The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on "belief" in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious people "believers", as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity, and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie beyond the reach of empirical sense data.
Does the concept of religion refer to nothing? — Banno
Does the concept of a game refer to nothing? — ZzzoneiroCosm
Concepts refer? — Banno
An open polythetic approach does capture much of what is implicit in the notion of a family resemblance. But as the article points out, just providing a polythetic definition does not remove ethnocentric or other biases. The next step is take to be an anchored polythetic approach, the example being that a religion has at least the characteristic of "a belief in superempirical beings or powers", together with some combination of other criteria. This is taken as answering the question as to why Buddhism is a religion but not Capitalism. — Banno
The covert point of the OP I suspect is to prove that the religious believe in a meaningless concept, striking a fatal blow against religion. My reply to that is it may be that religious beliefs are false, but that they might have no referent and that they may be defintionaly elusive doesn't make them meaningless. — Hanover
Yes, prostheses – like verbal or psychological crutches – useful for the disabled but crippling from premature / over-use by the (once) abled.My reply to that is it may be that religious beliefs are false, but that they might have no referent and that they may be defintionaly elusive doesn't make them meaningless. Meaning is use. We use the term, to be sure. It must therefore have meaning. — Hanover
Think I mentioned that before. I don't; understand what sort of thing a concept is, apart from just the way we use a word... — Banno
Yes, prostheses – like verbal or psychological crutches – useful for the disabled but crippling from premature / over-use by the (once) abled. — 180 Proof
concept — Banno
What sort of thing is a concept? — Banno
What is the word concept doing in your OP? — ZzzoneiroCosm
Ah, I see, you expect malice on my part. Well, all that does is shut down the promise of a conversation. — Banno
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