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Nessus posted:I think as a broad analysis, kind of a "so this is the Idea of religion, in general, if you were raised a militant atheist or think you're either a Catholic or a Protestant and maybe vaguely are aware there are other religions" introduction, this is fine. I'm not sure what there is to discuss. To be clear, I wasn't really attempting to provide a theory of religion in that post, but rather to respond to some concerns that posters had raised earlier in the thread about being unsure about which religious tradition they should commit to. My point (which might have got lost among all the words there - I have a habit of rambling) is that no-one should think that they need to commit to any particular religious tradition to the exclusion of all others. Part of my reasoning was that most religious traditions are similar in deep ways (I'll respond to your specific criticisms of that) but more generally that there is no good reason to identify with one tradition to the exclusion of all others, given that each might contain valid truths and valuable practices. My main target was not religion, but rather those forms of religion which insist on doctrinal and ritual purity, which - from what I can gather from the rest of your post - doesn't apply to you. quote:I can say that one of the challenges here, which we mostly approach in an ecumenical good cheer (doubtless helped by our encounters, however constructed, with people trying to boss us on religious matters in other venues) is-- I didn't become a Buddhist because I sat down and did a cost benefit analysis. I read a lot about Buddhism, yes, but I had an actual religious experience which made up my mind Uh, this is a whole kettle of fish, and I'm mindful of the possibility that this will drag the thread in a million different directions at once, but a couple of quick points on this. Yes, I know that most religious people don't come into faith by doing a cost-benefit analysis, but the fact is that many do (part of what scholars term "extrinsic" motivation for religious conversion). If you want to understand the spread of Islam during its imperial period, for example, or the spread of Brahmanic religion in India (during the process of "Sanskritization"), then you need to understand the social mobility that these forms of religious adherence promised. People didn't become Muslim or Hindu because of the irresistible truth of the tawhid, or of the undeniable authority of the Vedic literature, but because they would be socially left behind (or worse) if they didn't bring their views into line with the prevailing orthodoxy. In terms of Buddhism, there was a study I recently read (which I can dig up if you're interested) which suggested that many boys in Thailand who join the monastic order do so primarily as a means of escaping poverty. This is obviously not your motivation, nor the motivation for most other religious converts, but it does happen. It's also relevant because the poster I was responding to really did seem to be doing a kind of cost-benefit analysis about whether to become an Episcopalian, and I don't see anything remotely wrong with that. As for religious experience as a basis for religious conversion, my main trouble with that is that religious experiences tend to be a) ambiguous in nature, and b) interpreted largely in line with religious concepts that the convert is already familiar with. A simpler way of saying this is that people tend to have the kinds of religious experiences they want to have, or at least expect to have. This is entirely incidental to my main point, and I'm not for a second questioning the validity of your experience (which, after all, I know nothing about), but if I'm being pressed into defending a full reductionist account as to why it is that the average religious person believes what they do, then "religious experiences" would be fairly low on the list, and "extrinsic motivation" somewhat higher. As for your other commentary, I understand and agree with most of what you've said, so I'll just address a couple of points there: quote:I would conditionally disagree with this, as the laws of reality are not laws in the sense of being "ordained' or something that you can go and appeal; they are more like scientific laws, if ones imperfectly understood. It would be interesting to consider if these laws are "things" in any meaningful way, the way that humans, computers, and the planet Mars are "things." I think that's a good point, and when I suggest that most religious traditions teach belief in a "transcendental dimension" I will stress that I didn't mean this in a mystical or esoteric sense. Religions are intimately entwined with the world, and how the world works, so most religious commitments are taken for granted as basic "things" in the world, no more mysterious than computers and cars. The laws of karma should be interpreted as no more abstract or "spiritual" than the laws of gravity, for instance. quote:I would disagree. The way it works is the way it works. You can ultimately do whatever you want within the bounds of your current situation, but wrong action does bring suffering. Yeah, here I'm assuming a distinction between what we might term "doctrinal" religion (what a religion officially says about reality) and what we might term "lived" religion (what people actually believe in practice). Basically, we find that what people claim they think about religion, and what they actually think about religion are often - in the throes of everyday life - in conflict with one another (Justin Barrett, who studies religion from a cognitive perspective, terms this "theological incorrectness"). I know that Buddhist traditions espouse a number of doctrines that might superficially conflict all those points I raised (sunyata, anatta etc.) but I also know that many Buddhists in Buddhist majority countries hold beliefs that are much more compatible with what people from the world's other major religious traditions believe. Their conceptions of Buddha are often that of a quasi-divine figure. They often believe in ghosts. They believe that their past lives can be remembered. They believe that karma is a cosmic force that they can manipulate to their material advantage. You're better positioned to tell me how prevalent these beliefs are in native Buddhist cultures, or how easily they can be squared with official Buddhist doctrine, but I don't think they're rare. The doctrines of Aquinas and Nāgārjuna are radically incompatible, that I grant you, but not so much the beliefs of the average Catholic and Buddhist.
