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.

I like this gap that you insert between the believer and the belief. Belief is only interesting if it determines action in the world. If I claim to believe I can fly and nevertheless carefully avoid high ledges, then maybe I'm wrong about myself or have an uninteresting conception of belief. — jas0n

Reality doesn't care about aligning its truth to what you may or may not find interesting. I find it interesting that you believe that though.

A brutal dictator that is only interested in hearing what they want to hear from their subjects and not what their subjects actually believe and cannot act on because its not what the dictator wants to hear or see, then you can understand the difference between the thought (belief) police and the action police. If there can be a distinction between the way people act and what they believe, then I find that distinction very interesting.

I think you're wondering if some ontology is being smuggled in with the concept of a proposition. There isn't.

I will say, I've been surprised since I've been here how many posters have the same misconception about what analytical philosophers mean by "proposition." — frank

Unless the analytical philosophers define a proposition as a string of scribbles in it's fundamental state, then I don't know what else they could be getting at, as any proposition in a language that you don't know is a string of scribbles.

What is it like for you to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow? How do you know that you believe it? Is your belief simply the sound of you talking to yourself in your mind saying, "I believe the sun will rise tomorrow".? That is what I'm trying to ask. Beliefs have some kind of ontology for you to be able to talk about them and for others to agree that you have them.

Not only that but Wayfarer seems to not realize that believing something is a way of being just as acting on those beliefs are. It still begs the question of why one person would choose to engage in the behaviors and rituals of one religion and not another if not because of some belief.

I'm trying to understand and ask how you know that propositions are the content of beliefs in that you and Banno seem to suggest that beliefs are like boxes with contents that are propositions. In using visual terms to describe beliefs and their contents it seems to me that beliefs and their contents have a visual form, as opposed to an audible, tactile or olfactory form.

The same thing goes in describing that beliefs and propositions are bearers of truth, as if one is carrying another. But we all know beliefs can be false, so it seems to me that we can believe in false things and beliefs are not necessarily bearers of truth.

Years later, we've all gone around the circle and ended up right were we started! What form does a proposition take as the content of a belief?

You are claiming that people cannot care about the environment or social inequality and that they can only care about being perceived as a good person? — praxis

I think you may be confusing the ends with the means. One can care about the ends of a clean environment and social inequality but not agree with the means by which some groups try to achieve those ends.

Stage 1.
A person seems to be owned by one or more concepts. He is unable to critically evaluate the concepts animating him or appraise them in a broader context. He believes those concepts to be the ultimate truth and is very combative against anybody questioning their validity.
Usually such concepts fulfill one's need to be perceived by the society as a “good person”.
For example, “a good person has to fight climate change” or “a good person has to support BLM”. — stoicHoneyBadger

I agree that most people are at this level and never climb out of it. Thinking for yourself is difficult, especially when you don't want to take the time to educate yourself on certain topics or issues. You simply adopt the position of the group you find yourself in and you compartmentalize those concepts from other concepts that you hold that you end up holding contradictory concepts because being part of a group is more important than being consistent for these types of individuals. They naturally gravitate towards the collective mindset.

Stage 2.
A person is no longer owned by random concepts, but chooses a concept to serve more or less deliberately out of what is offered by his culture.

Stage 3.
A person already starts understanding the relativity of concepts and is actively exploring different world views. He mentally dissects existing concepts, tries to rearrange some parts, etc.
For example, “what if we take a Stoic world view and spice it with Yogic exercises?” — stoicHoneyBadger

I find 2 and 3 part of the same stage - at least for me in my development. I went through this stage in my late teens-early twenties when, as a young Christian, I began to question my beliefs primarily as a result of my observations of other "Christians" in how they didn't behave as if an all-knowing, all-seeing god existed and was going to ultimately judge them for their actions. I lost faith in my religion so I began exploring other religions and turned to explore those fields of science that my religion had told me was the "devil's work" like evolution by natural selection.

