Does that mean Universities can be considered Religions too. Some Professors act like Monks in temples or should wee call it the Ivory Tower instead .
Monks in Temples
Can any one see the irony in that statement
Monkey Man in the Ti-more
The Creation Museum
- Thread starter superstring01
- Start date
Does that mean Universities can be considered Religions too. Some Professors act like Monks in temples or should wee call it the Ivory Tower instead .
Monks in Temples
Can any one see the irony in that statement
Monkey Man in the Ti-more
i live fairly close to that museum, and close to the big butter jesus that they're rebuilding after being struck by lightning last year. i'm in some sort of a "hub".
They are rebuilding it ? Surprise surprise surprise . I thought it was called the Touch down Jesus
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Psychology is arguably the softest of the "soft sciences." Even economists can claim to be more rigorous in their application of the scientific method. So no, there is insufficient evidence to prove the archetypal model beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard required to promote a hypothesis to a theory. (When scientists casually throw around misleading terms like "string theory" they are destroying their own credibility and inviting the followers of the Religious Redneck Retard Revival to say, "well shit, evolution is only a theory, so it might not be true.") Nonetheless, there is enough evidence to make Jung's hypothesis worth studying. Why do the same motifs occur over and over again in almost every society and every era? Even our languages are less stable than that.
It sounds like you accept the concept of archetypes as instincts, and we're just quibbling over the precise nature of the archetypes. That's fine, I'm not going to argue over whether the 23 gods are innate in our synapses or are second-order constructs that evolve from them.
I can't speak for everyone but that would be fine with me. My problem is that, at least in the USA, the "born-again" Christians cannot stand to let us (or Muslims or Jews or Hindus or anybody else) be happy our way. They believe they have a mandate from God to save us from hell by teaching us to accept Jesus Christ into our hearts, and if we won't accept him we are doing such irreparable, eternal harm to our "souls" that they are justified in using extremely offensive tactics to "save us." They insist that the United States is a Christian nation and therefore aggressive evangelism is their Constitutional right.
He's certainly not my priest! I think he's an insufferable asshole and I despise the bastard. He gives atheists a bad name! It's one thing for us atheists to be rude to religionists here on SciForums because this is a place of science and scholarship where religionists can expect to be attacked. But to go out in the mainstream and be rude to them is something quite different. He's not an American so he has no mandate to respect freedom of religion, but we do because it's a fundamental right. I would never publish a book with the kind of rhetoric I use on this website. Not only would it be un-American (arguably, since we hold freedom of speech just as sacred as freedom of religion and the two rights often conflict), but it would make the majority of Americans think I'm an asshole.
Certainly not in the USA. He is representative of the majority of religious Americans, who don't go around insulting atheists. But there is a rather large minority (the Religious Redneck Retard Revival to which I referred earlier includes millions of people in the "Bible Belt" and many more all over the country) who are very Dawkins-like in their evangelism.
Every time a Hindu explains Hinduism he or she always says that they believe in a god, and that it's the same god that Abrahamists and other religious people believe in, and that everyone just sees him/her differently and gives him/her a different name. Never have I seen or heard a Hindu claim that you can be an atheist and still be a Hindu, the way it is very nearly possible to be an atheist and still be a Jew as long as you obey Judaic Law.
Obviously these days there are "secular Hindus" the same way there are "secular Christians" and "secular Jews," but that's stretching the definition of the name. They hang onto the traditions, celebrate the festivals, and extract the morality from the faith, but they leave out the supernatural aspect. This is philosophy, this is culture, but it's not religion.
That's hardly controversial, unless you're talking to a Scientologist! L. Ron Hubbard was both a science fiction author who wrote about an imaginary group of space travelers called the "Thetans," and the founder of a self-help methodology called "Dianetics." He combined the two into a rather preposterous set of legends and principles which he named "Scientology" and presented it as a religion. He was clever enough to make it look very much like a real religion (all of which are, after all, pretty damned preposterous!) and he was lucky enough to have the government approve his application.
I beg your pardon. My wife is a Buddhist and neither she nor any of her fellow American Buddhists believe in any supernatural creatures, forces or other phenomena. The writings I have read by Buddhists from other countries are quite similar. They do not discount the possibility of a supernatural universe, but they await proof of its existence and do not generally factor it into their philosophy. There are a few things in it that a rigorous scientific atheist might object to, but the Americans, at least, say those are just metaphors, which are a rich resource for any philosophy.
Excuse me, but as the Linguistics Moderator I must correct you and point out that the vast majority of American dictionary definitions of "religion" prominently include belief in the supernatural, particularly in a god or gods, in the first or second line. If there's no god, it really isn't very much of a religion, and if there's no supernaturalism at all, it's simply not a religion at all. Period.
Sure, and Americans routinely say things like "rock and roll is my religion" or "baseball is our national religion."