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May 9, 2023 04:12
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Bar Ran Dun posted:“The element of doubt is an element in faith itself. And what the church should do is to accept somebody who says to them that this faith for which this church stands is a matter of my ultimate concern, which I want to serve with all my strength. But if you are asked to say what you believe about this or that doctrine, then you are driven into a kind of dishonesty even if in this moment you can say "I believe," e. g., concerning the Virgin Birth – or whatever that may mean. If you say you will agree, then you are dishonest.. . .; you may subject yourselves to this whole set of doctrines as long as you are ministers, and you can say you cannot promise because you cannot cease to think, and if you think you must doubt. And that is the problem. I think the only solution on Protestant soil is to say that this set of doctrines represents your own ultimate concern, and that you desire to serve in this group which The element of doubt is an element in faith itself. And what the church should do is to accept somebody who says to them that this faith for which this church stands is a matter of my ultimate concern, which I want to serve with all my strength. But if you are asked to say what you believe about this or that doctrine, then you are driven into a kind of dishonesty even if in this moment you can say "I believe," e. g., concerning the Virgin Birth – or whatever that may mean. If you say you will agree, then you are dishonest.. . .; you may subject yourselves to this whole set of doctrines as long as you are ministers, and you can say you cannot promise because you cannot cease to think, and if you think you must doubt. And that is the problem. I think the only solution on Protestant soil is to say that this set of doctrines represents your own ultimate concern, and that you desire to serve in this group which has made this the basis of its ultimate concern, but that you can never promise not to doubt anyone of these special doctrines.” srsly fr this hit in a cool n good way thank u also lol who says u cant attend mass and temple thomas merton is a thing for a reason
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May 9, 2023 04:40
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Wow a lot for me to catch up on. Today I won at forgiveness and I feel great,
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May 9, 2023 08:10
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Blurred posted:Yeah, here I'm assuming a distinction between what we might term "doctrinal" religion (what a religion officially says about reality) and what we might term "lived" religion (what people actually believe in practice). Basically, we find that what people claim they think about religion, and what they actually think about religion are often - in the throes of everyday life - in conflict with one another (Justin Barrett, who studies religion from a cognitive perspective, terms this "theological incorrectness"). I know that Buddhist traditions espouse a number of doctrines that might superficially conflict all those points I raised (sunyata, anatta etc.) but I also know that many Buddhists in Buddhist majority countries hold beliefs that are much more compatible with what people from the world's other major religious traditions believe. Their conceptions of Buddha are often that of a quasi-divine figure. They often believe in ghosts. They believe that their past lives can be remembered. They believe that karma is a cosmic force that they can manipulate to their material advantage. You're better positioned to tell me how prevalent these beliefs are in native Buddhist cultures, or how easily they can be squared with official Buddhist doctrine, but I don't think they're rare. The doctrines of Aquinas and Nāgārjuna are radically incompatible, that I grant you, but not so much the beliefs of the average Catholic and Buddhist. You also see this in more explicitly "for the people" sects and perspectives - Shingon Buddhism and high church ritual are obviously very different, but you can look at Methodism or Baptism and at Jodo-shinshu and the gap is a lot smaller. And while I hold the crackpot theory that the Christian practice of large, organized monasteries was inspired third-hand by Buddhist monasteries, Jodo-shinshu and Protestant sects developed in, basically, complete isolation from each other. But the pressures were similar.
