Absolutely, but the hypocrisy comes about when you impose your own stereotypes on others and demand that they be respected.

And that's wrong because.....?? — dimosthenis9

Because it's a contradiction.

Wtf? — dimosthenis9

So much for being respectful.

My view is that genders of course have their differences but kids should be raised to be respectful and do WHATEVER makes them happy despite if that's social acceptable or isn't. Whatever fulfills their heart and Not whatever society "expects" from them to do. — dimosthenis9

Typical leftist hypocrisy. Be respectful but do whatever you want, even if it's not socially acceptable. Sounds like you're saying "I can be disrespectful by forcing my view of sex and gender on others and everyone else has to respect that." People need to get over themselves. Free speech means everyone has the right to use it and a certain group does not have the right to use their fragile emotional state as a muzzle for others. I mean seriously, who here is so concerened about how others refer to them in the third person when they aren't around, which is usually when you refer to someone in the third person?

Well, relatively specific. And relatively general. Depending on the needs of the occasion. As I said. — apokrisis

And as I said, words are only specific when used and arbitrary when not. The only example I can think of when words are "used" and the meaning is not specific is when a politician speaks in generalities and platitudes, essentially not saying anything useful. Another example might be the word salad and misuse of terms that creates the philosophical problems one claims they are attempting to solve that appears on these forums regularly. So I see arbitrary use of words as a misuse of words.

If a word in fact fitted all exemplar cases too closely, speech would cease to have its creative edge, its flexibility of being able to encompass any number of one off, or particular, locutions. — apokrisis

You seem to be conflating what some scribble could arbitrarily mean when not being used with with what it means when it used. I'm sure you have something specific you mean when you use your words, or else what are you actually saying?

I have noticed lately that words (given the way we use language) must exist before their definitions, and concepts must exist before their words. — Brad Thompson

This is wrong. If words existed before definitions then why do different languages that use different words have the same definition? How is it that different string of scribbles mean the same thing? To translate different words from different languages means the different words have the same meaning. We're not sharing words. We're sharing meanings.

What does the word, "word" mean? Seems like scribbles existed before words and "word" existed after to distinguish different scribbles from other scribbles.

Seems like the acts we engage in existed prior to the verbs we use to identify them and characteristics existed before the adjectives we use to categorize them.

How I this an arguement against anything I said? You need to rephrase.

It sounds like you are saying that by calling something accidental we imply the nonaccidental, and the nonaccidental is just presumptuous assumption the calling it accidental is supposed avoid. By calling something structureless, we assume structure in the calling.

But this is true, of course. The term accidental is defined in a contextual embeddedness, and it plays off other terms for its meaning. You speak from a position outside of this? — Constance

By calling something accidental, you are implying purpose. By implying that inanimate objects, like the universe, have accidents you are projecting purpose (anthropomorphism) onto things that have no purpose. There is no purpose outside a mind's own goals, therefore there are no accidents outside of some mind's goals.

We've evolved to sense only mates, prey and predators and anything else that gets caught in this sensory net, being the right size in a manner of speaking. — Agent Smith

It seems to me that we evolved to sense the passage of time - of cause and effect - so that we may learn to predict when and where predators, prey and mates will be. It also seems to me survival is the perfect catalyst to learn more about the environment we live in and that we may migrate to (like space) to improve our chances at surviving in any environment. Natural seems to favor those species that can adapt to any environment.

Evolution and its ideas and theories taken as a given. We have to understand that evolution is not a theory about what is. It is a theory about how it got here and has nothing to say about the qualitative conditions of our existence. That the hand has an opposable thumb is entirely an "accident". There is no "principle of evolution" in the world moving things forward. — Constance

No. Evolution is happening now. As long as environments with organisms change, there will be selective pressures to adapt in some way to those changes. For things to happen by accident implies that there was a goal or purpose in things being a certain way that somehow wasn't - as if the universe has a goal or purpose as existing without the existence of opposable thumbs, yet it still happened anyway. It also implies that you know how the universe was suppose to be (without the existence of opposable thumbs) yet they exist despite how you know it was suppose to be. Nothing happens by accident. What happens now is dependent on what has happened before.

