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The Nature of Religion

The Nature of Religion

Postby rusmeister » December 8th, 2008, 2:53 am

I feel that I am withdrawing from this place - a central issue brought it to a head, of course.

The nature of that issue is: "what is religion/philosophy?" Is it a part of your life, in the most literal (and awful) sense, or is it the basis, the foundation on which you see all of life?

Obviously, it's a weighted question and I have a definite answer. But it is in conflict with a central tenet of pluralism, which insists that religion be something that must be compartmentalized, and kept out of many, possibly most areas of your life. It's why political correctness (the practical application of pluralism) is so at odds with traditional religion and why modern western religions are adapting to the world rather than stating that the world must adapt to them.

So I'm not really asking a question that I need an answer to, but feel that it is good for people to consciously consider it (especially if I do drop out).

Is it really possible for a traditional Christian, one who claims to be part of a 2,000 year old faith, to exclude that faith from consideration in various areas of one's life, be it politics, entertainment, or other areas of human activity? Can you really say on any topic, "My faith has no relation to this"?

I realize that non-Christians most certainly can, and think that plenty of Christians do say this. I would say that they are very likely unaware of the connection between faith as a proposition of ultimate truth and the effect of that truth on any aspect of human life and the dissonance created by that lack of awareness. Put another way, "Girls (or boys) just wanna have fun."

The answer to this question determines how propositions of ultimate truth (and their proposers) will be treated.

Hopefully I posted this question in the right compartment.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby Tuke » December 8th, 2008, 4:05 am

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, my dear Rum.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby Robin » December 8th, 2008, 4:19 am

I think that my faith colors everything in my life, it is the reason why I have hope, enjoy art, love my family, work, etc. But there is another driving force: sin, and I cannot control this and it permeates everything I do. Everything, when I have felt that I am most close to Christ then I do things that bring great shame on His name, sometimes the bad things I do come from good intentions, sometimes it is when I think that I'm doing good that I realize how wrong I really was. So to answer Rus question, I do my best to live everything by the Gospel, but I am aware of my limitations and sometimes it's best to 'lighten up' - I get better results that way.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby friendofbill » December 8th, 2008, 1:12 pm

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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby Lioba » December 8th, 2008, 1:44 pm

A Religion, Philosophy or individual spiritual life that has no consequences on my view of society and my way in the world is a humbug.
Maybe I sometimes fail, make compromises that I regret when I look back.That´s human weekness and can be forgiven. It doesn´t change my principal attitude.
Living in a pluralisitc society means for me, that I wil not force my convictions on others, but still my life should be guided by them and it will influence society through me.
Rus, I can understand you, but it is a pity ! :snow-cry:
Iustitia est ad alterum.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby gameld » December 8th, 2008, 10:44 pm

i agree with lioba who said that "A Religion, Philosophy or individual spiritual life that has no consequences on my view of society and my way in the world is a humbug." if a view of life that doesn't affect how you live or filter what you see is not actually your worldview. you may claim something else, but your worldview (be it pluralism, christianity, buddhism, etc.) will, always, filter what you see. that's why they call it a worldview: it's your view of the world.
as far as blending pluralism with the traditional religions and their doctrines, dogmas, and orthodoxes... well that's impossible. to believe any of these things means to exclude and disallow, in one's understanding of objective truth, what other people believe. then a person says that another is wrong and thoroughly convinced of this.
i myself, attempting to be a "mere christian", have never adhered to a pluralistic outlook on life. i stand directly opposed to this idea (for reasons too long for this post). i believe that even a claimed pluralist is not a pluralist for to be a pluralist you must agree with everyone, including those who believe in objective, absolute truth that exclude other beliefs (thus creating an impossible paradox). pluralists, then, should own up to the fact that they are responsible for answering to something beyond themselves (be it God, karma, natural law, whatever).
in short, don't leave just because your religious view doesn't coincide well with pluralism. that merely shows the failure of pluralism and it is the responsibility of everyone to stand opposed to that which is false. some people refuse this responsibility, but that doesn't remove the responsibility. if you are convinced of your faith, that it is objectively true no matter whether you or others like it, stand by your faith and don't cave to the pressure to be a pluralist. if you are not convinced, seek answers to the parts that are opening gaps.

