Whether I agree or disagree, tell me a non-vacuous meaning of “fact” when it comes to history. My claim is that we have extant “facts” from which we theorize about the past. So any historical claim is of necessity non-factual. Holding out your claims about history as factual is the sort of intellectual dishonesty you seem to abhor.

Banno's narrative is "fact". Any narrative which Banno doesn't like is "non-factual".

First of all I think "morally correct" needs to get explained. Everybody and every culture could have a different perception of it. Second as far as I learned, yes indeed social cohesion is one of the goals of any religion, as well as social destruction or disorder. I suppose is up to who and where is introducing the cult and why. For finishing, I beg you pardon, but it seems to me than in a place like Afganistan after around forty years of greedy war nobody is winning anything. Humanity is just self-destroying itself as well as the environment, nature
, or the world as usual.

On a non-philosophy forum his usage would be unobjectionable, but in this context where he is always going on about facts and truth and states of affairs, there is reason to object. Our best theories often turn out to be “untrue”, but that hardly dooms the endeavor of truth seeking. Religions, in their own way, pursue something something similar (but probably more about meaning/wisdom), and adjusting their course as time develops is not an indication of their failure as a pursuit/institution than changing theories in other contexts are an indication of the failure of the respective pursuit/institution. Immutability is never a virtue.

So any historical claim is of necessity non-factual. — Ennui Elucidator

There are no true historical claims?

Then there is no point to your being here to discuss them.

Banno demonstrates a very strange and unacceptable notion of "fact", as if a fact could be separate from the knower who knows it. But we all know that facts are known bits of information, truths, which do not exist separate from the knower who knows them. And Banno is just is trying to force some philosophical hogwash on us.

There is no point in you being here to discuss them when the very question is whether religions intend to be factual and the obvious “historical fact” is that they do not, did not, and are just misdescribed as being terribly concerned with the truth of various mythological claims. On one level it is helpful legitimization to spend time claiming the fact of the myth, but since the myth can never be meaningfully factual, it is not essential that the myth be a fact for the religion to endure.

And this is where you leave rationality behind, and I leave you.

There are those on this thread - and it turns out that you are not amongst them - who choose to deny the facts of early Christianity. They render themselves irrelevant to the main discussion here.

That's why Ennui Elucidator and @Metaphysician Undercover find themselves advocating telling lies. — Banno

I don't actually read them that way, but they can defend themselves. I'm a mouthpiece for a living, so I'm on break while here.

Just my observations, but among non-believers, there is often passionate negativity towards religion. Maybe it's borne in trauma, maybe it's a challenge to a competing worldview held dear, or maybe it's actually anger over ancient misdeeds as you've presented.

My view here is just to accept there have been and currently are truly fucked up stewards of our religious traditions. Like it or not though, the human quest for meaning and spirituality hasn't evolved away. We're still going to want to take a sabbatical from our Sisyphusian existemce occassionally (perhaps weekly) and sit back, contemplate, stop from our creating and working, and ask ourselves what is important and celebrate our creation from the past week.

That is to say, yes, I believe in the creation story (and the above only scratches the metaphorical surface of it), but it has nothing to do with the origins of the cosmos. It has to do with meaning, and it is most certainly true. The book is only about existential meaning. It's not an encyclopedia of worldly facts. That simple minds simplify it or malicious minds misuse it, doesn't make it simple or abusuve, and it surely doesn't give someone cause who is neither simple nor malicious to reject it.

But enough of my sermon. Reject it because it holds no allure for you, but that's really the only legitimate reason I can see for its rejection. That fucked up people saw the sway it held and used it for their advantage says something about them, not it.

This is where you become overly committed to nonsense and try to make it seem like you are somehow being rational while others are not. Put aside epistemology for a moment, what is a historical fact? And what does it mean for someone to make a claim about a historical fact? What does it mean for a religion to make such a claim?

Language is politics - not truth. Behavior is about something other than “reason.” You can have what ever standards you want for what you say, but that has nothing to do with what other people do or intend. When describing why people use religion, it would be nice to at least consider why actual people that you can speak to or interact with represent as the “point” of religion.