Does it make sense to say one knows how things seem? Isn't it just that they seem? Any ratiocination is excessive. — Banno

If you're using language to report that things seem, then you've already engaged in some kind of ratiocination. How language seems to the individual seems to include how that it is just more than scribbles on a page or sounds in the air - that they can be used - but only after careful ratiocination.

Sincerely ask them if they like it? And if they seem really happy then support them no matter what anyone else thinks? — SatmBopd

Then they shouldn't be asking what others think if they are only care about with what they think. When someone asks what someone else thinks about something and they don't really want to know what they think then,

'Experience' is pre-logical, one might say, since logic is about relationships between statements. Which statements count as basic (not needing justification by still other statements) is maybe unformalizable. Reminds me of On Certainty. — jas0n

Statements are just scribbles on a page, or sounds in the air. It seems to me that logic pre-exists statements, as it requires logic to understand that things are being said with scribbles and sounds in the air in the first place. Logic is essentially the manipulation of sensory-data for the purpose of predicting and understanding future experiences. Babies logically (and naturally I might add) arrive at the notion of object permanence (abandoning solipsism in favor of realism) without the use of any statements.

Consider you and your friend are getting ready for a night out. They come downstairs dressed up and ask “what do you think?”
You look at them and instantly think god they don’t look particularly good at all, what they’ve done is unflattering in your opinion and you would not wear that.

You consider how happy your friend seems to be with how they look. You are also aware that they value your opinion a lot but you know they are sensitive, their self esteem a little frail, and criticism can often get them down and upset. — Benj96

Full stop. I wouldn't want to be friends with someone that cannot handle criticism. That would limit my ability to be myself around them, so I see their frail self-esteem a detriment to others ability to think and speak freely.

Should you lie to bolster their confidence. Or would you simply be undermining them by being dishonest? And how do you know if your own judgement of fashion is better than theirs?
Which option makes you a more supportive friend? — Benj96

I would be asking this of the person that has a self-image problem. How does your low self-esteem affect your friendships in that it seems to limit your friends ability to be themselves. Some people like blunt honesty and some don't. I tend to let those that don't like blunt honesty find new friends. I prefer hanging out with real people that will be honest with me and allow me to be honest with them as I value truth over feelings.

It got me thinking about decision making in general. Can we ever be properly informed? As imperfect beings how do we know when to intervene and when to be passive? Are good intentions enough by themselves? How does one control how their actions impact the world when none of us have a definitive knowledge or right and wrong - a perfect moral compass by which to make decisions — Benj96

Exactly. Right and wrong have to do with our individual goals and not some objective feature of reality that exists apart from our goals. When someone inhibits our goals we see that as unethical. When someone promotes our goals we see that has ethical. It is more difficult to be ethical with someone who has emotional problems - whose goals are inconsistent (I want you to be honest with me, but only if it doesn't hurt my feelings) which makes it difficult to say and do the right things. We call this "walking on egg-shells".

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?

The first step to understanding something from which you cannot extract yourself is to get a sense your limitations and variability with regard to understanding it. Then use your imagination to hypothesise alternatives to ‘consciousness’ as an anthropocentric perspective, and find a logical reconfiguration of reality that would include consciousness as a limited, variable structure within it - like Copernicus did with our planetary system. — Possibility

We are not within every planetary system. We are actually outside all planetary systems except one. It seems to me that we often wonder what it is like being in a particular planetary system that we are not part of and can compare what it is like in our own system with what it might be like in another given our observations from outside of it and from within our own.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

If you are attempting to describe consciousness, then why would you want to leave it in order to describe it? It seems to me that consciousness is something that you have direct access to and it is the attempt to extract yourself from it and then believe that you can describe it more accurately from outside of it that is wrong. I think that thinking of consciousness as something internal vs external is the wrong way to go about it as well.

And this is responsive to why you aren't a mereological nihilist how? Facts are socially constructed whether about social relations or relations of atoms. The states of affairs, however, are what "is" independent of society. The question is to what extent the states of affairs are primitive (only the whole exists, e.g. atoms) or composite (wholes can have parts, e.g. people). If you believe that the states of affair are composite, I am saying that you are already acknowledging that the relationships of parts to one another cause things to exist or not. The question is why you privilege certain sorts of relations (things that are closer like people) over others (things that are further like countries) especially when you are likely to call things very far away from one another existent (like planets and solar systems). — Ennui Elucidator

I don't understand the incessant need to put labels on people and their ideas. I find the ideas or the definitions much more interesting than the labels or terms we use to identify them.