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May 9, 2023 14:12
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The first time I went to Quakers I stood up in afterword and said "all I have is doubt" and Howard, the clerk said "if you've got doubts, you've come to the right place".
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May 9, 2023 16:59
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On the topic of folk religion and Buddhism, I've always been fascinated by how Kuan-yin/Guanyin came to be. Best I can find, Avalokiteshvara was mingled with a bunch of native Chinese goddess ideas and boom, now you have a female Bodhisattva, one of the most iconic figures in all of Buddhism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6UpVwsLyoI Going back to the idea of exclusivism though, a big thing about Buddhism is the plethora of suttas/sutras and how none of them are definitive. Japanese sects saw no problem in picking a handful or even just one sutra as the only one to really care about and nobody told them "you can't do that" except maybe other Buddhists who had their own sutras they saw as the right choice. Of all the numberless Buddhist schools out there, they all have a few sutras they focus on. One of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around when learning about other religions is that a lot of them do not have a supremely authoritative text like Bible or Qur'an.
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May 9, 2023 17:12
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At times it seems like the Bible is the actual object of veneration.
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May 9, 2023 17:23
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Nessus posted:At times it seems like the Bible is the actual object of veneration. In my experience this is almost explicitly the point in a lot of biblical literalist circles. When in doubt about [insert religious topic here], don't pray on it, don't meditate on it, don't discuss it with your peers or read what historical thinkers thought about the same issue. Just crack open that book, read it as literally as you can, and there's your answer.
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May 9, 2023 17:25
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quiggy posted:In my experience this is almost explicitly the point in a lot of biblical literalist circles. When in doubt about [insert religious topic here], don't pray on it, don't meditate on it, don't discuss it with your peers or read what historical thinkers thought about the same issue. Just crack open that book, read it as literally as you can, and there's your answer.
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May 9, 2023 17:28
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I listened to a Quaker podcast one time that said that traditionally Quakers don't see the Bible as the word of God but as a witness to the living word of God which is Jesus. But Quakers don't have creeds so there's no guarantee that Quakers all think this.
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May 9, 2023 17:42
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Of course the Nichiren sect pretty much worships the Lotus Sutra, but at least they’re pretty explicit about it. Maybe there’s a niche here if someone wants to start a new church.
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May 9, 2023 18:31
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Nessus posted:Why bother with Jesus? I've literally seen the stupid-rear end backronym Basic Information Before Leaving Earth several times and just like... what are you guys even doing at this point
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May 9, 2023 18:43
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quiggy posted:I've literally seen the stupid-rear end backronym Basic Information Before Leaving Earth several times and just like... what are you guys even doing at this point Well Their theology is very interesting.
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May 9, 2023 18:44
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To bring this back around to Blurred's effortpost last page (and to write a rambling post of my own), I think the central question of "why submit to an essentialist view of religion" boils down in large part to the role religion usually plays in individual people's lives. For most people, religion offers an answer to at least one of the following three questions, and usually all three:
There was an interesting post in either this thread or the previous discussions in the Buddhism thread (can't remember which, been reading a lot of threads over the past week or so) that asserted that the common secular view that consciousness simply ceases on death is not taken as a given in many parts of the world, and that in truth there's very little reason to believe it. Consciousness may just be an illusion created by the shifting patterns of electricity and chemicals that guide the human brain, but if it's not, then there's no reason to believe that consciousness ceases just because the brain ceases. We have this tendency to view the world in a very western liberal mindset where reality is measurable, predictable, and knowable, but there's not actually a good reason to believe that other than that it is comforting. Religion serves to fill in those gaps and allow a person to form a more complete picture of the universe, and subscribing to a more doctrinal view of religion means less work for the believer to rectify the knowable and unknowable parts of reality. I took a really interesting philosophy course years ago entitled "the philosophy of knowledge" that was predicated on the central question of "what does it mean to know a fact"? The answer the professor landed on by the end was that to know a fact X, the following must be true:
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May 9, 2023 19:11
