Religion is a system whereby you believe that something or someone is above you and you fear the consequences of your actions against their actions and will.

Having seen one of these evil religious controlling types at work (e.g. my dad, who has increased the amount of poor helpless devotees threefold since taking up office) I think that it's a lot harder to control people than you think. I also think that seeing the amount of work he does, and the amount of good he does is typical of local religious leaders.

Also I think those that used religion against you were hiding their own unease with your transgression of social boundaries. The Spanish Inquisition was used as a way of keeping the rich, prosperous and booming society under strict control and the extermination of the native populations due partly to stupidity and mostly to greed. Why such things were not questioned, it may be the excuse of religion - but that's all, an excuse - not an actual cause.

Though I still could never join one.

Hrm, religion. Fun thought.

A unified, rigidly(?) structured, belief system.

Any of the examples I can think of are rigidly structured anyway. I think that is what makes me run and hide the most; They think they are right so much they can not accept that they are wrong. (An it does not help that I have reason to believe that things aren't as advertised in ways)


^*shrug*

I supposed if we wanted to be snarky we could define religion as a human social behavior. Which it is, but it is more than that.

^{*shrugs again*}

Ye old sand in the wind...

Good religions will tell you to think for yourself.

Bad religions will tell you to think what they tell you.

I think if Christians would remember that "true religion" according to the Bible is "caring for the widows and orphans..."

Maybe they'd stop pointing fingers so darn much.

Ooph. That's a monstrous of a question, innit?  ~laugh~ The word comes from the Latin religio, meaning I bind up again, or I tie again.
Personally, spirituality is a better approach as it doesn't tie you down unless that's your party trick.

Quote from: Butterfly on June 03, 2007, 12:04:57 PM
The word comes from the Latin religio, meaning I bind up again, or I tie again.

Best reply yet, IMO.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 02, 2007, 04:27:03 PM

Just a pity they are founded on bunches of silly stories that's all.

Define silly. By example(s).

Quote from: The Middle Way on June 10, 2007, 06:35:09 PM

Quote from: Butterfly on June 03, 2007, 12:04:57 PM
The word comes from the Latin religio, meaning I bind up again, or I tie again.

Best reply yet, IMO.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 02, 2007, 04:27:03 PM

Just a pity they are founded on bunches of silly stories that's all.

Define silly. By example(s).

For example, swapping sex for mandrakes, Genesis 30 14-17

"And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes. And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night."

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 11, 2007, 06:51:52 AM

Quote from: The Middle Way on June 10, 2007, 06:35:09 PM

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 02, 2007, 04:27:03 PM

Just a pity they are founded on bunches of silly stories that's all.

Define silly. By example(s).

For example, swapping sex for mandrakes, Genesis 30 14-17

"And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes. And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night."

Ok, that is a very silly story. I seriously doubt that it is a founding sort of story. [You said 'founded on bunches of silly stories', and have reduced the thing accordingly.] There just might be some more gratifying stories than your example, out there, somewhere.

Life is, reality is, to me, just stories. Modeled more or less on earlier stories. Religion is based on stories, to try and get some kind of handle on what is largely inexplicable, origin, purpose, how and why sort of stuff. So there might be a beautiful story or three, around, you know, that might serve as a good model.

Quote from: Butterfly on June 03, 2007, 12:04:57 PM
The word comes from the Latin religio, meaning I bind up again, or I tie again.

Quote from: The Middle Way on June 10, 2007, 06:35:09 PM
Best reply yet, IMO.

Linguistically, Yoke and Yoga are similar. To yoke, to tie. Yoga is equivalent to Unity.
Now this, conferred with your Latin, suggests the thought to me that sometimes we might look to be tied to something Other Than Our Selves, or That Which Is Greater Than I. But that we might err in considering that this Greater Than I is separate from the being that *one* is.

tmw

I knew you would pick me up on that. Good one about the mandrake though aint it?

It's Monty Python though, innit? I mean, Stop it, this is silly!

I will agree with you that social life is formed on stories and as social stories much of the Bible is very good. As social currency those stories are good, and I've already argued about the good social things that religion does. I think it is when those stories are taken out of social life and but into the physical world that it becomes silly. Thus, God creating the world in 6 days is a good social story - talking about humanity's place in the world, the power of the social abstraction called God. But it is silly when deemed as scientific theory a la intelligent design.

Ok.... what you just said is so totally a given in my book.

My whole point, Pica, is that there are a lot of good stories out there. Beautiful stories, gloriously silly, wonderful stories, heartbreaking stories, that - imagine it - are not intended as facts, necessarily.

Some of these stories appear to be Universal, and occur in most of your 'religions'. There might be some good clues in there.

The founding story in the Bible (which is so not a fave of mine), as it reads, is to me a kind of messed-up story. Something might have got lost in translation between those dudes on drugs or whatever in the desert two millenia ago, and this pseudo-Shakespearan English we know in the West as 'The Bible', I don't know.

But I might have to ability to get beyond the language that bugs me in such a tale, and get a kind of a clue, perhaps, as to something like 'the meaning of life', even from this arcana. ["My" version of it, one can find in the topic "damned if you do..."]

I suspect that something that has worked this well for this long, in an inhabitable universe, might contain design features, that are hard to surpass... It is after all the most beautiful day, and the air even smells ineffably sweet. My reading of physics indicates to me, that of all possible universes that might work, this one would be a hard one to do.

On the other hand (the comic book character called), Mr Natural, to his acolyte, flaky foont, in response to the musical question: 'But what does it all mean, Mr Natural?': (The Natch spits and sez) 'It don't mean shee-it.'

TMW/NOTA