Facts, as you seem to be using the term, are like knowledge and beliefs. There are states-of-affairs and then our knowledge and beliefs of such states-of-affairs. Facts, as such, are not socially constructed. They are acquired through observation and reason of a single individual using their own senses and brain. Sharing, discussing, and debating of the observations and conclusions reached comes afterwards, and those conclusions that a single person reaches that are useful to other individuals become prevalent like the spreading of individual genes that provide a benefit to the entire population over what the pre-existing gene pool provides.

Is it a fact that the states of affairs are what is independent of society? Was that something that was socially constructed? Do I simply have to disagree with you for it to not be a fact? A social construction is an agreement between two or more individuals, not a disagreement between two or more individuals.

As an example, there is a state-of-affairs of objects orbiting the planet Jupiter. This was not known until Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter and observed, over several nights, little "stars" moving around Jupiter. Galileo performed these experiments in secret. He reached the conclusion that there were objects orbiting Jupiter before he published his work and shared it with anyone else. So, was it a fact that objects orbited Jupiter once Galileo reached his conclusion privately, or only when the rest of the world agreed with him?

That is because you are not understanding metaphysical in the way that I am using it. It is something that is true of the states of affairs independent of how we think about them. Perhaps "ontic" would sit better with you? — Ennui Elucidator

I still don't understand how you are using the term, or its relevance. Maybe we should just stick with "states-of-affairs". I agree that there are states-of-affairs that exist independently of how we think about them. I'm a realist. I also think that how we think about things is also a state-of-affairs. That is to say that minds and what they do are just as much a part of, and exist in a causal relation with, the rest of the world. Another way of saying it is that our thoughts about things are just as natural as the things themselves.

You don't seem to appreciate what a definition is - it is inherently emblematic of intersubjective agreement, i.e. not objective (existent independent of minds). — Ennui Elucidator

Oh no. It's the complete opposite. I sincerely appreciate definitions. Definitions are something that I am constantly requesting of others so that I may understand the terms they are using. As I said before, the definitions are more interesting than the terms being used, and my point that you are replying to was that definitions that are not influenced by the need to control or dehumanize others, like some religious fundamentalists and politically biased people do, are the more useful (objective) definitions.

This is exactly the problem that the "anchor" in polythetic approaches is intended to address. The problem with Banno's post is that he plays fast and lose with words. He references a word ("religion") which is discussed in conceptual terms, highlights an approach which is intended to incorporate essentialism into a non-essentialist analysis of concepts, and then asks whether there is an essence to it. (It doesn't help that he vacillates between "concepts" and "definitions".) — Ennui Elucidator

Hehe, yes, well Banno does like his word-games. But that is the difference between he and I in that I don't see language as a game. I see it as a means of sharing individual "facts" (knowledge and beliefs).

Then your problem is that you are judging me based on me calling you out for your ad hominem attacks and not on posts that were not necessarily to you which are a small fraction of what I've posted in regards to politics.

I'm sorry, but since when is advocating for the abolition of political parties (and group-think in general), term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court and banning lobbyists, "status quo"?

Thank you. I'll be here all week.


The sooner we all get over ourselves and realize that we are much more than the identities the political parties label us as for their own benefit, the better.

Hilarious. The critical theory dog and pony show that Republicans have been playing, at the confirmation hearing and elsewhere, seems to have gotten you all riled-up. Mission accomplished. — praxis

They both play that game. The fact that you only think that one side puts on a show for their constituents just shows how much of a pawn of the political parties you are. Ban all political parties. No more Ds and Rs next to candidates names so that people like you won't know what to think when it's no longer hand-fed to you

I only care about the ridiculous claim that there is a reasonable claim of being more than two sexes when there aren’t.

