Occam. - 23 November 2012 12:24 PM

And from what I’ve seen most love is irrational and driven by our hormones rather than our neurons. 

Occam

Hence another reason to stay away from that 22 year old (hyper hormone producing) self you have been craving.

Haven’t been craving it; just thought it might be fun to have another crack at it. 

Occam

Occam. - 23 November 2012 01:15 PM

Haven’t been craving it; just thought it might be fun to have another crack at it. 

Occam

I agree.

Write4U - 22 October 2012 03:04 PM

All fundamentalist religions are arrogant and exclusive in nature.  “only though me”, “slay the infidel” are statements of hubris, arrogance, and in general obnoxious. If not actively and vigorously opposed, they will attempt by various means to compel you to “obey” the word of their god.

I agree. There are two types of religions. One holding the view that religions can and should evolve and the other holding the view that they can’t or shouldn’t evolve. The latter is what we typically call fundamentalist religions. Most of them are indeed dangerous. The question is what we can do so that people reject to be followers of fundamentalist religions. Offering atheism as the only valid alternative does limit our options.

dansmith62 - 26 November 2012 08:24 AM

Write4U - 22 October 2012 03:04 PM

All fundamentalist religions are arrogant and exclusive in nature.  “only though me”, “slay the infidel” are statements of hubris, arrogance, and in general obnoxious. If not actively and vigorously opposed, they will attempt by various means to compel you to “obey” the word of their god.

I agree. There are two types of religions.
One holding the view that religions can and should evolve

and the other holding the view that they can’t or shouldn’t evolve.
The latter is what we typically call fundamentalist religions.
Most of them are indeed dangerous. The question is what we can do so
that people reject to be followers of fundamentalist religions.
Offering atheism as the only valid alternative does limit our options.

I would get curious on this claim.
There are two types of religions.

One holding the view that religions can and should evolve

Would that derail the thread too much if I ask about some example
of such religion?

I’ve been atheist my whole life and are by the atheist definition 100%
atheist now but I feel very religious so if I could find a religion that behave
like you say “One holding the view that religions can and should evolve “
that would be very nice to know and read about. Unless it is a post-modern
version of relativism. ? Or a new age version of supernatural woo whatever.

Maybe we refer to Reconstructionist Paganism? I guess I have to write you a PM?

I think all religions have to evolve or die.  Certainly christianity has, in general, gone from using all of the bible as truth to ignoring, re-interpreting, and in the long-run, rewriting to remove all the information a while after its scientific disproof became generally accepted. 

Occam

Occam. - 27 November 2012 11:53 AM

I think all religions have to evolve or die.  Certainly christianity has, in general, gone from using all of the bible as truth to ignoring, re-interpreting, and in the long-run, rewriting to remove all the information a while after its scientific disproof became generally accepted. 

Occam

This is true, but I think that Fred was asking about religions, which, as part of their doctrine, hold the view that they can and should evolve.  It seems to me that Christianity’s changes have happened rather organically, rather than due to an institutional view that it can and should evolve.  Though I could be wrong about this.

In another forum they talk a lot about this:

When is a religion not a true religion.
Society accept it as a religion due to its age
and the tradition itself is referred to as religion
but a lot of the atheists say that it lacks the faith
in supernatural gods and only religions that have
that faith in such gods are true religions the other
are traditions and not religions.

the evolved religions that don’t require the fundy faith
get upset over being declared “not a religion as we see it”

why would atheists know more about our religion
than what we do ourselves? Angry and upset feelings.

Think atheistic Buddhism. Some atheists that are Buddhists
do look down upon Buddhism that they see as religious.

I got interested in one such Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu Buddhism
and they have a metaphoric view on Amida Buddha.

The cool thing is that they have a minority of believers
that really think that Amida do exists and these are as
angry as the religious that don’t think God exjsts.

Sorry I am not good at retelling this in a good way.

Anyway this thing religion is not easy to relate to.
This is not about the definition of religion but the entity itself

I should read the OP again because I feel unsure of what that means

Let’s do a thougt experiment that I am very fond of..
Religion existed long before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
And now almost 2000 years later we still have religions but other than
way back thousand of years before Nicaea. So statistically some 1000 years
in the future there could be a very small minority that still do religion.
Say 5% of humanity are stubborn enough to do religion.

What is most likely based on what we know now that that religion is Fundy
or Liberal? Does it have a God or many gods. Does it accept atheists or
try to convert us to be believers.

Is it not rather unpredictable? Can one saw the seed of what it will become
in the future? Can we help our coming generations to get a religion that is
as naturalistic as possible.

Read here http://secularbuddhism.org/2012/11/29/secular-humanism-and-secular-buddhism/

Secular Humanism and Secular Buddhism
Doug Smith | November 29, 2012 ...
By “secularized Buddhist” I mean Buddhism shorn of its supernatural claims,
such as literal rebirth, effective karmic causation, and the like.

What I hope for is a Naturalized Buddhism and by that I mean a Buddhism
that has nothing Buddhism left and not the meditations and all the claims
of what it do and does not do.

