Defining 'Religion'

Not my job to teach you about religions. Should be easy enough for you to do some research.

http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Devas_and_the_supernatural_in_Buddhism

 

Im not here to play juvenile games with this.
If you are too lazy to read it, its not my problem.

See they dont worship any gods, that makes them non-theist.
I guess I am the one who has to do the teaching around here.

 

Guess you are confused. Their religion does contain supernatural beings.

And I read the article which is why I challenged you to actually name one case mentioned in the article that supports your position. Obviously you can't

And your continuing insistence that the Cornell Law review is a court case is hilarious.

Now of course since you can't defend your actual statements you are resorting to personal attacks and calling me lazy. Pathetic but it is your standard tactic when your falsehoods are exposed.

 

Hardly, show me which god the buddhist religion is focused on, exactly ZERO. You need to understand that not denying the existence of that which they cannot prove is not acceptance of existence.

Jainists central theory is:

Spirits of the dead are hardly 'supernatural beings'.

 

First off I dont have a single position, I have multiple positions running concurrently, too complicated for this board maybe?

They ALL support different aspects or the several different positions.

To imply there is no case, had you actually read it is ludicrous. this is less than 1/3 of the case law from that review.

I gave them all to you, knock yourself out, enjoy. If you see a problem with any of them by all means bring it to my attention.

1 United States v. McIntosh, 283 U.S. 605, 633-34 (1931).
2 Twenty Years of Rolling Stone: What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been (J.S. Wenner ed. 1987).
3 U.S. Const, amend. I.
4 See infra notes 24-44 and accompanying text.
5 See, e.g., Thomas v. Review Board, 450 U.S. 707, 714 (1981) (“The determination of what is a ‘religious’ belief or practice is more often than not a difficult and delicate task . . . .”).
6 See Weiss, Privilege, Posture and Protection: "Religion" In the Law, 73 Yale L.J. 593 (1964). The author argues that “any definition of religion would seem to violate religious freedom in that it would dictate to religions, present and future, what they must be.. .. Furthermore, an attempt to define religion . .. would run afoul of the ‘establishment’ clause . . . .” Id. at 604.

7 See supra note 6.
8 As one commentator put it, “avoiding the task [of defining religion] would seem to violate the principles underlying the [free exercise] clause.” L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 14-6, at 1179 (2d ed. 198.
9 See, e.g., Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963).
10 See generally Choper, Defining "Religion " in the First Amendment, 1982 U. III. L. Rev. 579, 587.
11 Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 305 (1963) (Goldberg, J., con-

curring). See also Merel, The Protection of Individual Choice: A Consistent Understanding of Religion Under the First Amendment, 45 U. Chi. L. Rev. 805, 810 (197 (“If there is any single unifying principle underlying the two religion clauses ... it is that individual choice in matters of religion should be free.”) (footnote omitted).
12 See Greenawalt, Religion as a Concept in Constitutional Law, 72 Cal. L. Rev. 753, 757-58 (1984); Note, Toward a Constitutional Definition of Religion, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 1056, 1060 n.26 (197 (hereinafter Definition of Religion]. James Madison viewed religion as “the duty which we owe to our Creator and the Manner of discharging it.” Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U.S. 664, 719 (1970) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (quoting Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments in 2 The Writings of James Madison 183-91 (G. Hunt ed. 1901)).
13 See Definition of Religion, supra note 12, at 1060. Thomas Jefferson apparently envisioned religious liberty for various faiths. He stated that his Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom “was meant to be universal ... to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohometan, the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination.” Id. at 1060 n.27.

14 Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 231 (Brennan, J., concurring) (quoting Representative Daniel Carroll of Maryland, speaking during debate upon the proposed Bill of Rights, August 15, 1789). See also id. at 217-18 (“Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law.'*) (quoting Cantwell v. Connecticut, 319 U.S. 296, 303-04 (1940)); Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437, 445 (1971) (referring to “the general proposition that fundamental principles of conscience and religious duty may sometimes override the demands of the secular state.”). Most commentators have also recognized this fundamental principle. See, e.g., L. Tribe, supra note 6, § 14-3, at 1160 (“The free exercise clause was at the very least designed to guarantee freedom of conscience by preventing any degree of compulsion in matters of belief.”) (citations omitted); Clark, Guidelines for the Free Exercise Clause, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 327, 340 (1969) (arguing “that the principal interest protected by the free exercise clause is the individual’s interest in not being forced to violate the compelling requirements of conscience”).