In terms of sex (for humans) it is simply a matter of male and female. — I like sushi

They can make all the claims that they want. It's when they want to take away your rights to think differently than what they claim that crosses the line. The Dems are more of a threat to liberty and free-thought than the Reps are right now. It's what happens when you are too weak to think for yourself - you become a victim of political or religious ideology. The weak-minded need a Big Brother -whether it be god or government.

It's time for the birds and the bees, Harry.

First black woman on the SCOTUS! Yay! — frank

It's time for the birds and the bees, Kentaji.

I was merely channeling her confusion in trying to answer the question of what a woman is.

Ain't no fucking "royal we" here, alt-right snowflake. Just don't "celebrate" if you were soooo confused by the preceedings. :victory: — 180 Proof

Of course, 180. You only see things in black and white, or right and left. There can be no room for anyone in the middle in your warped world-view. Anyone that doesn't agree with you MUST be alt-right. It's a pathetic waste of your wits.

It exists as the experience of something in a certain. mode of givenness, as recollection, fantasy , perception, etc. These are distinctions between what is directly and what is indirectly experienced. But even what is directly experienced in perception doesn’t tell you very much about the ‘real’ world, because it only exists as what it is for the instant of its appearance. We don’t see chairs and tables and quarks , we see a constantly changing flow of senses of the world. We construct out of this changing flow what we call real objects. But Husserl says this ‘real’ world of spatial things is relative and contingent. It could always turn out to be other than what we construct it to be. So the external world thought of as the empirically natural world of real objects does not exist for Husserl as an irreducible fact, only as a conjecture. — Joshs

Right, so going back to what I said to you before, if you can't trust your senses then how do you know that you read Husserl correctly because words on a page are part of the 'real' world. You are making a special pleading for ink marks on a page that you are not making for everything else that you experience. How can we communicate if we can't trust our senses?

It is a little like solipsism yet completely NOT that :D You just put things like that aside and notice objects of experience whilst not looking at them as necessarily there or not but investigating the experience. — I like sushi

What does it mean to investigate the experience if not to attribute some cause to the experience, or ponder why it is the way it is if there is no external world?

He refers to ‘parts’ and ‘moments’. For example removing a leg from a table still leaves it as a ‘table,’ but to remove the mass of the table is simply not something comprehend. Or to think of a sound with no timbre … we cannot. Other views are to notice that things are what Husserl likes to call ‘pregnant’. Meaning when you see the table you understand it as having only a partial view of it yet you experience it as a whole object with inside bits and bits at the back. — I like sushi

This all implies that there are tables that have sides and insides that are not part of our visual experience because we have to imagine that we are experiencing them when we aren't. There is a different in experiencing the visual of one side of a table and imagining the other side.

Reminds me of Terminators (living tissue over metal endoskeleton). What if Jackson is really a white man in a black woman's body? :chin: — Agent Smith

What if I, a biological male, identified as a transgender male (a female that identifies as being a man?)

That was my response to KBJs answer to that question.

How can we celebrate the first black woman on the Supreme Court if mo one knows what a "woman" is?

And this line of questioning, like most others, by the white-faced ministrel show – Gang Of Putin senators – had absolutely nothing to do with questioning and evaluating KBJ's judicial qualifications or substantive record as a Federal judge. — 180 Proof

Biden was the one that made a point to nominate a black woman. How does anyone know that is what he did if "woman" cannot be defined?

Pretend for a moment, if you will, that we aren't talking about religion and instead are talking about government. One day you are born - from that moment onwards, you are a citizen of one state or another. You haven't made a choice, it doesn't matter what you believe, it doesn't even matter what your momma or pappa believes, but you are citizen of X. In some respects, this is tantamount to saying there is a metaphysical fact that you are a citizen of X.

What do we make of this fact? Do we say that because if there were no humans alive aside from you that you would not be a citizen of X it means that you aren't a citizen of X? Do we acknowledge that we can create facts through social convention? Do we hold the fact that you are a citizen of X to be something that has legitimacy only if claimed by group Y rather than group Z? — Ennui Elucidator

I don't see why we would need to use the term, "metaphysical" here. It's just a fact that I would be a citizen of X because being a citizen of X is a human conceptual invention - not something discovered in nature that has existed prior to humans, like planets vs dwarf planets, or life vs non-life when talking about the origins of life.