sorry this is longer than i intended.
'til we meet again.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby JRosemary » December 9th, 2008, 5:22 am

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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby friendofbill » December 9th, 2008, 8:02 pm

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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby JRosemary » December 9th, 2008, 10:02 pm

Duplicate--sorry! :snow-tongue:
Last edited by JRosemary on December 9th, 2008, 10:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby JRosemary » December 9th, 2008, 10:02 pm

Last edited by JRosemary on December 10th, 2008, 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby postodave » December 10th, 2008, 12:12 am

I want to suggest that we make a distinction between religions and religious beliefs.
For me a religious belief is a belief about divinity, a belief that something is divine. So a theist believes God is divine, a pantheist believes 'God and nature' are both divine, a pancosmist believes some part or aspect of the cosmos is divine.
A religion is difficult to define because not all the things we call religions are the same kind of thing. Rosemary you do not like religions to be defined in terms of belief as this is not true of Judaism (or as you say of several other religions) but I have found that speaking from a Jewish frame of reference you find the idea of a religion which has no ethic (such as shintoism or voodoo) hard to see as a religion.
Now although many religions focus primarily on one type of religious belief so most Christians and I think most Jews or Muslims are theists some are not. It is doubtful that Paul Tillich is a theist, Spinoza is certainly a pantheist. Some religions will happily contain more than one type of religious belief e.g. Hinduism where you get pantheist and theist forms. So the lines between different types of religious belief do not run neatly between religions.
While I would contend that all human beings are religious in the sense of having some kind of divinity belief not all humans feel a need for ritual or belonging to a religious collectivity and when people say they are not religious that is what they often mean although sometimes they are simply denying one particular form of belief, belief in God.
So I drew my sword and got ready
But the lamb ran away with the crown
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby JRosemary » December 10th, 2008, 1:39 am

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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby Tumnus's Books » December 10th, 2008, 3:02 am

What did Kierkegaard say? "A man's ideas must be the house he lives in, otherwise something is terribly wrong." I may have misquoted that in translation, but I think K. brings up a relevant point to the discussion. We're looking at two sides of the same coin of course- and I think Lewis touches on this in Mere Christianity when he states that all religion is meant to do is facilitate that personal relationship with the Divine, and if it doesn't do that, then all the churches, doctrines, sacraments, etc. are all rendered useless.
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby rusmeister » December 10th, 2008, 3:14 am

I'll add one more little thing - the very existence of a section entitled "religion/philosophy" points to a compartmentalizing of the topics - and ensuring their exclusion at will from their application to any other topic.

It seems clear to me that a religion or philosophy is the foundation from which everything else springs and cannot be compartmentalized without falsifying the relationship to the topics of the world. Thus, if there really IS one truth out there that could somehow be identified as THE TRUTH, you won't find it by saying that science or entertainment or health have nothing to do with it. That is the ultimate lie of pluralism (not that people are consciously attempting to deceive - but they ARE deceived into thinking that many contradictory worldviews can not only peacefully co-exist, but that unity can be created out of them.

I remember one jarring moment after Sept. 11th when people suddenly remembered that they were AMERICANS, not just global citizens, when suddenly, for a short time, flags flew on every street corner, when everywhere you went people honked at the site of an American flag. For a brief moment, they returned to something that their fathers had held as important - nationalism. (You can argue the right or wrong of that, but the fact is that tragedy triggered a response that denied globalism - it jarred people out of their modern and jaded attitudes. But I'll drop the point if people don't see its connection to the main one.