Then we have little to disagree about.

What you say is true but I wonder is there a difference in the foundational nature of government and religion? Is religion not founded on and galvanized by notions of moral correctness and inclusivity and fairness and charity and righteousness, making religion's considerable violations all the more hypocritical and scandalous; — Tom Storm

Depends on what you mean by inclusivity, fairness, charity, and righteousness.
Sure, religions are inclusive in the sense of, "Anyone can join our religion, regardless of their race, gender, background".
They are fair in the sense of Might makes right.
They are charitable in the sense that religious people let you live, even though they consider themselves entitled to kill you.
And they are righteous, because they are true to their convictions.

while the business of politics is by nature conflictual and partisan? Religion also tends to maintain that it holds the truth, while government rarely gets any more totalizing than expressing broadly held community values.

Funny, our government keeps saying how the vast majority of people in this country do not have access to the truth, and that they (the government) are the defenders of the truth (but that inthe spiriti of democracy, they let others have their opinions, however wrong).

I can't actually think of a politician who would not make a point of emphasizing the term "truth".

I think you're right. Most religions ask unacceptable behavior from followers and seek to impose their often bigoted and unsophisticated views on the world. — Tom Storm

???

But the difference with religion is it makes unverifiable claims about bettering the world.

I have never seen any religion make such a claim. Do provide at least three examples of it.

To the best of my knowledge, religions typically take a dim view of the world, don't view it as having potential for betterment. They have a fatalistic and deterministic view of the world -- which goes hand in hand with their doctrine of salvation. "The world is a shitty place, destined for doom, and this is why you need us, the religious, to help you get through life as unscathed by it as possible, and eventually be saved from doom."

Religions should stop playing the morality card and recognize that they have nothing to offer that any social club can't offer too.

Religions can offer metaphysical justifications. Something that sewing circles characteristically can't.

And more should not be expected from humans than from some animals?
— baker

It should, but we err if we deny our core nature — Michael Zwingli

So our core nature is to kill, rape, and pillage?

If this is our core nature, then why take issue with killing, raping, and pillaging, whether it be done in the name of religion or not?

People calling themselves Christian both proclaimed the legitimacy of slavery and fought for its abolition. Neither group was an apologistor any less Christian than the other. History (constructed as it might be) simply does not bear out an enduring strain of religion from early adoption through hundreds of years of people carrying on its name, iconography, or myths. Even in its foundation Christianity had multiplicity of thought with warring factions, some of which continued on and some which were snuffed out. — Ennui Elucidator

So "Christian" is a term like "white", "black", "Scottish", ie. it's not a term denoting a particular quality or set of qualities, but a term that is not specifically linked to any quality, but is merely a name?

The problem is the Christian denial of the less tasteful aspects of their history. — Banno

Where you go wrong is in assuming that they secretly believe they've done something wrong.
They don't believe they did. From their perspective, they are not in denial. No, on the contrary: they are righteous, they don't believe they have done anything they should be ashamed of.

To all, Christianity introduced charity is a way that was not found in other religions and philosophies. They built hospitals and freed slaves, things previously unheard of. — Banno

And at what cost!
We'll give you food, shelter, medical care -- and in return, you convert to our religion.
Christian charity always comes with the string of conversion attached. They may have destroyed the memory of Greek culture, but they surely preserved one item from it: the Danaean gift.

if one allows religion not to be factually correct, to consist in metaphor and allegory, for the betterment of mankind, then does that mean it need not be honest?

Yes.

To my eye, and I suppose you will agree, the dive into darkness that followed the destruction of classical culture was tragic. — Banno

That can't be, as the term "tragic", as it is used in Greek classical literature, can be used only in reference to royals, but not the commoners, and not even to aristocracy. Drowning a baby prince, heir to the throne, is a tragedy. Terrorists blowing up a bus of schoolchildren (none of whom is a royal), is not.
It's kind of ironic, the way the Greeks' conception of what qualifies for tragic turned out to their demise.