It also seems to me that more than one person would need to agree upon the definition of "citizen" and "X" for us to then agree that I am indeed a citizen of X, or else being a "citizen of X" is meaningless. Words are only useful for communicating shared experiences and understandings, or else what is the purpose of using a word that only you understand the way you are using it? What is the purpose of using words, or any external symbol for that matter, if there are no other humans alive?

Non-voluntary membership in a group based upon the criteria of others is not unique to religion. Having the world treat you fundamentally different based upon those criteria is not unique to religion. The only difference between being a citizen of X and being a member of religion A is the extent to which such status changes your relationship to the world. — Ennui Elucidator

That's the point in me asking the questions I am asking - of what criteria others are using to define "religion" so that I can then say whether I am religious or not. If they can't give me any criteria then they are simply moving the goalposts so that I can NOT be a member of their group. They haven't given me any reason to believe that I would be a member of their group if they can't define the criteria for being a member. When there are no criteria, or an infinite number of criteria, that define a concept then no one is religious or everyone is religious, which isn't useful.

If your goal is to say that there are no such things as socially constructed facts (let alone socially constructed metaphysical facts), then great. Go be a mereological nihilist and describe your world that way. Relationships aren't for you.

If, on the other hand, you are willing to acknowledge that some pieces of papers (or binary configurations) are currency and that some are not, you seem to be engaged in that thing around here people like to say... "Special pleading" is it? Uniquely critiquing religion using criteria you do not apply in other contexts means that you are inconsistent rather than the other-way round. — Ennui Elucidator

It seems that you haven't read my other posts in this thread. If you had you would have noticed that I made a distinction between socially constructed facts and natural facts. The former is invented by humans while the latter is invented by nature. Hanover is the one that is being vague and inconsistent in defining the criteria of what "religion" means. I'm the one asking for the criteria that's being referred to when using the word. Religion is a concept invented by humans, just as currency, states, and presidents are. What we need to be careful of is when distinctions between definitions of "religion" and "democracy" are along the lines of one's own religion or political leaning. We can't have only Muslims defining "religion", nor can we have only the left defining "democracy". The definitions of these terms can only be objectively defined by people that are not religious (atheist) or don't have a political leaning (a-political). In other words, they can only be properly defined by those that are not influenced by some group and can think for themselves. In asking different people of different religions or governments how they define "religion" or "government" you attempt to find the common criteria and start from there, but you have to already acknowledge that your religion or government is not the one true religion or government - that there might be other types but they all must share a common characteristic for them to be categorized as a religion or government.

Husserlian phenomenology is not directly concerned with what is or isn’t. The focus is purely on the experience. The experience is the experience. That is the starting point and it is not finitely reducible.

Meaning whether something ‘exists’ or is ‘imagined’ is of no concern from the phenomenological perspective as the experience (‘real’ or not) is still an experience. — I like sushi

Then Husserlian phenomenology is concerned with the existence of experience. That is the starting point and from there it must be asked why it exists the way that it does - as an experience of an external world - if an external world doesn't exist (the external world is imagined).

You are a Jew if your mother was a Jew. Judaism is not even based upon your belief system. — Hanover

If you're asking for the biblical account, no, Adam wasn't Jewish. The Hebrews were chosen to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai after fleeing Egypt, so the story goes.

If you're looking fur a more historically accurate account of when rabbinical Jewish law developed dictating who is a Jew, I'd assume after the 1st century CE after the fall of the second temple.

I'm also not advocating here the Orthodox definition of who is a Jew over other viewpoints, but only indicating it is one. The Reforn have a very different view — Hanover

Then you are not necessarily a Jew if your mother was a Jew and Judaism IS based on a belief system because now you've shown that what makes one a Jew is based on one's belief system.

This is the same as saying, "religion" is just scribbles on this page.
— Harry Hindu

There can be 20 potential criteria that every religion has, with 2 particular examples not having any overlap, meaning 2 examples would not share an essential similar trait

My point here is that even if you wish to maintain your antiquated essentialist views, your above criticism does not logically follow. — Hanover

No need to get feisty. It's not my fault that you are incapable of being consistent.