15 See L. Tribe, supra note 8, § 14-6, at 1180 (“The idea of religious liberty—combined with the special place of religion in the constitutional order—demands a definition of‘religion’ that goes beyond the closely bounded limits of theism, and accounts for the multiplying forms of recognizably legitimate religious exercise.”) (citation omitted).
16 L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 827-28 (1st ed. 197. Tribe claimed that anything “arguably religious” should count as religious for free exercise purposes, and that anything “arguably nonreligious” should count as nonreligious for establishment purposes. Id. at 828. See also Definition of Religion, supra note 10, at 1084 (advocating use of a “bifurcated definition”).
17 See, e.g., United States v. Allen, 760 F.2d 447, 450-51 (2d Cir. 1985); Sheldon v. Fannin, 221 F. Supp. 766, 775 (D. Ariz. 1963) (“religion” in the establishment clause looks to majority’s concept, while “religion” in the free exercise clause looks to the minority’s concept).
18 Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 32 (1947) (Rutledge, J., dissenting).

19 See generally Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197, 212-13 (3d Cir. 1979) (Adams, J., concurring); Greenawalt, supra note 12, at 814.
20 L. Tribe, supra note 8, § 14-6, at 187.
21 Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971).
22 See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 442 (1961) (“[T]he Establishment Clause does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct whose reason or effect merely happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions.”).
23 E.g., Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e (1982).

24 Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 342 (1890). See also United States v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605, 633-34 (1931) (Hughes, C.J., dissenting) (“the essence of religion is belief in a relation to God involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation”).
25 367 U.S. 488 (1961).
26 The Court previously had suggested a less rigid approach to the concept of religion, in United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944), when it observed that “freedom of religious belief... embraces the right to maintain theories of life and of death and of the hereafter which are rank heresy to followers of the orthodox faiths.” Id. at 86-87.
27 Torcaso, 367 U.S. at 495. The Court then noted that “among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.” Id. at 495 n.ll.
28 380 U.S. 163 (1965).
29 50 U.S.C. app. § 456(j) (195.
80 Id.
81 See Greenawalt, supra note 12, at 759-60. Noting that “Congress had adopted this definition after a dispute in the courts of appeals over how broadly religion should be understood,” Professor Greenawalt concludes that “the statutory language rather clearly represented endorsement of a traditional theistic conception of religion.” Id.
82 Seeger, 380 U.S. at 166.

33 id. at 165.
34 Id at 165-66. In Welsh v. United States, $98 U.S. 333 (1970), a plurality of the Court extended Seeger and ruled that:
if an individual deeply and sincerely holds beliefs which are purely ethical or moral in source and content but that nevertheless impose upon him a duty of conscience to refrain from participating in any war at any time, those beliefs certainly occupy in the life of that individual “a place parallel to that filled by God” in traditionally religious persons.
Id at 340.
35 Seeger, 380 U.S. at 176.
36 See Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 15 (1947) (“The [establishment clause] means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can . . . prefer one religion over another.”).
37 See Seeger, 380 U.S. at 188 (Douglas, J., concurring) (stating that under a more narrow interpretation than the Court’s “those who embraced one religious faith rather than another would be subject to penalties; and that kind of discrimination . . . would violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment”). See also Rabin, When is a Religious Belief Religious: United States v. Seeger and the Scope of Free Exercise, 51 Cornell L.Q,. 231, 241 (1966) (arguing that “constitutional considerations ... led the [Seeger] Court to construe the statute in the chosen manner.”).

