You seem in the end to be agreeing with my prejudice that we cannot get anywhere in this quest for a definition. Is that right? We cannot make explicit a satisfactory account of the concept of religion?

It’s extremely generous to say that religion offers a coherent undestanding of 'mind and cosmos'. There is no shortage of roles for people to occupy and there’s no reason that we can’t find them ourselves. The fact that there are so many divergent meta-narratives indicates that they are myths. — praxis

Of course they are myths. That doesn't make them wrong. Saying Lord of the Rings is not an accurate account of the history of the world is neither useful nor cogent.

Which is what? To help your fellow man and woman, love and educate your kids, be a force of happiness to all? Why? Seems meaningless to simply make someone's stay as comfortable as possible if you admit there was no reason for them to come and stay in the first place.

It's like being Sisyphus' water boy, tending kindly to him, convincing yourself your altruism and goodness matters, ignoring the fact that you're all involved in a meaningless struggle that will eventually end with your death and then eventually the destruction of the world. — Hanover

"You're just saying that because you're depressed and cynical, and you haven't learned to 'live in the present moment and enjoy it'!!!"

The (upper) middle class idea that we're being sold by some seculars is that secular life _is_ good enough, _is_ worth living, _is_ satisfactory, and that there _is_ something wrong with the person who doesn't see it that way and that they just need to try harder.

I don't really have a response to this secular stance.

Facts are socially constructed whether about social relations or relations of atoms. — Ennui Elucidator

In an important sense, this is wrong. But that's for another thread.

But just like cups neither have essences, which was my point. — Hanover

How can you know a cup doesn't have an essence?

Of course they are myths. That doesn't make them wrong. Saying. Lord of the Rings is not an accurate account of the history of the world is neither useful nor cogent. — Banno

Nice.

:wink:

Our role and responsibility is not enhanced but is instead diminished by claims of cosmic significance.
— Fooloso4

How so? — Wayfarer

Because you are in danger of losing the human scale of things.

You write this as if there is a real universe without sentient beings in it to realise what it is. — Wayfarer

I think it very likely that there are sentient beings elsewhere, but they are too far away for anything we do here to make any difference to what happens there.

What if part of the significance of sentient beings is to help bring reality into existence? 1 — Wayfarer

What holds for photons does not tell us what happens at other scales of magnitude. Theoretical possibilities may be interesting to think about, but there is not enough attention to what is happening here and now.

How can you know a cup doesn't have an essence? — baker

Could be what was in that Pulp Fiction briefcase.

So it amounts to acknowledging that no, I can't really demonstrate it 'objectively' even if I have the conviction that it's true. — Wayfarer

The issue at hand isn't something that could be "demonstrated objectively" to begin with. It's something that requires effort both on the part of the speaker and the listener. You know that.

This usually then leads to the conclusion that it's only a matter of 'faith', of 'believing without evidence' - because the 'testimony of sages' and the annals of spiritual philosophy are all simply a matter of faith, not scientifically demonstrable. Thereby falling right back into the false dichotomy which characterises modern philosophy, that there is what is scientifically demonstrable and objectively verifiable, and anything else, no matter whether it's noble or profound, must always be a matter of personal conviction.

The problem is that you're trying to carry out the discussion on the terms set by your opponents. Which, of course, doesn't work out well.

All I'm saying, is I don't claim to be enlightened. Had enough of your sarcasm and constant jibes, baker. — Wayfarer

I want you to up your game. Put some cattle under that hat, a horse under that saddle.

We cannot make explicit a satisfactory account of the concept of religion? — Banno

Yet religious people do it every day.

There was, in no particular order... — Banno

SO we drop the "thou" and the supernatural as incoherent, drop ethics as too fraught, drop the ineffable as outside of our discussion.

At present we have ritual, transcendent hierarchies and longing as core aspects of religion.

Sure, but that isn't my scope of interest anyway. — baker

What is your scope of interest? Denying those who do not hold to an absolute moral authority a decision making voice? How so we determine what is the authentic voice of authority? What authority do those who are to decide have?

:up: Good.

