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What if God made his existence plain to our senses? He appeared in physical form and could be clearly seen and heard by everyone. Would belief in God continue to be religious?
If we had undeniable facts we wouldn't need religions.
So how is religion being defined then?
What is the difference. Followers of a soccer team for example will meet together and believe that they team is the best. They will live and breath they team and chant and sing songs about their team. In fact many thing that some of their players or even their manager is God.That isn't the same use of the word as we would use it when applied to religions.
Are Buddhism and Jainism religions?
Does that mean Deism and Epicureanism aren't religions? Scientology?
In that context religion is a tradition of what people do to fill in the gaps between metaphysical facts.
We would naturally exclude basic rationalism and inductive inference from that as they are extrapolations on facts.
Based on this definition I am not a religious person.
Tree of life said:For the Christian, belief in God and belief in God's word are ultimately identical. One cannot deny God without denying his word. One cannot deny God's word without denying God.
And, for the Christian, God's word is contained in the Bible.
What if God made his existence plain to our senses? He appeared in physical form and could be clearly seen and heard by everyone. Would belief in God continue to be religious?
What is the difference. Followers of a soccer team for example will meet together and believe that they team is the best. They will live and breath they team and chant and sing songs about their team. In fact many thing that some of their players or even their manager is God.
synonyms:faith, belief, divinity, worship, creed, teaching, doctrine, theology; sect, cult, religious group, faith community, church, denomination, body, following, persuasion, affiliation
As you can see most of these words dont really apply to God Himself or His divinity. They can aslo be applied to non religious things.
But religion is a man made institution. Even though its mostly to do with a belief in God it is still a man made thing that has all the added practices that are not necessarily in the doctrines of the religion itself. Ie the Catholics added that women could not enter a church without wearing something over their heads many years ago. They said you couldn't eat meat on Easter Friday. They wear all these robes and burn essence and all that at their church meetings. They made big grand buildings to hold their masses as part of their worship. None of that is in the bible.
Fair enough. In this context it is about the supernatural.They don't believe in a supernatural transcendent being, that's the difference. (Well they might believe in one, but that isn't relevant to the sport).
Fair enough.Okay. Posting a load of synonyms from a dictionary isn't convincing. A religion has to be about the transcendent supernatural for it to be a religion.
Yeah there are some things said in the bible that people take out of context. It does say some things like this. Not eating meat on the good Friday was taken from a verse that did say to not eat meat at certain times but it was turned into something else. In fact it was more related to Jewish practice. But Christ clarified this by saying it wasn't the traditions of what you put into your mouth to eat that made you righteous. It was what came out of your heart. He was pointing out that the law that the Jews had imposed to make them clean and justified before God were not going to save them. It was what was in a persons heart and where their inner self was at. But some have taken the verse and used it as a ritual and are keeping alive a practice and making it greater than the true spirit of what it represented from Christ Himself.Though the Bible does give random rules though. Women wearing hats in church is one of them. You may say it doesn't apply now, but it's there.
If the debater is good the equivocation will fall more subtlety on the term "religion" as you can do any number of things "religiously" and not have a religion.
Secular is the problem here though because it specifically means "not religious", and it is hard to get around the idea.
The interesting thing about proposing such a debate to try to equivocate religion and secularism is that it seems to indicate that the religious person doesn't care much for authority of religion in general...
Which I suppose isn't much of an issue because they seem very comfortable dismissing other religions.
Doesn't this mean though that if secularism isn't properly a religion that it is more valid as an idea?
That seems like an idea that I would come up with but it seems strange when proffered by the religious person.
In that context religion is a tradition of what people do to fill in the gaps between metaphysical facts.
We would naturally exclude basic rationalism and inductive inference from that as they are extrapolations on facts.
Get to the root etymology of the word: religare- "to bind together into a unity"
This is the purpose of religions in general is to bind the people together as a whole functioning super-organism that has greater electromagnetic nesting potential than the individual or sum of individual parts. Shared Spirit.
Spirit acts implosively. If you build the nest, the bird will land. You can only build so much on your own and we are surrounded and immersed in greater EM fields. The range of electromagnetic interaction is infinite.
From a dictionary:
Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back
This could refer to binding a community together, for instance, due to shared beliefs and practices.
But it could refer merely to binding a community and its chosen gods together, for instance, by engaging in a "contract" with the gods.
I don't think that this has ever been settled, and I don't think that word etymologies are going to be helpful today. Governments bind communities today -- are they religions? In ancient times, there was no effective separation of church and state, so the distinction never had to be made. We may have to think this one out for ourselves.
You are going to make a fortune on the New Age circuit.
There's a ______ born every ______.
eudaimonia,
Mark
If a person doesn't have a good strong foundation to build their life on then it will be constantly washed away and will never take root. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and you can depend on God to give true happiness and peace in your life. God is the only way a person will find what they are looking for.
Get to the root etymology of the word: religare- "to bind together into a unity"
This is the purpose of religions in general is to bind the people together as a whole functioning super-organism that has greater electromagnetic nesting potential than the individual or sum of individual parts. Shared Spirit.
Spirit acts implosively. If you build the nest, the bird will land. You can only build so much on your own and we are surrounded and immersed in greater EM fields. The range of electromagnetic interaction is infinite.
What does it mean to you to "do something religiously"?
David's opening post is up: #2
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