Religion...what is it?

[ReligionOFTHEsemites]

What is religion?

As an anthropologist, my idea of religion may be very different than the average person's definition but I am very interested in different views on what exactly religion is. Please, in your own words, define what religion is. Not a certain religion, but religion in general.

My definition: the cognitive projections that exist with systematic representations due to inference systems equipped by the human mind.

All religions project a mind(s), which is a fact of anthropology (Boyer, Religion Explained) and information about the mind(s) are filled with representations of what is called inference systems that are part the working system of the mind and other cognitive mechanisms like Justin Barrett's HADD (Hyperactive agency detection device), object permanence, and other mechanisms. These different systems create religious belief and the systematic organization of these representations in the mind are how religions "work" (I guess is the word for it?).

[Goat]

[Replying to post 52 by enaidealukal]

That Zen Buddhist prayer against Truth is a claim to truth in itself.

As for the rest, they all rely on special revelations (rather than deduction) for the authority for their core beliefs. They may not always label them as "Truth", but the implication is there just as loud. What they actually do is work very hard to obscure the Truth; re: the Book of Job as an early example of such massively overly-wrought obfuscation.

I heard that the Greeks would use an oracle to guide them.

It's not that the Oracle knew the truth, it's just that once the Oracle gave his opinion, the Greeks could carry on with governing. Objective truth was meaningless and the only thing that was important was what to do next.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. As long as everyone was in agreement they stood a better chance, no matter what the choice was.

"As long as everyone is in agreement" has given us genocide, slavery and many other forms of oppression. Objective Truth isn't meaningless, it is usually just ignored.

I do not see any evidence that the 'Truth' people label as objective is actually objective.

[ThePainefulTruth]

I do not see any evidence that the 'Truth' people label as objective is actually objective.

Does 2+2 ever equal something other than 4? Does a square wheel ever roll better on a flat surface than a round one? Has light ever been observed traveling at a different speed in a vacuum than "c"? If you want to get technical, none of that is "proven", but ALL the evidence favors them and the only evidence against them is hearsay.

[RottenHead]

May I suggest that religion is the effort of man to structure and control the understanding of God and His effects in this world and on people.

Fear and control are the basics of a religion and do not express the feelings of God in my opinion. God is fluid and religion is rigid. Jesus came to give us a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit because the law had become over two thousand rules and regulations that man could never hope to live up to and so were they were becoming doomed to personal condemnation and thinking that they were hopeless.

God never intended for anyone to feel hopeless, in my beliefs. So religion is destructive in that way that God's Love is certainly not.

Just my beliefs, and they feel good inside me. How do your beliefs make you feel people? That is the first indication that you may be a little off, if your faith is making you sick and destroying your spirit.

[ThePainefulTruth]

May I suggest that religion is the effort of man to structure and control the understanding of God and His effects in this world and on people.

That statement assumes without reasonable justification that God exists, that God is of male gender, and that It interacts in this world. I don't know if you intended it or not but that's exactly what all revealed religions do.

Fear and control are the basics of a religion and do not express the feelings of God in my opinion. God is fluid and religion is rigid.

I certainly agree that religion is rigid or static, locking itself in to a given viewpoint and defending it at all costs. But what does God being fluid mean? If God is the ultimate Truth, why would that change? Can Truth change?

Jesus came to give us a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit because the law had become over two thousand rules and regulations that man could never hope to live up to and so were they were becoming doomed to personal condemnation and thinking that they were hopeless.

So now we have no law, you don't even have to try to be good, only to believe? Jesus was an ascetic Jew, and had no intention of abolishing the law, that's Paulism. While I agree that Judaic law is absurdly complicated, that doesn't mean there isn't a simple, inherent morality instilled in all creatures who posses full self-awareness.

God never intended for anyone to feel hopeless, in my beliefs.

Why? The object is not for us to feel joy, or pain, or anything in particular, good or bad. Our job is to know who we are and deal with the cards we've been dealt.

So religion is destructive in that way that God's Love is certainly not.

God, if It exists, probably does love us, but It can't do anything for or against us in this life without destroying our free will--the only reason God would have created the universe to spawn us.

Just my beliefs, and they feel good inside me.

Thinking with our emotions gets us nowhere except into an irrational maelstrom.

How do your beliefs make you feel people? That is the first indication that you may be a little off, if your faith is making you sick and destroying your spirit.

My beliefs are very uplifting because they are based first and foremost in the Truth. Feelings and emotions must be guided by reason, otherwise we are capable of believing anything--which the revealed religions make blatantly obvious.

[RottenHead]

[quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 779#675779]That statement assumes without reasonable justification that God exists, that God is of male gender, and that It interacts in this world. I don't know if you intended it or not but that's exactly what all revealed religions do.

Ok this is what is funny to me about many of these threads, our ability to understand God's Word is built on the acceptance of lesson one: that God exists and is watching and want's to bless us. Therefor if you never got lesson one how can you ever expect to get two three or any of the other points and philosophies built onto that foundation? Of course none of the promises or stories are going to make sense to you, you are trying to see it with fleshly eyes and reason it with your fleshly understandings.
God has no gender and if you hear that you are already stuck in a mindset that is counter productive to the lesson. When we truly desire God we don't have those things fighting it constantly but we apply our trust and try to find the Love in those scriptures that are difficult to understand as living people.
Religion is our attempt to put God into our fleshly understanding which is silly but ultimately an attempt at getting closer to Him until it's warped by the corrupt.

[Mr.Badham]

[Replying to RottenHead]

Just as I said; Placebo.

Religion makes you feel as you think you should feel. As you think it's supposed to make you feel, and cures exactly what you want it to cure, and think it should cure.

Religion is placebo. It's not "like" placebo. It's not "similar" to placebo. It's not "sort of" placebo.

It is placebo. In every aspect, in every way, in every context. Sugar pills and saline solutions. Nothing more, nothing less.

Can anyone give me a reason to believe its not placebo.