What I'm trying to articulate is a revisionist interpretation of the meaning of spiritual awakening. It provides a religious cosmology but one not centred around the Biblical sense of religion - possibly more Gnostic

There is a theme (or meme) that is found in both Western and Eastern sources of the human as microcosm 'which posits a structural similarity between the human being (the microcosm) and the cosmos as a whole (the macrocosm). Given this fundamental analogy, truths about the nature of the cosmos as a whole may be inferred from truths about human nature, and vice versa.' Ideas of this genre can be found across cultures and across history.

A compatible idea is found in the SEP entry on Schopenhauer:

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being. ...

As much as he opposes the traditional German Idealists in their metaphysical elevation of self-consciousness (which he regards as too intellectualistic), Schopenhauer philosophizes within the spirit of this tradition, for he believes that the supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through introspection, and that we can understand the world as various manifestations of this general principle.

At a very high level this provides a sense of the way in which self-knowledge and the 'philosophical ascent' can be seen in cosmic terms: that human beings are in some fundamental sense the Universe coming to know itself. Julian Huxley saw this:

As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.

although he was much less spiritually-inclined than his brother.

Whereas, by contrast, the standard naturalist attitude in the 20th Century was that humanity and indeed life itself was a kind of 'biochemical fluke', the chance occurence of molecules banging together in an infinite empty universe. But that started to break down as soon as physicists became obliged to acknowledge the 'role of the observer' in their experimental outcomes. Maybe the observer is not so accidental after all.

Put some cattle under that hat, a horse under that saddle. — baker

:yikes: Working on it.

Yet religious people do it every day. — baker

SO if you think they have something to contribute, contribute it.

Julian Huxley saw this: — Wayfarer

Sure, so did the Mimbari: "We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light. I am grey. I stand between the candle and the star"

Wittgenstein apparently had a poor opinion of Schopenhauer: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind ... where real depth starts, his comes to an end."

The emphasis on introspection is partisan. Dawkins describes the transcendence of unweaving the rainbow. If we are the universe understanding itself then we must understand the universe.

Hence science is central to the spiritual path you desire, not antithetical to it.

As I succintly (perhaps too succintly) made clear in my first post in this thread, it's about contexts and who rules over them.

If you try to define religion as someone who is not religious, from the outside, then your notions of religion will be all over the place, not making a coherent whole.

A, for example, Hindu's idea of religion and a Roman Catholic's idea of religion differ, even significantly, but what they have in common is that their own notion of religion is meaningful to them, respectively.

You, however, seem to be starting from the position that there is or should be a suprareligious, religiously neutral concept of religion. Arguably, such a concept of religion is the product of Western secular religiology.

The sour snake in the belly
coughs up the bloody purpose:

To build walls of mud around the meaninglessness
and bite and bite

Because the pain won't go away
And it means nothing.

Wittgenstein apparently had a poor opinion of Schopenhauer: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind ... where real depth starts, his comes to an end." — Banno

What bollocks. As if Wittgenstein is the final word.

Dawkins describes the transcendence of unweaving the rainbow. — Banno

Dawkins has not the least inkling of what the term 'transcendence' means.

At present we have ritual, transcendent hierarchies and longing as core aspects of religion. — Banno

And you gained this insight from your reading, your time here, or in the pew?

I'm not going to deny there are elements of what you say present in various religions, but I will deny entirely you have come close to capturing the essence (to the extent that word makes sense), at least from my perspective from my seat in the pew, of what religion can be (and it certainly can fall quite short).

It's like asking what it's like to play soccer. It's all about ritual, hierarchy, authority, mindless loyalty. Yes, but that's not why we play. If it were, you might ask why we choose just to be burdened with odd restrictions.

If this interests you, just go to whatever religious service you desire and gather actual first hand knowledge. Religion is about doing. Otherwise you're just watching odd people do odd things and wondering why otherwise reasonable people play this game.

So your obsession with authority leads you to the superficial conclusion that religion is whatever someone authority says it is. As if the inconsistencies between such authorities could not be the subject of discussion.

I don't see that yours is a significant contribution to the discussion. Prove me wrong, address the article mentioned in the OP, with something non-trivial.

What is your scope of interest? — Fooloso4

Like I said:

My theme here is how to regard one's moral judgments as relevant. — baker

Denying those who do not hold to an absolute moral authority a decision making voice?

No, saying that those who doubt and relativize themselves shouldn't expect to be taken seriously by others.

