, if they wish to keep their religion to themselves, that's cool, however when it concerns me I must say my piece.

Christ, is already a unicorn. There is very little evidence to support Jesus Christ as an actual person.

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That is a rather good working definition. I am more than willing to go with that in our discussion. I do have a question, does a thing have to meet all the criteria set forth to be a religion or is there a certain amount of wiggle room?

So far here's what I get about it. I understand that a religion tries to answer what it means to be human, so it would put forth ideas regarding human nature.

The treatment of what it means to be mortal, would be the part that would have to do with what happens after we die.

Our relationship to the divine, is pretty self explanatory. Our relationship to the subhuman, while I find that term problematic, I infer that it is our relationship to the rest of life-kind as well as the inanimate.

Provides a sense of community and tradition, is also self explanatory, as is holding a vision of the future.

My apologies for having you repeat it.

I meant Christ is literally a unicorn in some early Christian artwork.

http://www.unicornlady.net/Gallery/i...nd_unicorn.jpg

Mary with the unicorn (symbolizing Incarnation) and Gabriel going "Ave Maria". Because the Greek translators didn't know what a re'em is (the auroch), they translated it to monocerous, probably based on a Egyptian story about a one horned beast, which became unicornis in the Vulgate Bible. When people started debating what the hell a unicorn is and what it is doing in the Bible, apologists like St. Ambrose identified it as Christ. This only fell out of favour during the Council of Trent.


I would argue not necessarily, after all some neopagans are solitary, but I think they still appeal to a sort of spiritual community and tradition even if they don't hang out with other pagans. And I'm not kidding when I say people are starting to study religion on the internet, I think particularly with contemporary neopaganism, you really can't ignore the blogosphere. Our ideas of what community is going through a shift, and so we have to be a bit flexible here.

I would also argue that religions that don't believe in the divine still sort of establish a relationship with the lack of divinity, if that makes sense. So a hethen who believes the divine to be archetypes that are psychologically beneficial to symbolically worship is still religious, just making the divine scientific and more mundane.

Right, and they can do so in a diverse amount of ways. Buddhism for example doesn't have a creation story, so we don't really know or care WHY humans exist, which Christianity might answer, but we still address human nature.

It can, but not exclusively. The OT doesn't say a thing about the afterlife or what happens, so there's diverse ideas about that in Jewish history. The Sadducees didn't believe there was an afterlife at all, this is it. But the OT does address death and how it came to the world, and what it means to die. So you don't necessarily have to have an afterlife.

Right, it could refer to animals, nature, technology, the non-human might be a better word, but also demons and even the failure to be a good human. Like in Star Wars where Anakin becomes Vader, his humanity is compromised, he's more machine than man. And in Episode 6 Luke takes off his mask, and his humanity is restored. When people do horrible things, we might refer to them in sub human or non human ways, like "Hilter was a monster." You see that in some religions, like Gnostic Christians believed non-Gnostics are "sleeping" and not truly human to the full capacity they can be. Or in Scientology they believe alien souls taint us and prevent us from reaching our potential.

When you use the word "divine" what do you mean by it?

Good question. I guess something bigger that humanity. It can be the Tao, the Force, God, gods, the Ultimate Reality, Universal Consciousness, the aliens who created us and want to bring us to their level.

Coo, I was curious, as divine is a pretty broad term, I'm not a big fan of it as the use of it tends to be vague and sloppy.

Is it just me or have you been carefully avoiding using the term "supernatural" in your definitions. Is there a reason for that? Or am I reading too far in to things?

Yeah, because not all religions believe in the supernatural. I'm a little unclear whether belief in aliens is a belief in the supernatural, and also the Jungian stuff.

Yeah.. my jury is still out on the Jungian stuff.

The aliens, are kind of a tough call. I see it like this, if you could comfortably compare it to another religion and see that the aliens pretty much take the place of some sort of deity, then I'd include them.

I guess asking to prove an unsubstantiated claim on reality is just too much to ask and is rude.

Aliens made people. Prove it. Rude.

Jesus is the son of God. Prove it. Rude.

Allah is real. Prove it. Rude.

I cast a spell to fight off your cancer. Prove it will work. Rude.

I'm a Jedi. Prove it. Rude.

Frankly, I can't help how that makes believers feel when you ask them to prove their claims. It's not our fault that it's a discomforting question. Hell I WISH this shit was true.

They have proof that people were made by aliens? Why do they not have the Nobel Peace Prize? This is some important shit yo! I don't think anyone had any idea that humans were made by aliens and the aliens had a specific higher reason as to why they did such a thing. We owe a lot to the imaginations of these so called Raliens or whatever they're called. If it weren't for them; we wouldn't have known the WHY of the human animal. Oh wait...



Trekkis enjoy their myths. Jedi is recognized as a religon in the military. I'm sure that Jedi is empirically true. I happen to have an admiration for Lyudmila Pavlichenko for killing 309 Nazis. I myself am kinda cultish about socialism. If you want to say I'm religious about it; that's fine. It just means you've got all your work ahead of you and still doesn't solve the problem of those making claims about reality having the burden of proof on them. I understand that the burden of proof for those making claims about reality is frustrating but that's not my fault or yours. That's just how it works. I guess we could rescind the question of "prove it" for the sake of politeness though. If that makes people more comfortable.