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quiggy posted:I took a really interesting philosophy course years ago entitled "the philosophy of knowledge" that was predicated on the central question of "what does it mean to know a fact"? The answer the professor landed on by the end was that to know a fact X, the following must be true: Philosophical analysis of epistemologies generally ignore a specific epistemology. Revelation, Evangelion, a good messenger bringing news, the tearing of the vale. That we might know something because God spoke his Word to us. So for me the fact, X, is the event of Jesus as the Christ and for me that event is: Jesus on the cross. Were the death of God not true: I must not believe in the death of God. The reality I observe, when I look at it where I see God’s word, the Logos, exceptionally present in a person, those people are very often killed for it. There is Woody Guthrie song I like that I communicates what I’m trying to say: Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land Hard working man and brave He said to the rich, "Give your goods to the poor." So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave. Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand His followers true and brave One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot Has laid Jesus Christ in his grave He went to the sick, he went to the poor, And he went to the hungry and the lame; Said that the poor would one day win this world, And so they laid Jesus Christ in his grave. He went to the preacher, he went to the sheriff, Told them all the same; Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the Poor, But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave. When Jesus came to town, the working folks around, Believed what he did say; The bankers and the preachers they nailed him on a cross, And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave. Poor working people, they follered him around, Sung and shouted gay; Cops and the soldiers, they nailed him in the air, And they nailed Jesus Christ in his grave. Well the people held their breath when they heard about his death, And everybody wondered why; It was the landlord and the soldiers that he hired. That nailed Jesus Christ in the sky. When the love of the poor shall one day turn to hate. When the patience of the workers gives away "Would be better for you rich if you never had been born" So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave. This song was written in New York City Of rich men, preachers and slaves Yes, if Jesus was to preach like he preached in Galillee, They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave. Once the cross isn’t true, that’s when I’ll stop believing in the cross.
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May 9, 2023 20:43
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a complete criteria of determining what is truth and knowledge regardless of context isnt even unattainable, its nonsense
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May 9, 2023 21:05
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Plato in the Symposium says that originally there were three types of people, each of which was like two people joined together. Male-Male Male-Female Female-Female But they got uppity and tried to overthrow the gods. So the gods thought about killing them but they needed someone to worship them. So instead they decided to split humans down the middle to calm them down and the belly button is the survival of where people used to be split. So the Male-Female people are the origins of all straight people and the other two the source of all the gays. Also gay men are the bravest men and the ones that become politicians. e: I'm seeing a Neoplatonist parallel here where everything is hankering after a primordial original unity from which all multiplicity followed. Gee, a parallel betwen Neoplatonism and Plato! Who'd have thunk it. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 08:56 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 08:49
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Prurient Squid posted:The first time I went to Quakers I stood up in afterword and said "all I have is doubt" and Howard, the clerk said "if you've got doubts, you've come to the right place". A Friend in my meeting phrased it sIightIy differentIy "Without doubt, there can be no faith" and this stuck with me
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May 10, 2023 11:59
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You have to seek in order to find. But what you find is not commensurate to the effort put in. So you have to seek, but be detatched and even indifferent to the outcome.
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May 10, 2023 13:52
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I honestly felt chills down my spine at this point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANtCH_vMgw0&t=807s
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May 10, 2023 16:32
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Prurient Squid posted:Plato in the Symposium says that originally there were three types of people, each of which was like two people joined together. Potentially NWS for cartoons of nudey people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zU3U7E1Odc e: Aw this cuts off before the final verse which I find very beautiful. quote:The last time I saw you HopperUK fucked around with this message at 16:45 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 16:38
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This might be the wrong thread, feel free to cast me away if that's the case. Do the other christian churches consider the LDS movement to be christian?
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May 10, 2023 21:58
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I thought the thread might appreciate this: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenChristian/comments/13dtvpx/a_person_signs_up_for_an_escape_room_only_to_find/
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May 10, 2023 22:23
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Hip Flask posted:This might be the wrong thread, feel free to cast me away if that's the case. While you can’t speak for everybody, most Catholic/Orthodox/Mainline Protestants would not call LDS Christian because they deny the early church Creeds and generally have doctrines with no relationship to historical Christianity. Edit: And as for having beliefs with no relation to historical Christianity, that isn’t a value judgement, LDS thinks historical Christianity is completely wrong.