What I mean is that I want something that really works and based on science
and not on faith and subjective personal experience as Buddhism does.

And I want that Amida there but not referred to as Amida Buddha.

Amida of Science and not of religion. That is a thought experiment I like.
Some day in the far far future, say many hundreds years from now.
Even thousands of years those that live then should have matured enough
to get rid of all references to faith in Buddha or God and have a truly naturalistic religion.

Are you with me?

Fred:

A religon is anything its members call a religion.  (I’m not talking about for tax purposes.    ).  I participate in two 1.) The Church of the Corner Bar, where I belong to several congregations, and 2.)  Moola, I have a shrine to this god in my garage.  Doesn’t demand worship, if fact often punishes it, but does demand respect.  (Balance your check book or you willl be damned).

Gary, you should join a forum that I am a new member of
the atheists there told all of us that not every religion
is a true religion. They dismissed a religion that is named
(Modern) Conservative Judaism It goes under some other name too
but the reason they dismissed it was that they are rather okay
with members that don’t decide on if God is like the text says.
As long as one do most of the other things. Keep the Jew Law
and celebrated and so on.

I can give you pm link to it we derail too much ...

Here is the wiki? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism

A variant that is rather close is Reformed Judaism. There is also
Reconstructed Judaism.

I know almost nothing about it because I am no Jew but
when active in Political Left way back in 1965 to 1975 I met
very many Jews and their parents where active in those Jew variants.

Curious, the word indoctrination has not been used in this thread up to now.

psik

psikeyhackr - 05 December 2012 07:23 AM

Curious, the word indoctrination has not been used in this thread up to now.

psik

Tell us more.
Does not everybody do the indoctrination.
You have something specific on mind?

FredW - 07 December 2012 11:45 AM

psikeyhackr - 05 December 2012 07:23 AM

Curious, the word indoctrination has not been used in this thread up to now.

psik

Tell us more.
Does not everybody do the indoctrination.
You have something specific on mind?

What is there to tell.  Hindus indoctrinate their children into being Hindus.  Catholics indoctrinate their children into being Catholics.  Muslims indoctrinate their children into being Muslims.

Rational thought has nothing whatsoever to do with it.  If anything this involves the suppression or prevention of rational thought.  So once the programming is done it goes on generation after generation.  If anything the global Internet may affect everything because of so much global intellectual interaction.  It does seem as though some people are more susceptible from birth than others but I don’t know how much that has been studied.  I think I have seen it mentioned in marketing training that 10 or 15% of the population just does not go along with the program.

Is a truly logical explanation of something that can be tested experimentally constitute indoctrination?

psik

arv13, divorcing definition from the meaning and trying to make sense of anything is just usually an attempt by some writers to obscure the topic for a particular belief. I think it is important that definition and description of meaning be used in specific arguments between the people who are part of the conversation. And not defining the terms but assuming everyone ‘knows’ what you are referring to to me reminds me of Mad TV’s Miss Swan: “Well, what did the person look like?” “Well, you know,...he looka lika man.”

    You stated as a presumption that the author claims that “religion is not a cultural universal”. Well, that’s definition begging because it claims a truth to something without certifying what it is to begin with. You can’t even prove it true or false…this statement is defining it according to the author. I tend to find that those materials that claim that there is no way to clearly define something is usually a bias based on how they want others to view their own beliefs as immune to argument by lack of clarity. If you can’t pinpoint what or who they are or what they stand for, you can’t prove them wrong.

    I think it is wise in conversation to investigate classification of what the people involved agree is included in some common meaning (the thing itself); But this only becomes useful once the parties involved give it a name to refer to. You don’t have to call the phenomena in mind according to some other popular convention. If the author truly wants you to think objectively without concern for the term, then he/she should label it something unique and unrelated to what is conventional. In this case, why doesn’t he name the phenomena he’s describing as “X”. Saying that you cannot define ‘religion’ and then using the very term in discussion is rhetorically getting the listener to transfer some part of its conventional use into their minds. Most religions ironically know this considering they redefine common terms from convention to mean something private in order to immunize their flock from the outsiders. Avoiding definition makes one seem more popular because it encourages others to submit their own meaning into something that was obscure in the first place. That’s why poetry and song writers are popular. How often do you hear an interview with an artist who is asked about some lyrics or other art popularly thought profound only to discover that they were inspired by something as banal as, “The words sounded cool together. I didn’t have any meaning when I wrote it!”

What is Religion?/the dynamic of religion : This is not about the definition of religion but the entity itself

What is Religion?/the dynamic of religion : ... the entity (religion) itself

Don’t you ask two things?
1. What is Religion?
2. the dynamic of religion

Religion is many things. Psychological it is does a lot of things
one can list how individuals relate to religions and list the variety.
But you can look at it from social group dynamics and describe
hierarchy and authority and norms from tradition and so on.
Politically you can refer to religion as an oppressive tool.

2. The dynamic seems to refer to either historically or
maybe the group dynamics.

There is so many ways to relate to it.