People may be able to talk (make noises?), but successful communication where they understand each other is doubtful and haphazard, and unity is impossible, if religion is compartmentalized. They can, as Chesterton put it, "talk about Lord Anglesey (or Obama) and the weather, and call it the complete liberty of all the creeds."
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/boo ... s/ch1.html

One thing I'd like to add to JRose's post - the Christian view, broadly speaking, is that there are evil spirits as well as good spirits - so merely saying "spiritual" (which is used to imply a good thing) could mean giving access to evil spirits (a really bad thing).
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Re: The Nature of Religion

Postby friendofbill » December 10th, 2008, 3:28 pm

Thanks for your thoughtful responses, JRosemary. It's "cool" to be able to discuss differences of opinion without anyone getting bent out of shape because the opinions are ... different.

As I understand it, you are asking (paraphrased by me)
(1) Does doctrine define religion?,
(2) Does ritual really unite believers?
(3) In the event that I had to abandon my denomination, would I still be a Christian though out of touch with a corporate fellowship?

Hm.
(1) I seriously doubt that religion can exist without doctrine. Even an atheist has a set of doctrines: "There is no God" is a doctrine, and in my opinion (I have atheist friends who disagree strongly) that makes atheism a religion -- It is a stance concerning the existence of God. Judaism likewise takes a stance, i.e., there is a God and He spoke to Moses, and to the prophets. Individual Jews may be non-religious, and identify with Judaism only as an accident of birth or lineage, as does my dear friend Mitch ... but where is such a person different from an atheist? Either way, there is a doctrine: either "there is a God" or "it doesn't matter whether there is a God or not, so I behave as if there were not." I am not positing "doctrine," obviously, as necessarily a set of statements formalized by a council or synod. Ask anyone what he believe about God and you will hear his doctrine.

So in that sense, the distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" could be said to be a non-issue. If indeed we are, as I believe, spirit embodied in flesh, then everything is spiritual, nothing excepted, not even atheism; it is not a matter of "are you spiritual" but of "what do you do with your spirituality?" So I am not unaware that my distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" is a semantic convenience and is open to dispute. BTW, I came by this distinction largely through understanding the works of Eric Butterworth, who makes the distinction between the "religion of Jesus" (His teachings and commands) and "the religion about Jesus," all the stuff that developed in terms of fellowship, worship and the like after his resurrection. The religion OF Jesus cannot be set aside by a Christian: the religion about Jesus can.

(2) Does ritual really unite believers? I think so, at least it does unite those who believe in God in one way or another. Are not Jews united through the common experience of Bar Mitzvah, and the reading of Torah in the Sabbath assembly? These "rituals" are Jewish, period, and are not practiced by Christians, Mormon, Hindus or anyone else. Likewise, the Eucharist (Holy Communion) is practiced by Christians only, never by Jews or Muslims or Buddhists. It is part of the "religion OF Jesus" and thus unites all believers in Jesus. Regardless of the outward form in which the eucharist is administered, or whether the elements are bread and wine or crackers and grape juice, the words "This is my body" and "This is my blood" identify the participant as a Christian.

But suppose one could not receive the eucharist? Suppose a Jew was separated from any contact with the Torah and denied the right to undergo Bar Mitzvah? The rituals still exist "in spirit" and still serve as uniting factors. Just as Catholicism teaches that one may experience a "baptism of intent" when no water is present, so also one may identify with Bar Mitzvah or with the eucharist in spirit. In my own way of thinking, I am a member of the "communion of saints," the "extended fellowship," consisting not only of my fellow congregation members at St. Paul's, but also of the myriad saints who have gone ahead of me, so that we are, as the letter to the Hebrews states it, "surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." I cannot be out of fellowship, even if I am not in the presence of other Christians in the flesh. When He says, "This is my body," He says it to the entire assembly living and dead.

(3) By saying" the religion may have to go" I am saying only that the outward observances may have to go, or may be subject to change; i.e., the "religion about Jesus." The religion OF Jesus cannot (for me) change or go, or I would no longer be a Christian at all, but merely a rudderless ship on a tempestuous sea. I've been that route and don't care to try it again.

I have the uncomfortable feeling I have not really addressed your questions head on, perhaps because I have not yet understood them. I'm not trying to be evasive, really. We may be entangled in "word definition confusion." Or maybe I'm just dense. But I do enjoy this discussion!

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