Stage 4. A person is able to generate his own concepts and build a coherent world view out of them. Cultural norms are no longer relevant to him. He himself has the authority to determine what is good or bad, regardless of other people.
Stage 5.
A person not only has his own unique world view, but is able to communicate it to others, creating his own schools of thought. — stoicHoneyBadger

I didn't reach this stage until much later in life - like nearly 20 years later - after I had time to digest all of this new information and integrate it into a more general worldview. It seems to me that 5 comes with 4 as you need to be able to articulate it to yourself and understand it to be able to communicate it to others. Communicating vs proving it to others are two different things as well. It's essentially three stages for me. 1) Living in the bubble you find yourself born into. 2) realizing that you are in a bubble and attempt to break out of that bubble. 3) emerging from the bubble.

If we're using the term "religion" within a community, it has meaning, even if the meaning amounts to delusional, confused, and inconsistent beliefs about the origins of the universe. To declare that the term is meaningless is to claim it's gibberish, just sounds conveying no thought whatsoever. "God" means something different from "cat" and different from "jldjlk." To say otherwise is just to impose an opinion on the validity of the concept that underlies the word "God." — Hanover

As I said, for some word to have meaning it needs to refer to something. So if the user of the word, "religion" isn't referring to anything then it would just be a string of meaningless scribbles or sounds from their mouths.

What one person means by "religion" someone else could mean something different, then how do we know that they are even talking about the same thing? To say that the word has meaning in that any person can use it however they want renders the word meaningless in that it is now to vague for anyone to understand how it is being used and that it would be more efficient to just say what you are referring to rather than use the word, "religion" at all. It becomes useless.

My belief in bigfoot is different from my belief in gorillas, but my belief in bigfoot doesn't dissolve into meaninglessness because there is no such thing as bigfoot. — Hanover

I understand that beliefs in bigfoot are not the same thing as bigfoot itself. We can talk about both but some people can confuse their belief with the real thing.

Your definition of religion is wanting and does not universally describe all religions. It's entirely possible to have a religion with gods that interact only on the "natural" level, which isn't entirely inconsistent with primitive religions, especially considering in primitive societies they don't have a real distinction between the miraculous and ordinary earthly events.

For your definition to be workable, you would be admitting to essentialism. — Hanover

It seems to me that if you want to posit gods on the natural level then you would be practicing science, not religion - which leads me to think of another definition for religion: The act of favoring one unprovable concept over all other unprovable concepts. There is no reason to value one concept that has no evidence over other concepts that don't have any evidence or even others that do have evidence. In this way, religion is a type of delusion. And in this way, atheists are not necessarily denying a theists claims, they simply find no good reason to believe what one theist says over another, or what one philosopher says over another - when none of them are able to provide any evidence for their claims. Essentially a non-religious person would be one that has an open-mind; one that understands that they and others are probably wrong when there is no evidence and questioning yours and others beliefs is a good thing.

Does the term "religion" refer to nothing? — Banno

Meaning is use. We use the term, to be sure. It must therefore have meaning. — Hanover

Meaning is using terms to refer to things that are not words. If the word does not refer to anything that exists outside of one's own mind yet it is used to refer to things outside of one's mind (confusing the map with the territory) then it is a meaningless word - just like the term, "god".

Now, if it is correctly being used to refer to a concept (those things that only exist in minds) then it has meaning. The difference is do those concepts then refer to things in the world.

Religion is the belief in things outside of, or beyond, the natural.

Seems to me that one merely needs to look at processes of one's own mind for evidence of causation. Thinking is a causal process. Logic is the process of identifying and eliminating premises that do not causally support one's conclusion, such as pleading to authority and popularity as not being the cause of one's conclusion being true. What makes one's conclusion true is if it is the case.

Thinking itself is an IF-THEN-ELSE statement, ie. (IF) I think, therefore I am (ELSE I am not).

It also seems that causation is an integral part of any realist world-view in that your experience is a product of the interaction of your body and the world (ELSE solipsism is the case).