Your ideas about the value of honesty need to be supported. Being a philosopher, I'm sure you are aware of "the noble lie". That the noble lie is somehow wrong, or immoral, is a very difficult claim to support. We might support it with the principle of "equality", but equality isn't real so as much as it might provide a legal base, it provides no moral base.

We might try a Christian principle like love your neighbour, but for some reason we still see the efficacy in lying to those whom we love.

Where do you derive the idea that the betterment of mankind might be accomplished without dishonesty? — Metaphysician Undercover

From not being a Mahayani or an Abrahamist.

The object isn't to take Jesus. It's just to note that whether he actually walked the earth and did the things suggested shouldn't matter. So the claim goes, salvation from eternal damnation requires faith that Jesus died for your sins. — Hanover

No, it requires more than that. Belief in the historicity of Jesus is essential to Christianity. One has to believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead, or else the whole project of salvation becomes moot.

If we learned there were no actual Ebenezer Scrooge or Tiny Tim, would the moral that even the coldest souls are capable of redemption be impacted? — Hanover

What a strange idea. People don't believe that "even the coldest souls are capable of redemption" based on the story of Ebenezer Scrooge.

The point in religion is that particular moral tenets have to be believed for the right reasons.
Ie., e.g. you have to believe that stealing is bad not because your mommy told you so or because you don't like being stolen from, but because God said that stealing was wrong.

That there was no talking fox means his sour grapes story is bullshit?

The type of problem you point to comes from reading literature primarily in a didactic, ideological sense, from reducing literature to a didactic, ideological message. It's a moralistic approach typical for American literary theory, but it is far from universal. It's not how we would read literature in continental Europe, for example.

Also, to throw this in there, the evolution to monotheism was a positive moment in the intellectual history of humanity. It moved us from a world of competing anthropomorphic physical gods to a single incorporeal conceptual god posited to offer meaning and generalized explanations for the our existence. — Hanover

But this didn't do away with interreligious competition. On the contrary, it made it worse, far worse.

What do we learn from this story? Kindness to evil is a sin. Compare and contrast to "turn the other cheek." Different ethical principles I guess, which is why the word "Judeo-Christian" ethics makes no sense to me. — Hanover

Yet Jesus himself didn't turn the other cheek.

https://aleteia.org/2017/02/22/jesus-didnt-turn-the-other-cheek-neither-should-you/

So "Christian" is a term like "white", "black", "Scottish", ie. it's not a term denoting a particular quality or set of qualities, but a term that is not specifically linked to any quality, but is merely a name? — baker

I'm not sure what work "merely" does here, but yes, "Christian" is a word people use in reference to lots of different sort of things. Without going through problems of identity or group identification, suffice it to say that different people throughout a long course of history have used "Christian" to refer to a variety of things/people/concepts. Abstracting Christianity away from the people identified with Christianity is taking a theoretical position for whatever reason, not the way in which the term "Christian" is defined and/or used. Sure, for a particular conversation we can define a word however we want, but one has to be aware that they are doing so.

Unless we are religious ourselves, i.e. have a vested interest in who gets to define the word, it is more "intellectually honest" to both recognize and affirm the various uses of a term in the variety of contexts in which it is used. A claim of what is "essential" about Christianity is normative, not descriptive.

Unless we are religious ourselves, i.e. have a vested interest in who gets to define the word, it is more "intellectually honest" to both recognize and affirm the various uses of a term in the variety of contexts in which it is used. — Ennui Elucidator

Which brings us deep into Humpty Dumpty land.

A claim of what is "essential" about Christianity is normative, not descriptive.

Of course. A discussion of religion should be about what is normative in it. Focusing merely on the descriptive is an exercise in politically correct futility, for that way, anything goes, and anything can pass for anything.

By "factually incorrect" you mean what?
That there is no heaven, no eternal damnation, and no nibbana?
— baker

Pretty much. Also that Jesus probably didn't do any miracles, etc. — stoicHoneyBadger

In that case, it's on you to prove that there is no heaven, no eternal damnation, no nirvana, that Jesus probably didn't do any miracles, etc., for you are the one making those claims.