Can you say "metaphor"?
My favorite is that he once halted a conference and said, "You'll have to excuse me for fifteen minutes. 'Time for Beanie' is on."
The puppets Beanie and Cecil were two of the most beloved characters on American TV in the early 1950s, and "Time for Beanie" was one of the most popular children's shows precisely because a lot of adults watched it.
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Who are Xians ?
For me as a Protestant I and we don't need a temple either , we ca gather in our houses as a matter of fact the early Christianity did not have house of worship.
What demons to criticize another's "unearthly" beliefs.
You don't have to be Laplace's Demon to see where this is going.
i live fairly close to that museum, and close to the big butter jesus that they're rebuilding after being struck by lightning last year. i'm in some sort of a "hub".
probably not so much a "Hub", the southern (and possible some mid) USA, is usually referred to as the "Bible Belt".
From a moderation perspective:
This thread appears to be diverging from topic due to a number of posed religious trolls that are attempting to use the standard tactic of creating hair splitting encumbrance which is usually done in an attempt to "dumb down" participation in the thread. In essence there here just to waste time and move you away from the topic, so to beat them at there own game, those participating in the thread should remember the topic is about discussing the Creationalist Museum (and it's Hypocrisy) not being goaded into corn-holing each other about religion.
This thread appears to be diverging from topic due to a number of posed religious trolls that are attempting to use the standard tactic of creating hair splitting encumbrance which is usually done in an attempt to "dumb down" participation in the thread. In essence there here just to waste time and move you away from the topic, so to beat them at there own game, those participating in the thread should remember the topic is about discussing the Creationalist Museum (and it's Hypocrisy) not being goaded into corn-holing each other about religion.
However much the many supernatural deficient religions may fall short of your high standards for their legitimacy, they remain religions in the standard lists and in the usage patterns of essentially all normal speakers of English.fraggle said:
The dictionaries always include Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Animism of all kinds, and so forth, without qualification (the godless factions or sects are not excluded).
The Abrahamic Western practice of imposing gods on all encountered "systems of belief" before listing them as "religions" is beginning to read, now, as a species of cultural bigotry or blindness. But these old descriptions and accounts still have great influence, among the unwary as well as the indoctrinated.
Meanwhile, your inclusion of "supernaturalism" in general is begging the question - if you are going to simply define things like tree spirits or ancestor spirits or anything else of the kind as supernatural, regardless of their alleged nature and religious roles, then you might be able to define religion as necessarily incorporating supernaturalism; that hardly settles anything. Can you say "metaphor"?
More egregious, and less excusable, is your continued polemical disparagement of Dawkins, with whose writings at last polemic you had as yet no personal acquaintanceship. He does not, in fact, in his writings, much resemble the ignorants and bigots of the religious redneck revival you despise - in fault or in virtue.
Dawkins writings do not resemble the descriptions and essays found in the Creationist Museum, to bring things around - it's not a matter of hypocrisy and foolishness and so forth, on "both sides".
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superstring01
Moderator
I have to concur with Ice.
When I read your [Fraggle's] description of Dawkins, I was a bit stunned. It's not like I expect everybody to enjoy what he does (that's obviously subjective). That said, in every public appearance, the man (setting aside his writings for now) is unfathomably peaceful and respectful, this is especially so considering the constant flow of stupidity he is constantly trying to undo. I, for one, loose patience addressing the stupidity that comes from my own family, and I owe them--at the very least--the comfort and respect that comes with the relationship. Dawkins owes no Christian such dignity, especially considering the harm that the Abrahamic faiths have done.
The guy sat in the face of Bill O'Reilly and entertained rivers of nonsense about "how the moon got there" with composure and dignity that was remarkable. He does this again, and again, just to show the world how important science is and how totally wrong religion is on almost all issues.
Then there is his books. I have to ask a person who disparages them if they've ever read anything he's written. They are spot on on almost every issue, well written and generally as respectful as one can get when one is discussing religions that are responsible for millions of death throughout history.
~String
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
My wife is a Buddhist and she would give you a much more thorough tongue-lashing than I'm capable of if you dared to call Buddhism a religion. She has explained as much of it as I've had the patience to sit through and there is not a shred of supernaturalism in it--the American version anyway. She succinctly defines it as a search for the truth, and any tools that are useful in that search are welcome, including, notably, modern science. The American Buddhist community seems to be rife with Christians, Jews, and members of other religions who have determined that the teachings of the Buddha do not conflict with their faith any more than (and in some cases less than) the principles of any of the political parties, schools of psychology, childrearing manuals, etc.
Nonetheless I recognize that some schools of Buddhism accept supernatural phenomena such as reincarnation, which qualifies those sects as religion. The average Westerner is hardly going to know that not all Buddhism is like that--especially if our scholars casually describe Buddhism as a religion.