38 But cf. Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971), in which the Court held that the Congressional decision to protect religious objection to all wars, but not religious objection to a particular war, violated neither the establishment clause nor the free exercise clause. Regarding the establishment clause challenge, the Court found the distinction justified by secular pragmatic considerations, such as “the hopelessness of converting a sincere conscientious objector [apparently meaning an objector to all wars] into an effective fighting man.” Id. at 453. As for the free exercise claim, the Court, stated that “[t]he incidental burdens felt by [the claimants] are strictly justified by substantial government interests that relate directly to the very impacts questioned.” Id. at

463. The Court left open the question of whether the free exercise clause “would require exemption of any class other than objectors to particular wars.” Id. at 461 n.23.
39 See, e.g., Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197 (3d Cir. 1979) (Adams, J., concurring). Relying on Seeger, Judge Adams concludes that “the modern approach looks to the familiar religions as models in order to ascertain, by comparison, whether the new set of ideas or beliefs is confronting the same concerns, or serving the same purposes, as unquestioned and accepted ‘religions.’ ” Id. at 207. See also Africa v. Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025, 1030 (3d Cir. 1981); Greenawalt, supra note 12, at 760-61 (“the Supreme Court’s broad statutory construction of religion [in Seeger and Welsh]... has led other courts and scholars to assume that the constitutional definition of religion is now much more extensive than it once appeared to be”).
40 406 U.S. 205 (1972).
41 Id. at 216.
42 In his opinion, dissenting in part, Justice Douglas criticized this passage as a retreat from Seeger. Id. at 247-48 (Douglas, J., dissenting in part).
43 406 U.S. at 219.
44 See Greenawalt, supra note 12, at 759 (“(T]he Court did in [Yoder] distinguish religious belief from subjective rejection of secular values, but its opinion does not illuminate the lines between religions and nonreligions and is colored by the specific free exercise context of the case. 1 do not take the passage as representing any retreat from Torcaso.”). See also Definition of Religion, supra note 12, at 1066 n.63, which states that “[t]here is no evidence that the Supreme Court has retreated from Seeger-Welsh in recent

 

Best line you have ever come out with, what are they then?

 

Id be happy to respond but you will use it to derail the thread, so if you want to know make a thread and I will answer it k

 

Still the closest to a good universal definition I have seen is this one,

Religions are shared collections of transcendental beliefs that have been passed on from believers to converts, that are held by adherents to be actively meaningful and serious and either based on (1) formally documented doctrine (organized religion) or (2) established cultural practices (folk religion).
http://www.humanreligions.info/what_is_religion.html#Transcendental

Obviously we can see how Spirits of the dead which ARE supernatual beings would be covered by this and it distinguishes between INDIVIDUAL BELIEFS and RELIGION.

 

so you think these should be added?

Scholar Kenneth Kramer is another author who phrases religions as those things involving "personal and communal experiences of sacred mystery, and expressions of ultimate meaning, value and truth"15,

Ole Preben Riis in "Methodology in the Sociology of Religion" (2011)12 says religion is "a world view, an ideology, an organization, an attitude, a set of values, as moods and motivations, or as an ethical disposition"13.

The rest are direct repeats but these 2 are pretty good expressions of ultimate meaning, and truth

Religion: Not limited to; The personal or cultural practices of value and faith based beliefs, morals, commitments, self-knowledge, truth, expressions of ultimate meaning, often containing a world view, which may include worship and a supernatural being or agency.

There are a couple good points in your link but its severely lacking in completeness if you compare them to the one we have been working with.

The 'shared' theory fails because there is nothing with regard to religion that anyone can think up that has not already been thought up and shared by someone present or past somewhere in the world.

I put expressions of ultimate meaning in there but have to ponder that one because I think it may be a repeat of truth.

 

Way to much information that you are using to hide the fact that you cannot actually find one single court case that defines religion as you originally claimed. And the only ones that even attempt to consider what is a possible requirement ( note not a definition of inclusive list) of a religion seem to indicate a superior being or a god.

 

Spirits are of course supernatural beings.


su·per·nat·u·ral
ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl/
adjective

1. 1.
   (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
   "a supernatural being"
   synonyms: paranormal, psychic, magic, magical, occult, mystic, mystical, superhuman, supernormal;More

noun

1. 1.
   manifestations or events considered to be of supernatural origin, such as ghosts.