Yeah. But I don't really care about religious narratives. Especially if the definition has expanded so far that people playing Magic The Gathering is somehow just as legit as Islam. Though I can't complain about that too much. That's one hell of a good thing for the skeptics.



FUCK! If we can just figure out what the hell God wants, then we can you know... be right about some shit for a change. FUCK ME!

That's fine. Prove it's real more than just popular.



I'm okay with this actually. Doubt will at best make it far more... personal and maybe someday there wont be such hostility about apostates and whatnot. It has to establish itself and then some day it'll be a fairly casual thing.






Here's my thing. Maybe it's just me. Let's say I'm a Buddhist that doubts Buddhism or whatever. For me... if I'm not convinced of it's veracity; then I just simply stop observing it. I don't really know why I'd go on being such a practitioner if I came to the point of doubting my own religion.



I only really care about proletarian feminism. I'm pretty confident that it involves eco and material feminism though.

I think that's weird and WRONG. I find that assessment pretty screwed up. You're not hanging out with these people are you? If so, why? Hopefully to change their minds cause seriously... that shit's fucked.

I'm not so sure I'd want to bite my tongue and stay silent when someone insists that more female CEOs is a victory for feminism. I mean... I guess. But I wouldn't say that's something you should just take with a grain of salt. It should be contested. What is the functional difference between a male CEO and a female CEO? Why would that even matter for working class women? I doubt Thatcher's rule somehow improved the material circumstances of working class women everywhere.



If you want to make the distinction that trekkies and believers of Hindu are somehow the same thing; then all I can say is that that says more about religion and religiosity than I ever could.

I didn't say they HAD proof, I said they FEEL they have proof. People who are anti-vac feel they have proof, 9/11 truthers feel they have proof. When people cling to theories they don't really listen to contradicty evidence.

The burden of proof to who? To people they're proselytizing, sure. To anyone who asks, no.

Or bad, since it makes religion inescapable. The religion in pop culture is reflective of "real" religion anyway, and religion in turn responds to religion in pop culture. Like the Jedi thing, Lucas was pretty open that it was largely based on Buddhism and Taoism, and the prequels were more Christian in narrative and tone. I don't think its surprising that people are responding to it when its repackaged in a more culturally familiar way.

Maybe one day when we have our liberal foot off their throats and aren't dropping progressive bombs of freedom on their children, they might not cling to extremism as a means of surviving neocolonialism.

Because Buddhists (and I have to stress I'm generalizing and not speaking for all) according to scripture, view religion as a tool and a means, not the end goal. I don't think that's particularly unique when you look at experiential/mystical religious practice such as in the Orthodox church or Sufi Islam.

Its odd you kinda say you only care about one, though, because when people tend to do that they ignore intersectionality. Like the Redstockings Manifesto stresses all men oppress all women and women are a class.

Many mainstream feminists (like the ones that are more likely to be listened to, go on tv, get book deals) are often racist and transphobic and a lot of other things, its really hard to avoid them. Perhaps that's because racist non-feminists are more willing to listen to the racist variety, I dunno.

Hey, I don't stay silent. I feel in real life though when I say something people get sulky and shut up, but go ahead and do whatever anyway.

I'm not sure they're exactly the same thing, but that (pop) culture and religion are entangled and the distinction between the two aren't so clear, is what I'm getting at. Its hard to say one is authentic and the other is not when the spiritual satisfaction may be similar.

This has gotten way too serious for my taste

When unsubstantiated beliefs are the foundation of actions that actively work to the detriment of society, for example informing (and I use that term loosely) their voting decisions, they are working to push their beliefs on a wider audience. If someone in their personal life believes that say abortion is wrong or women should be subject to their husbands or fathers whims, they have a stupid-bad belief system.

They don't have to knock on doors and ask people to convert or whatever, every sign they hold up, every dollar they donate to their cause, every political candidate who shares the beliefs they endorse is an act of proselytizing, or at least empowering another individual or group to proselytize essentially on their behalf.

Since we have to live in a world affected by the decisions made by these people, it isn't that outlandish to want to have some kind of rationale for terrible actions or the mentality that leads to them. When there is no reasonable basis I don't think it is out of line to point that out.

Your views can be informed by racism, sexism, ableism, etc and you can be an atheist and you can still vote unquestionably. Actually, American democracy was founded on the idea that it should be based on the white male racist slave owner's opinion, funny how democracy doesn't actually end oppression.

Not only that, but how do you dissect someone's religious or irreligious views from their political? And does that mean they have no right to being involved in the world? Should Liberation Theologists continued to watch people starve to death and do nothing just because their theology informed their Marxism? Should oppressed religious minorities such as Muslims not vote for the people least likely to diminish their rights? I know many women in rural communities who's religion informs their desire to reform for the better, such as getting their churches to fight for genderless marriage, just because I don't like HOW they got to that answer, I should think the answer is wrong, even if its the same as mine or yours?