The Dao has been taken in many directions and amalgamated with many other philosophies, mythologies and/or belief systems, including Buddhism, which has also gone in many directions. Some of those amalgamations are more religious than others.
I'm not familiar with Shinto but a cursory internet search seems to indicate that it is rife with gods.
The stereotypical type of animism tells us that all living things, and perhaps everything else too, has souls. This makes it a textbook example of supernaturalism and thereby makes it eligible to be called "religion."
Most of the American dictionaries to which I refer do not make that imposition. A typical phrase is ". . . . supernatural forces, especially a god or gods."
I don't write the dictionaries. Take this up with the people who do. It's their scholarship to which you are objecting, not mine.
You seem to be saying that reading the Bible, attending church services, being married by a priest, and forming a community with others who do the same (in the same church) is "religion," even if actual faith in the gods and other supernatural phenomena is lacking. I understand your reasoning and I recognize that many people who qualify under that definition do indeed call themselves "religious." Nonetheless, I find that if you can engage one in a discussion of the issue (and many of them will go to great lengths to avoid that discussion), most of them waffle and weasel and ultimately admit that they differentiate themselves from the true believers in those gods and other supernatural phenomena.
I went into more detail on this subject two or three years ago and perhaps I'll find the time and energy to track down that post. This forum's software is not very helpful if you want to search for posts with both "Fraggle" and "Dawkins" in them.
I have not read his books but I have read several substantive reviews by critics whom I respect, which contained (by my estimate) the maximum legally allowable number of quoted words. Perhaps the reviewers were attempting to bias me against him, but they certainly had no trouble finding text that nurtured that bias. One passage in particular passed judgment on the way Christians treat non-Christians. Despite my own polemic ravings about the obliteration of the Aztec and Inca civilizations, the Crusades, 1700 years of antisemitism, etc., I found his polemic ravings exaggerated to the point that they were either outright lies or shoddy scholarship.
If I'm wrong I'll be happy to apologize to the twenty or thirty of you who have read my posts. And just in case I am wrong I'll stop repeating my anti-Dawkins rhetoric, until and unless I actually find my old post and can track down the referenced passages.
superstring01
Moderator
I need no apology. You are entitled to an opinion or two that I disagree with!
If you want to hear someone rant and rave about religion, read Hitchens.
~String
If you want to hear someone rant and rave about religion, read Hitchens.
~String
Your wife's opinion on the matter of whether the normal speakers of English should include Buddhism among the "religions" of the world - as they most definitely do now, Buddhism being among the systems of belief normally referred to as "religions" by pretty much every native speaker of English - is noted. Until she has managed the essentially minor but quite difficult task of altering the language to suit her preferences, we are stuck with the status quo.fraggle said:
Your presumption of "supernatural" there is not universal, among believers or scholars either. And the inclusion of Buddhism as a religion rests on no such mindreading of its believers.fraggle said:
Your presumption that souls are supernatural is noted, but not adopted. And you don't get to deflect via "stereotypical" or other such ascriptions of cultural blindness to others - all animism, not just the "stereotypical" stuff, is included under religion in the normal use of the term.fraggle said:
Not only themselves, but you and I and basically everyone else calls that a religion and numbers them among its followers. To declare otherwise - as fundies are wont to do when confronted with the latest scandal - is often the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, if not simply denial.fraggle said:
You have also read - or at least responded to, sometimes with threats - several reviews of your opinions about Dawkins that pointed out, with complete accuracy, that you lack adequate factual basis for your opinions, and are flagrantly out of line.fraggle said:
Do not bother to recall or reread your previous posts. They are no different. Until you have actually read that author's works, you should stop talking about them - let alone so vehemently attempting to disparage the author's character, motives, stances, etc.
And you of all posters should recognize that situation.
The situation with things like the Creation Museum is not, then, some kind of mirror image or Kilkenny Cat setup on the cultural border with the critics of religion, espousers of evolutionary theories, scientific establishment, or the like. It does not deserve the respect accorded genuine intellectual effort honestly informed and well meant. And no parallel "other side" need be setup and criticized to establish anyone's bona fides in disparaging it - on the contrary, that is best avoided as misleading to the innocent.
I have never seen a useful dictionary definition of religion that insisted on a supernatural element. Sure, they mention that such is common, but I've never seen it cited as a requirement. Here's what dictionary.com says for the definition of "religion:"
"a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. "
As you can see, there is no requirement of belief in the supernatural, nor anything that would disqualify Buddhism. If you've got a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe, then you've got a religion.
Nor is there any requirement about said belief system being exclusive of other belief systems, in order to qualify as a "religion," so there's no issue with this stuff:
... not that we should allow any particular loopholes for what individual believers decide is or is not in conflict with their faith, on issues of definition like this. People decide all kinds of mutually-contradictory and self-inconsistent things about what their religions do and do not say.