Then a religion would be defined as possessing at least one of 20 (not an infinite) potential criteria. I'm just trying to focus on one criteria - that a religion is the practice of believing an idea is true, when there is no evidence to support it, over all other ideas that either do or do not have evidence. Since it seems difficult for you to be consistent in your reasoning then maybe we should just focus on one criteria at a time and see which ones we agree and disagree on.

You are a Jew if your mother was a Jew. Judaism is not even based upon your belief system. — Hanover

So the very first human was a Jew? Wouldn't that make every human a Jew and therefore meaningless? If not then how did the first Jew become a Jew?

"Religion" is not a term with an essence. — Hanover

This is the same as saying, "religion" is just scribbles on this page.

All we have is the way we use the term. — Banno

To use something we must have a goal in mind. What is the goal in using the term the way we do?

I'd prefer to quote Popper himself, but I don't have a digital copy. — jas0n

Doesn't this require a theory that others exist and write stuff down for you to then read later? How is that any different than trusting scientific theories? Seems to me that many here are using scribbles they see on some paper as the foundation of everything.

It's strange that we question our senses when doing science, but not philosophy, or at least in reading late philosophers' writings?

A certain kind of pragmatist might take technology as the essence of science/knowledge — jas0n

It seems to me that language itself is a technology.

He literally set out to create a ‘science of consciousness’. That is all. He was not dismissive of science merely critical of the physical sciences encroaching upon psychology and such - rightly so imo. — I like sushi

Right. Seems to me that a proper theory of consciousness would resolve this issue. But then how do we go about doing that if not by our own observations of our own consciousness and the reasoning that goes along with it? It would seem to me that if consciousness is real and in the world, then its functions are part of the world too, and possibly exist in other places in the world (as in other minds).

I describe myself as a non-ritualstic Jew. That doesn't mean my family won't gather for Passover Seder, but that has nothing to do with me thinking God will bless me for the event anymore than when your family might gather for your birthday. In truth, along with our matzoh, we color eggs on Passover, which isn't exact textbook haggadah. Is that ritual? — Hanover

What does it mean to be a "Jew" if not performing some ritual?

I was raised as a Christian and we celebrated Christmas. Now I'm an atheist. I still bring a tree into my home during the holiday season, but I don't do it to celebrate the birth of some man that claimed to be the son of a god. I do it because it is fun for me and my family. So it's not a religious ritual.

It's not religions that change over time. It is our motivations for performing the rituals that change over time. We can adopt religious rituals and make them into non-religious rituals by changing the motivations for performing them.

And since there are non-religious rituals, and religions that don't have specific rituals, ritual is not the essence of religion.

It shouldn't be surprising that after 5000 years of drastic change in world views, the word "religion" is hard to define. — frank

:roll: I never said rituals are necessarily religious. I said the motivations behind the ritual is what makes it religious or not. If there is no evidence that the ritual achieves what you intend, then the ritual is religious, ie. Washing your hands to prevent food poisoning vs. washing your hands to please a god.

If you are insisting on "achieving good" as the motivation, then there is evidence that certain rituals can make us feel good without being religious. The problem is that there is no evidence that it makes a god feel good, which makes the ritual religious. If there is no other reason for performing a ritual other than to make you feel good because the ritual has made you feel good in the past, then the ritual is not religious. It would be religious to perform the ritual to feel good without evidence that it does.

Yes. Plus it lessens your chances of food poisoning. — frank

Right. So, there is evidence that washing your hands lessens your chances of food poisoning, hence washing your hands is not religious. But there is no evidence that washing your hands is a display of piety. It seems to me that when your goal is to lessen you chance of food poisoning and not to display piety, then the "ritual" is non-religious.

Also, there is no evidence that Jews were the first to wash their hands. That would be a religion to believe that.

Then all Jews should be following the rituals as laid out originally in the Bible, yet many of them don't, yet still call themselves "Jews".

By the 1st Century, it was apparently used as a show of piety. — frank

So practicing a religious ritual shows that you are religious?

This problem with the term "religion" is no different from the term "cup," yet we use the term cup in a meaningful way. That is, I can give thousands of examples of cups (just like I can with religions), but there will always be some cup example that falls outside the definition that we keep trying to refine. There is no essential element of a cup for it to be a cup, but that hardly means we can't speak of cups. — Hanover

I should also add that if the term "religion" is as vague as you claim, then I could just as easily claim that any behavior or belief is not a religion. This is the problem is asserting that the definition of "religion" is subjective, or that people can use the term however they want, because someone can always use it in a way that is contradictory to another use.

