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/lit/ - Literature

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6999863 No.6999863 [Reply] [Original]

What is a proper definition of the term 'religion' that accounts for the diversity of religious thought out there? I'm struggling with this because thanks to pantheism I can't say it's a worldview that specifically deals with the immaterial. Help me out /lit/

>fully expecting reddit to come in trying to give insulting definitions

>> No.6999869 [DELETED] 

It's entirely up to you.
Some of us worship Satan
Some of us worship birds
Some of us worship a relief pitcher
You are the only one that can put words on your quandary.

>> No.6999873

>>6999869
The underlying idea would be "worship of something". Religion is "worship of something". Thank you.

What does it mean to worship though?

>> No.6999877 [DELETED] 

>>6999873
It's meaningful and meaningless at the same time.
It's like the light at the end of the tunnel. Some of us have to put a name on that light.

>> No.6999880

>>6999863
>2015
>searching for essences
>can't into family resemblance

>> No.6999887

Religion can be defined as "ways of life that aren't liberalism"

>> No.6999890 [DELETED] 

>>6999887
but what about religions that are centered around liberal ideals?
It has no fixed definition

>> No.6999898

>>6999890
Liberal ideals aren't "liberalism" in itself. The core focus of liberalism is the primacy of the individual will or the primacy of the human will generally. Once you aren't that you get into religious ideas or idea that aren't explicitly but often get characterized or demonized (by liberal groups) as cultish.

>> No.6999907 [DELETED] 

>>6999898
All religions started off as "cultish"
It's not up to you or me to put a fixed tag on what is or is not religion

>> No.6999918

>>6999907
>All religions started off as "cultish"
This is irrelevant and, at best, only help prove my point.

>It's not up to you or me to put a fixed tag on what is or is not religion

You seemed interested in having a discourse, now you wish to shut me up?

>> No.6999930

Perennialism?

>> No.6999935 [DELETED] 

>>6999918
I'm not the same person you were talking to

>> No.6999936

>>6999935
Well my apologies.

>> No.6999943

>>6999863
>>6999880
This is a good option: there isn't one thing common to all religions, they just share features with each other. It was in the 17th and 18th century that Europeans began to think about 'religions' as the category we use today.

>> No.6999946

>>6999887
>mfw this actually works

>> No.6999954

>>6999907
This line of thinking is how Heaven's Gate happens

>> No.6999964

>>6999943
>>6999863
>assuming groups of objects exist distinct of your definition of them
>failing to realize defining "groups" of objects is pure teleology

nice

>> No.6999968

>>6999964
what explain

>> No.7000001

>>6999863

>> No.7000016

>>6999968
I'm telling you that definitions are meaningless. Once you've come up with, or been provided with, the definition of "Religion" that you like, all that definition does is delineate in your mind which things are religion and which are not.
Do you think that there is any rationality, any real purpose in your quest?
Really you are asking, "What should we allow to be a Religion?" and by extension, "What should we disallow to be a Religion?" but no normative statement about future events is possible without stating a preference, something that is by necessity irrational.

Since I can only write here what causation dictates, I'll suit my own interests by typing the only recommendation you are certain to obey.

just do what serves you

>> No.7000030

Postulating null hypotheses with a moral program and/or metaphysics and acting accordingly.

>> No.7000044

>>6999863

(Not a view I necessarily am partial to, but I am nevertheless interested in)

Some shit on Schleiermacher's Christian (Pantheism-theism)

Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, delineates an orginary sphere regarding affectivity as the pious. The pious describes our affective relationship with the whole of existence, i.e. the Universe. Take, for example, Schleiermacher’s claim,

“What we feel and are conscious of in religious emotions is not the nature of things, but their operation upon us. What you may know or believe about the nature of things is far beneath the sphere of religion. The Universe is ceaselessly active and at every moment is revealing itself to us. Every form it has produced, everything to which, from the fullness of its life, it has given a separate existence, every occurrence scattered from its fertile bosom is an operation of the Universe upon us.”

In other words, human existence is always already situated ‘in’ relation to the whole of existence, i.e. the Universe; there are differing ways and ‘methods’ through which the human being relates and appropriates itself in relation to that whole. In light of this appropriation on life, religiosity denotes precisely that relationality between the whole and human existence; between the infinite and the finite. The fertile ground through which religiosity springs is from this fundamental relationship between the human (finite) and its relation to the whole, the cosmos, the Universe, God. So, religiosity originates from our affective relation to the whole. Alternatively stated, human existence originates, and therefore, is into the whole; into here meaning that the human being is not merely ‘in’ the whole, but rather, participates in the existing whole by breathing and living in relation to that whole, appropriating itself and orientating itself to that whole. Consequently, religiosity is the name for a specific way through which we appreciate and participate into that whole, hence Schleiermacher’s term piety. Piety names our respect for the whole, for that is the fertile bosom through which affectivity has its genesis. In this way, being ‘religious’ entails the cultivation of being aware of the fact that the whole operates upon us; and therefore, entailing the recognition of the Universe as the “fertile bosom” through which all-human affectivity originates.

>> No.7000045

>>6999863
Religion is a shit category to use, and we would all be better off if it were done away with.

>> No.7000048

>>7000045
(the category, not its referents)

>> No.7000523

>>6999863
Perennial Philosophy/theology

>> No.7000545

>>7000016
A very postmodern response.

>> No.7001549

:A codified set of beliefs which purports to explain, at a minimum, human mortality.

>> No.7001556

>>6999887
>>6999887
>>6999887