Reading a sentence is another causal process as it takes time to read a sentence. It has a beginning and an ending and the beginning causes the context to emerge for the rest of the sentence and the rest of the paragraph.

Symbols symbolizing would be another causal process.

This makes sense in that Being grounds Becoming in the Aristotelean scheme. So that which stably exists becomes the stuff which also can stand under the change. — apokrisis

Stability of form and structure is an illusion. It is a product of our minds' frequency relative to the frequency of what is being observed. Change is relative and minds change relative to every other process. The rate at which they change, or process external information, is relative to the speed or frequency at which the external world changes. Some changes happen very fast and some very slow. Those that happen fast appear as "non-physical" processes, while those that happen very slow appear as stable "physical" objects.

If reductionism is faulty then how is it that we understand the things we have invented as products of smaller parts? How can I repair your computer by replacing a part, not the whole computer, or by the process of elimination by eliminating the causes that are not at fault to get at the cause that is the fault? You only arrive at the right answer after making all possible mistakes.

If not reductionism, does that mean we live in a world that is only made up of Earth, Wind, Air and Fire? In a non-reductionist world, there would be uncountable substances and forms - none of which would be reducible to anything else. Energy and matter would be different substances and forms. Plastic, metal, wood, electricity, light, sound, etc., would all be different substances and forms without being reduced to smaller processes. It seems to me that a non-reductionist view would be the view of the naive realist - that things exist as they are experienced without being reduced to things that we don't see, or can observe.

It seems to me that a lot of people are saying the same thing, but using different terms, mostly in an effort to make the simple sound complicated as a way of "chest-beating" for social status.

And yet you go on to give support for my point. She was not about to let the hearings turn into a dispute about transgender people. — Fooloso4

Actually, you're proving mine. She wasn't asked about transgender people. She was asked to define a woman.

According to USA Today we can't determine the difference between a man and a woman, so how do we know that Biden nominated a woman to the supreme court, hence the threat of mis- and under- representing women. All USA Today did is pull the rug out from under the left's own push to nominate a black woman. This is what I mean by creating more lies and contradictions to cover for the mass delusion that has been created.

We all could see how Jackson wanted to answer the question with her reference to biologists. But her free speech was being limited by less than 1% of the population.

It's not that simple. A bit of online research based on the scientific literature rather than religious or political claims will bear out that sex and gender are not binary. — Fooloso4

Actually it is people like you who have become religious in accepting the claims by certain people without questioning those claims. Politics is like a religion in that it makes people out to be victims so that you can turn to Big Brother save you from being a victim. It is like a religion in that everyone on one side believes that they are the righteous and the other side are not. Politics = religion because they are both forms of group think. The left has essentially swapped one Big Brother for another.

She is well aware of the trap that was laid. It has to do with the Republicans obsession with transgender people. — Fooloso4

Wrong. It has to do with the extreme left's fetish with sex/gender and using it to make victims out of people to get votes. It also has to do with Republicans, Independents and moderate Democrats concern over how a warped sense of sex/gender is an infringement on the equal representation for women.

The extremists on the left are the ones over-representing trans-people which ends up misrepresenting both men and women. They are the ones that want to promise trans people special rights, not equal rights. And they are the ones that treat people who claim to be the opposite sex/gender differently than someone else claiming to be something that they are not that has nothing to do with sex/gender. When you take trans-people's claims without the same skepticism that you show others that make outlandish claims then you are the one's with an obsession with sex/gender.

The biology of gender is not a simple matter of male vs female. — Fooloso4

It's actually very simple, but in order to maintain the mass delusion, you have to create more lies which makes it seem more complicated than it actually is.

Which is better?

1. Hey, here's a judge, she's a black woman?

2. Hey, here's a black woman, she's a judge? — Agent Smith

I don't know but I do find it strange that Mrs. Jackson doesn't seem to have a problem defining "black" but does have a problem defining 'woman". Is Biden sure he picked a black woman for the Supreme Court?

In Jackson's befuddlement when asked the question she seemed at least understand that it has to do with biology as she she said, "I'm not a biologist."