How so we determine what is the authentic voice of authority?
What authority do those who are to decide have?[

Like I said:

The whole point of authority is that one's subjugation to it is not a matter of one's choice. Authority imposes itself, and it does so totally. Anything that is less than that is not authority, just someone or something with currently more power than oneself. — baker

Religion is about doing. — Hanover

Yes, this is the one thing all religions probably agree on.

What bollocks. As if Wittgenstein is the final word. — Wayfarer

:razz: Sacrilege! Of course he is the final word!

But the serious point is that introspection is notoriously inconsistent; and that science in this regular's is a transcendence of that emphasis on the self. That is, too much navel-gazing is bad for you, while explaining how rainbows work can bring one closer to the majesty of the universe.

One could add science to your diagram, a new segment.

So your obsession with authority leads you to the superficial conclusion that religion is whatever someone authority says it is. — Banno

You make it sound like shit when you put it like that.

Religion appears to be a phenomenon that is defined by insiders, and can be done only by insiders (only insiders can do religion).
This is another thing religions appear to have in common.

As if the inconsistencies between such authorities could not be the subject of discussion.

How are you going to identify such authorities if you don't even have a definition of "religion" to begin with?

I don't see that yours is a significant contribution to the discussion. Prove me wrong, address the article mentioned in the OP, with something non-trivial.

I'm trying to counteract your dominance and your externalizing, etic approach.

And you gained this insight from your reading, your time here, or in the pew? — Hanover

Phhh. Read the thread.

I will deny entirely you have come close to capturing the essence — Hanover

And I agree with you. There is this thing folk can do where ideas are mooted, for discussion, without being accepted as true.

Religion is about doing. — Hanover

DO you think I would disagree with that? I'm the one who repeats ad nauseam "Don't look to the meaning, look to the use".

If you try to define religion as someone who is not religious, from the outside, then your notions of religion will be all over the place, not making a coherent whole.

A, for example, Hindu's idea of religion and a Roman Catholic's idea of religion differ, even significantly, but what they have in common is that their own notion of religion is meaningful to them, respectively. — baker

This is a philosophy forum, it is not a theology forum. I've tried joining a couple of comparative religion forums, they were a real mishmash. The thread topic is about the 'concept of religion' which I think is a valid topic and I'm attempting to address from the viewpoint of comparative religion.

I didn't start off on my spiritual quest as if it were an obviously 'religious' one. I thought, at the time in my life, that I was engaged in the attempt to understand enlightenment. This was present in popular culture mainly through counter-cultural sources, like the Beatles encounter with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, LSD trips, and writers like Alan Watts and D T Suzuki. Nothing to do with Church pews and organ music. That was what I had attempted to study through the perspectives of comparative religion, anthropology, psychology, history and philosophy (the latter being of almost no relevance. Only much later in life did I begin to realise that what I was considering 'enlightenment' and what goes under the heading of 'religion' might have something in common. And that was because, when I started trying to practice meditation in order to arrive at the putative 'spiritual experience' sans artificial stimulants, mostly what I experienced was pain, boredom and ennui. So I gradually came to realise that this 'enlightenment' I had been seeking was not likely to be a permanent state of 'peak experience' after all, that, if there is such a thing as religious ecstacy, that it is a very elusive state indeed.)

One could add science to your diagram, a new segment. — Banno

It's there, but solely confined to the innermost circle. That's why, in the 'scientific worldview', nothing really happens for any reason, as distinct from a prior material cause, and only ever in service to adaptation.

DO you think I would disagree with that? I'm the one who repeats ad nauseam "Don't look to the meaning, look to the use". — Banno

OK, but you're looking at other people's usage, not your own experience. You're watching the animals in the zoo and telling the monkeys what it is to be a monkey. I'm saying hop in the cage.

You make it sound like shit when you put it like that. — baker

If the shoe fits...

I'm trying to counteract your dominance and your externalizing, etic approach. — baker

...as am I. That's the point of following through on the search for a "stipulated anchor". I do not think that such a thing can be found. This thread is about looking to see if I am wrong.

I don't think you've understood what is happening here.

, too, it seems.

don't think you've understood what is happening here.

↪Hanover , too, it seems. — Banno

Oh please. I'm trying to decipher your objective here as much as you are trying to decipher mine