1. Dawkins focuses on the fact of Islam, or Christianity or any other religion being factually incorrect.
But what if the goal of a religion is not to be factually correct, but to give people moral guidance, thumos and social cohesion? — stoicHoneyBadger

Then Dawkins clearly didn't think this through.

If he wants to demote religion from any notion of facticity, then it's on him to prove, show, evidence, that the various religious claims are not true.

Of course. A discussion of religion should be about what is normative in it. Focusing merely on the descriptive is an exercise in politically correct futility, for that way, anything goes, and anything can pass for anything. — baker

So when the Protestants claimed that the Catholics weren't Christian and the Catholics claimed that the Protestants weren't, one of them magically ceased to be Christian? Or maybe you think that the Catholics never created their own litmus test for what a true Christian was that is in opposition to what other groups defined as a true Christian?

For your reading pleasure - the Catholic Church in response to the Reformation...

ON BAPTISM

CANON I.-If any one saith, that the baptism of John had the same force as the baptism of Christ; let him be anathema.

CANON II.-If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost; let him be anathema.

CANON III.-If any one saith, that in the Roman church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism; let him be anathema.

CANON IV.-If any one saith, that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church doth, is not true baptism; let him be anathema.

CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema.

CANON VI.-If any one saith, that one who has been baptized cannot, even if he would, lose grace, let him sin ever so much, unless he will not believe; let him be anathema.

CANON VII.-If any one saith, that the baptized are, by baptism itself, made debtors but to faith alone, and not to the observance of the whole law of Christ; let him be anathema.

CANON VIII.-If any one saith, that the baptized are freed from all the precepts, whether written or transmitted, of holy Church, in such wise that they are not bound to observe them, unless they have chosen of their own accord to submit themselves thereunto; let him be anathema.

CANON IX.-If any one saith, that the resemblance of the baptism which they have received is so to be recalled unto men, as that they are to understand, that all vows made after baptism are void, in virtue of the promise already made in that baptism; as if, by those vows, they both derogated from that faith which they have professed, and from that baptism itself; let him be anathema.

CANON X.-If any one saith, that by the sole remembrance and the faith of the baptism which has been received, all sins committed after baptism are either remitted, or made venial; let him be anathema.

CANON XI.-If any one saith, that baptism, which was true and rightly conferred, is to be repeated, for him who has denied the faith of Christ amongst Infidels, when he is converted unto penitence; let him be anathema.

CANON XII.-If any one saith, that no one is to be baptized save at that age at which Christ was baptized, or in the very article of death; let him be anathema.

CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that little children, for that they have not actual faith, are not, after having received baptism, to be reckoned amongst the faithful; and that, for this cause, they are to be rebaptized when they have attained to years of discretion; or, that it is better that the baptism of such be omitted, than that, while not believing by their own act, they should be bapized in the faith alone of the Church; let him be anathema.

CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that those who have been thus baptized when children, are, when they have grown up, to be asked whether they will ratify what their sponsors promised in their names when they were baptized; and that, in case they answer that they will not, they are to be left to their own will; and are not to be compelled meanwhile to a Christian life by any other penalty, save that they be excluded from the participation of the Eucharist, and of the other sacraments, until they repent; let him be anathema. — Council of Trent Session 7

For your reading pleasure - the Catholic Church in response to the Reformation... — Ennui Elucidator

I always take pleasure in reading such things. But I wonder why, given what you quoted and other such works, there is any doubt that religion or at least certain religions rely on claims purported to be factual, and true.

And while I'm (sadly) acquainted with the view that there are no historical facts, and have read academic works on history which are prefaced with what seem to be apologies if the author seems to come to conclusions of any kind regarding what took place in the past, I think it's quite possible, and reasonable, to come to conclusions given the best available evidence, with the understanding that conclusions are contingent and may be modified based on new evidence, when it comes to history and most everything else. It strikes me that maintaining that such conclusions can't be "factual" or that there are no "historical facts" is pedantry.

So when the Protestants claimed that the Catholics weren't Christian and the Catholics claimed that the Protestants weren't, one of them magically ceased to be Christian? Or maybe you think that the Catholics never created their own litmus test for what a true Christian was that is in opposition to what other groups defined as a true Christian? — Ennui Elucidator

I'm saying that in order to have a meaningful discussion, we can't treat words like they can mean anything anyone wants them to mean.

