Again - For this thread I’d like to focus just on the meaning of the words “cause” or “causalty,” not on any other philosophical issues. Also, as I noted, I’d like the focus to be on physical causes. — T Clark

Would the input and output of a computer be considered a physical cause and effect? If so, then is the processing of information a causal event? What about you typing your posts (the effect) as being caused by your beliefs and your intent to communicate them? It seems to me that forcing the term "physical" into the discussion of causal events is what creates many of the problems that you are trying to solve.

What if the effect of cause is unpredictable? Can we still call it a cause? Or the effect the effect? I think for cause and effect to exist, there has to be a logical relation between them. — Haglund

Good observation, but the whole question of whether such relations can be described as 'logical' is what is at issue in this thread. — Wayfarer

In asserting that an effect is unpredictable given some cause, are we talking about causation or our knowledge of some causal event? "Random" events only seem random when you don't have all the information about the causes that preceded some effect.

If you are out to describe some causal relation as logical or not I guess you'd need to define "logical" and "causal" as a starting point.

In describing something are you not engaged in both a causal and logical process? The description would be a causal relation with what it is that you are describing and a logical use of language in that you are using words to refer to something that is not necessarily another use of words, or even that the rules of some language cause you to use them in a particular way (the effect), just as your beliefs/knowledge cause you to behave in certain ways (If A then B).

In other words, there is a causal relation, therefore there should be evidence of your claim. Where is the evidence for your claim?

Telling me that I am wrong doesn't answer the questions I have posed. Unless you have something with more substance then I'm done here.

I didn’t say you said anything about sacrificing truth, but you are willing to knowingly utter a falsity to preserve someone’s feelings, with little consideration to the feelings of others who identify as the opposite. I just think that behavior is less than ethical, more of a ploy to avoid confrontation than anything else. — NOS4A2

The same people on this forum advocating for politeness are the same ones that repeatedly engage in character assassination and ad hominem arguments when you simply question their assumptions.

It has nothing to do with your ‘definition’. No one calls me ‘man’ they refer to me by name or with he/him. If someone prefers to be called he/him and dresses like a man I’m down with that. — I like sushi

But that's the thing though: Why would you be concerned how someone refers to you in the third person? It would be strange to be referring to you in the third person when you are present. Third person pronouns are used when the person is not present. So how is someone that isn't present to the conversation offended if we use pronouns that they can't hear?

If a guy is wearing make up and a dress, and appears to be conveying the general outward aspect of ‘woman’ I would refer to them as she/her because that is CLEARLY what they are conveying. I know they are NOT a WOMAN because I can see they are a TRANS WOMAN but I need not be a dick about it and refer to them as he/him. — I like sushi

It is not clear. A man can wear a dress and still want to be called a man.

And again you engage in these sexist assumptions that what you wear makes you a man or a woman.

Being outside the secular domain by definition means a domain with no causal contact, unless they can influence the chances of quantum mechanics. That's the only acausal way to interfere. — Haglund

It is claimed that god created the universe and that our actions influence his final judgement. Those are causal relationships. As such, there should be evidence that was left for use to be able to show that god exists and created the universe. Where is that evidence?

You think an afterlife is the reason for believing? Then you don't understand the reason at all. — Haglund

You asked if I understand why people believe. I told you that I once was a believer and that I have spoken to other believers and what they have said. Are you then saying that none of us are, or were, actually believers - as in only you have true sight into what god wants us to believe?

I'm still waiting on you to define "god".

God(s) exist outside of this domain, so their existence can't be proved. — Haglund

Outside what domain, and "outside" in what way? It certainly can't be outside causality because events outside this domain affect what is in this domain and vice versa, so we should be able to prove their existence just like we can prove the identity of a criminal given the effects they leave at the crime scene (fingerprints, DNA, etc). It doesn't make any sense to say that it is outside this domain while at the same time asserting that there is a causal relationship between the outside and inside yet the outside can't be proven.

What could be the use, apart from moral or closing gaps? Do you understand why people believe? — Haglund

Sure. I was once a believer. When I question my former fellow believers most ask, "well what happens after we die?", so it seems like believing is more of a delusion to aleviate the suffering of knowing you will die and that your friends and family no longer exist for you to meet after death.

It is just a case of common sense and politeness. Most people who see someone dressed as a woman will call them a woman. Maybe there are a few scarce situations where it is not clear but that can be overcome quite easily with a simple exchange. — I like sushi

The problem is that in acknowledging someone's definition of "man" or "woman" that contradicts my own, would be discrediting my own identity as a man. Why should I relegate my own notions of what it means to be a man for the sake of not offending someone that is only happy when dictating what others can think or what words that they can use?

It is sexist to say that someone dresses like a woman - as if women can only dress a certain way. Trans people are no different in being sexist when they claim that being a man or a woman is dressing a certain way, nor are they non-binary when they still assert that they are a man or a woman. If they were really non-binary then they would be neither a man or a woman. As such, they should have their own category in sports and not participate in the binary categories of men and women's sports.

A woman is an adult female of the human species. — NOS4A2

Yes, just as a doe is an adult female of the deer species. Nothing political to see here.

There need be no necessary and sufficient conditions in place for us to be able to use a word; indeed, there rarely are. This is what is meant by the term family resemblance. — Banno

The only necessary condition for using a word is that you are referring to some state-of-affairs that is not necessarily just another use of words. If not, then you aren't actually using words. You're just drawing scribbles and making noises. But it nice to see you finally admit that when you use words, you aren't actually ever saying anything, Banno.

Stipulating a criteria, one way or the other, is a political act. — Banno

No. Categorization is an act of reason. Finding common ground with others' categorization is an act of communication. But it is nice to see you finally admit that you see everything through the prism of politics, Banno.

The fact that you have not found evidence of the supernatural isn't conclusive proof that it does not exist. — Elric

We could make this argument for any imagined thing, including elves, leprechauns, and dragons.

It is incumbent upon the claimant to both define and show evidence for (based upon the definition) the state-of-affairs that is being asserted. If you want to assert that "supernatural" or "gods" exists, then it is incumbent upon you to define "supernatural" or "god" and then provide some evidence that it exists. Until you do that, then what am I suppose to do with your claim? How would it be useful to me to believe it?

Because I haven't found any use in believing that the supernatural or gods exist, then I don't.

Sure. You see what you want to see. Words are flexible like that. You can misrepresent my words and convince yourself that was specifically what I was trying to say. Go for it. :up: — apokrisis

:lol: How can I misrepresent your words if your use of words is not specific? It seems like that can only happen if you are specific with your use if words.

Words, as arbitrary symbols, have the potential to be flexible, but are not flexible when used properly because you mean something specific when you use them that I can misrepresent. If you didn't mean anything specific, then what would I be misrepresenting?

You’re not doing your intelligence any favours here. — Possibility

Another example. If someone would point out that your concept of men and women doesn't do your intelligence any favors, well that would be bigotry/disrespectful, right? I haven't seen stoicHoneyBadger identify as an idiot yet, have you?

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.