How about the Jewish ritual of washing your hands before you eat? Effective or not? — frank

Washing your hands before you eat isn't necessarily a Jewish ritual. Are you Jewish every time you wash your hands?

There is evidence that washing your hands before you eat promotes a healthy lifestyle.

Any other examples you want to throw at me? This is fun.

The goal in hand-shaking is to great someone, to begin a conversation and to show that you come in peace and aren't holding a weapon. There is evidence this ritual achieves that goal, unlike some ritual that gets you to heaven or nirvana, or pleases some god.

So far as the topic goes, do we at least agree that ritual practice of some sort seems central to the concept of religion?
— Banno

Human life is pervasively ritualistic. Much of it is non-religious, so no. — frank

Right. I think it is the motive behind the ritual that makes it religious or not. If the motive is to achieve some goal where there is no evidence that such rituals achieve such goals, then that is a religion.

This problem with the term "religion" is no different from the term "cup," yet we use the term cup in a meaningful way. That is, I can give thousands of examples of cups (just like I can with religions), but there will always be some cup example that falls outside the definition that we keep trying to refine. There is no essential element of a cup for it to be a cup, but that hardly means we can't speak of cups. — Hanover

Sure, our use of language attempts to divide the world into neat boxes and we often find that the world is not neatly divided into boxes, but it seems to me that for you to even imply that there are common and uncommon properties that make some thing a cup is itself admitting that there are properties that make one thing more of a cup than another. The fact that you would scoff at my attempt to show you a bowl and call it a cup proves my point. The same goes for religion.

I should point out that religion is a human invention. Natural things like oceans vs. seas, asteroids vs. comets are not. So in trying to define, or divide nature, into boxes we will find that there are objects that will challenge our definitions. This is not the case for human inventions, like religions and presidents. Humans invented these things and have a much easier time defining them than things that we didn't invent.

I just see this comment as positing a false dichotomy between (1) the scientific method and (2) religion. Most people use neither, but accept as proof just their instinct or general observations. We don't engage in rigorous experimentation for most of our beliefs. Someone who insists upon herbal remedies, for example, isn't practicing religion or science.

It's an error to also deny an overlap between the two also, as most religious people accept science (to greater and lesser degrees) and plenty of scientists allow for the unknown variable, which they to greater and lesser extent attribute to God.

In any event, nothing I've said is inconsistent with atheism or suggests, hints, or intimates there may be a god. My point is simply that your argument of the incoherency of the term "religion" effectively proves its non-existence is incorrect. — Hanover

Sure it does. Your explanation shows that atheism qualifies as a religion, not to mention believing in evolution by natural selection, that Augustus was the first Roman Emperor, or that I need to wear a mask to stop the spread of Covid - all religions by your standard. :confused:

Most people use science without even knowing it. Using your senses, solving problems by the process of elimination, testing your ideas, etc. are all aspects of doing science. Favoring one untested idea over other untested and tested ideas is the primary characteristic of a religion.

Humans are creatures of habit. Memory is applied to to the mundane making it sacred. Be this a football stadium, church, house or a simple rock.

The story we apply to lived experiences creates a narrative that can be passed on and repeated. Needless to say such a ‘habit’ is kind of useful in terms of evolution as it helps us adapt to the environment and approach it from different angles rather than as a mere set of lifeless variables.

Without value there is nothing there for us to pay attention to. Without a means of applying or removing value we are not anything as stagnation of value is just as dead as having no value at all. — I like sushi

What do "habits" and "values" have to do with religion - as if religion has a monopoly on the use of such terms?

We are not creatures of habit. If we were then there wouldn't be humans that go against the grain, like Galileo, and question our habits and values. The world changes so any habits eventually don't work anymore and new ways of adapting are valued (selected by natural selection).

It seems to me that walking that thin line between habit and novelty is the human condition, at least for those that are non-religious. The religious are the ones that stick with habit even in the face of drastic change to their own detriment.