We must agree on a meaning of a term (in this case, of "Christian"), or we better cease discussing.

We must agree on a meaning of a term (in this case, of "Christian"), or we better cease discussing. — baker

We don't have to agree on what the word means for other people, we merely have to use the word in a way that facilitates further conversation. There is no meaning "out there", just whatever you mean in your head and whatever I mean in mine (if we even have a discrete idea about meaning in the first place). One can speak of Christianity usefully without drawing distinct boundaries around its usage. This is always the nature of language and your wish for it to be otherwise won't change that.

The difference between us, Baker, is that you probably don't know the religious people that I know. It is tough to have a serious conversation about modern religion with a person that is committed to fighting religious battles from prior to the 1950s. Yes, lots of people haven't moved on. Many in the intellectual community have. — Ennui Elucidator

So in the name of the politically correct love of novelty and "moving on", we should summarily envision religion as impotent, ineffective, and most of all, non-factual, so that we can come up with a theory of religion that is currently fashionable and enables us to stay relevant in the current business of academic writing about religion?

We don't have to agree on what the word means for other people, we merely have to use the word in a way that facilitates further conversation. — Ennui Elucidator

And the limits of this approach have been reached in the OP of this thread.

One can speak of Christianity usefully without drawing distinct boundaries around its usage.

Useful to whom? Someone who wishes to paint religion as impotent? To excuse it? To make it seem less formidable?

My view here is just to accept there have been and currently are truly fucked up stewards of our religious traditions. — Hanover

Why close our eyes to the obvious? Why not consider the possibility that religion is the way it is precisely because it is intended to be that way?

If you and I were having a chat at a bar, I'd undeniably be a pedant if I denied that it is fact that George Washington was the first president of the United States. There is no quibble.

On a philosophy forum in the context of making broad statements about "religion" with a selective recounting of "facts", I am not sure that my highlighting that we can only look to things that exist now to support our claims about what happened in the past is being a pedant. Further, I am trying to steer away from a summary treatment of "religion" as a defined term in this thread that that is easily brushed because someone has a compelling objections to that definition that someone then takes to be a proper dismissal of religion in any other context. I have, therefore, attempted to introduce current information about the ambiguity of religion (or even specific religions) in order to force nuance and broader relevance of the topic.

In part, the contrast of historicity with historical fact is intended to demonstrate two things: a) that no claim about the past can ever be factual, so objecting that religion is non-factual is trivial, and b) that any serious contemporary thinker must acknowledge that the prevalence or paucity of information about a historical fact is a function not of whether it ever was a fact, but our current epistemic criteria and evidence. I am not trying to be anachronistic and insert historicity into the thinking of the 11th century thinkers, but I am pointing to writings of the time that make it obvious that they recognize the problem of reading religious texts as a literal recounting of facts. So while people like @Banno will insist upon seeing historic claims as facts and lies, that isn't the way that religious people (after all, such people will conflate Western religion with all of religion throughout the world for all of time) actually saw them a thousand years ago or today.

So in the name of the politically correct love of novelty and "moving on", we should summarily envision religion as impotent, ineffective, and most of all, non-factual, so that we can come up with a theory of religion that is currently fashionable and enables us to stay relevant in the current business of academic writing about religion? — baker

I am not sure why the mushiness of language leads you to that view of religion, but that is your choice. Again, there are people who identify as religious that actively participate in religious communities that do so fully aware that religious myth does not match the historic facts as we currently understand them (or are likely to ever understand them). So if you ask them what the point of religion is, they will not say that the point is to be factually correct in their religious myth. Holding up your definition of what religion (or their religion) should be is not critical thinking, philosophy, or good faith observation - it is mental masturbation. Speak to religious people about the goal of their religion and you will find that the goal is varied. The variety of the goals does not render that person (or that religious community) as a non-religion just because you have decided that "religion" must mean "makes factual claims that when shown to be false nullifies everything about them."