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May 10, 2023 22:37
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I would call them a Christian faith but not in continuity with the main line of the church. But I’m an onlooker.
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May 10, 2023 22:49
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Hip Flask posted:This might be the wrong thread, feel free to cast me away if that's the case. There is no official Christianity sanctioning body, so if they want to call themselves Christian, they are. However, they are not Trinitarian or much of anything else, so they have almost nothing in common with any other traditional Christian sect. So they're just their own special snowflake edition.
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May 10, 2023 22:50
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I'm pretty far removed from Christianity, being Wiccan priesthood and all, but from my (limited?) understanding of Mormonism I really don't think it should count as Christian.
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May 10, 2023 22:56
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Thirteen Orphans posted:And as for having beliefs with no relation to historical Christianity, that isn’t a value judgement, LDS thinks historical Christianity is completely wrong. Super interesting. Any examples?
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May 10, 2023 23:09
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Hip Flask posted:Super interesting. Any examples? Pre-existence and its consequences for what life after death looks like in LDS thought is pretty interesting.
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May 10, 2023 23:29
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I think the idea of a sectarian group sending missionaries to Salt Lake City to convert Mormons would make a good writing prompt.
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May 11, 2023 08:43
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Prurient Squid posted:I think the idea of a sectarian group sending missionaries to Salt Lake City to convert Mormons would make a good writing prompt. This does actually exist, prior to my transition a Google search for my deadname turned up me as well as a guy who does missionary work in Salt Lake City attempting to convert Mormons to non-LDS Christianity.
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May 11, 2023 12:26
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Thirteen Orphans posted:While you can’t speak for everybody, most Catholic/Orthodox/Mainline Protestants would not call LDS Christian because they deny the early church Creeds and generally have doctrines with no relationship to historical Christianity. By my lights, they are absolutely not Christian. They're a member of the same general family of historical offshoots like Judaism and Islam, but I do not consider them to be Christian.
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May 11, 2023 12:43
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I visited the side of Joseph Smith's death and it was fascinating and very moving, and the lady running the place on the day was incredibly sweet. Recommend a visit if you get a chance and are interested. I was staying with a friend in Nowhere Illinois so it was a fairly short journey.
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May 11, 2023 14:58
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what is the basic definition of Christian that Mormons don't meet? like to me i've basically always lumped in anyone who worships Jesus as a messianic figure as some type of Christian, and Mormons seem to be people who worship Jesus, at least the ones i've met. what disqualifies them? do they worship some other deity as well? i grew up in a town with a lot of Mormons but i never talked theology with them. but they went to places called "church" on Sundays, they used a cross as a symbol, and they actively tried to convert people to their religion. from an outside perspective those seem like the main Christian traits. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 15:58 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 15:55
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I feel like the belief that after you die you get to be the God of your own planet is sort of incompatible with Christianity, but again, I am not a Christian.
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May 11, 2023 16:16
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Mormonism has a radically different conception of God compared to most(all?) other Christian sects (I am not going to make a determination on if Mormonism is Christian or not), in that God was once a mortal man on another planet with his own God, who eventually reached apotheosis to become the God of this world. That leads into the belief of apotheosis for humanity themselves, going on to create their own worlds, whose inhabitants can also reach it. Which is even more radically separated from traditional Christian beliefs.
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May 11, 2023 16:22
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Prurient Squid posted:I think the idea of a sectarian group sending missionaries to Salt Lake City to convert Mormons would make a good writing prompt.
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May 11, 2023 16:22
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Mad Hamish posted:I feel like the belief that after you die you get to be the God of your own planet is sort of incompatible with Christianity, but again, I am not a Christian.
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May 11, 2023 16:30
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Matt Christman's analysis of the LDS as a reaction to industrialization was really interesting https://youtu.be/-cMs2BYo9nY
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May 11, 2023 16:45
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Gonna play the mormonism long con and be mormon long enough to get my own planet then be the God of Cool poo poo And Having A Good Time
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May 11, 2023 16:47
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