You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own English language.

 

I never claimed the court defined a court case exactly as I have, that is your spin.

you said there were no court cases in the link so I posed a mere 1/3 of them to help you get started.

You have not posted or shown any fact, though you are claiming a fact please post your fact for us.

The likelihood that a single court case will itemize everything as we are here is pretty slim. Torsica the court identified those considering themselves to be nontheists a religion.

That said that is why attorneys make the big money, they have the ability to combine the meaning of several cases together to find the common ground. They dont need to be smacked over the head with a single case that any child can read that states this is religion:"............". Wouldnt need attorneys if it were that easy would we. Is that what you are demanding?

 

I think that is a strange endeavour. A definition is 100% accurate, by definition. It's not like only 95% of triangles have three corners. To find some set of conditions which denotes some arbitrary cutoff is fine in itself, but it does not a definition make.

I want to reward clarity. In this case, I think his comment was on-topic, so I have no reason not to reply.

 

puhlease, you cannot legitimately claim what is and what is not on topic in a thread I made. I made the intent of the thread perfectly crystal clear. Feel free to make your own thread and post a link to the result of the debate from the other thread and we can argue those dead end rabbit holes in some other thread.

Why would you when you are a proponent of usage which can change a definition literally second by second. Mayb the best thing is to pretend you are an editor of a dictionary and you want to make sure we hit the 95%+ mark before publication.

Religion: Not limited to; The personal or cultural practices of value and faith based beliefs, morals, commitments, self-knowledge, truth, often containing a world view, which may include worship and a supernatural being or agency.
Here is a first draft on the definitions of the words used in the definition:
Personal - single individual
Cultural - 2 or more individuals
Practice - Corresponding actions or inaction resulting from a belief system
Faith - Acceptance of beliefs which are not necessarily be provable
Beliefs - Conclusions considered to be true
Morals - Personal law, Accepted standards typically with regard to right/wrong, good/evil, value judgements of conscience.
Commitments - The obligation to act in accordance with and adherence to ones strongly held beliefs
Self-knowledge - Careful understanding and realization of ones religion.
Truth - Recognition and acceptance of an ultimate reality
World-View - Ones morals compared to others morals.
Worship - Expression of reverence and adoration to that which one believes to be sacred.
Supernatural-Being - God
Agency - That thought to which fulfills the position of a God.
Sacred - Highest possible level of trust, reverence and adherence to the beliefs, attributes, laws, and doctrines of ones religion.


I removed the expressions of ultimate meaning because I believe that is already covered and filed under truth.

 

I don't think that's a problem, there are plenty of definitions that have "or"s in them.

See, I don't think this actually promotes greater understanding, it seems to me it just creates an illusion of it.

For instance, when whoeveritwas made some argument about religion, you made some assumption about what definition of religion was being used, and ended up with an incorrect interpretation (never mind the validity of the argument that was being made). This can be resolved in two ways, either make sure everyone uses the same definitions, or adopt the standard approach to deal with tricky wordings to ask for clarification.

The problem with everyone using the same definitions is that it is basically unverifiable. If we expect everyone to use the same definitions and then someone for whatever reason uses a different one, then we've failed. If we use the latter approach, to clarify the statement if there is risk of disagreement, then that problem does not occur.

 

I know what a bell curve is, I don't know what you're fitting to that bell curve. What is the bell curve a function of?

So let me put that together with "What makes a definition universal is if #1 main entry includes all versions of known religions" to make "What makes a definition universal is if the most used definition includes all versions of known religions". That seems unlikely to so in the case of religion. It seems to me there'll be different approaches and they won't all include versions of known religions. It seems to me there just isn't a definition which is "universal" in this sense.

I don't find it that problematic. I take responsibility for making sure that what I mean is understood. Sure, I'm not a perfect communicator, but as a general rule, people seem to understand me. It seems to me it's only impossible if one takes your rather hardline approach.

 

If its not a problem then explain that no matter who is using it, and in what context so many people on this board always blurt out spaghetti monster? It seem pretty obvious they need help understanding the dictionary, or the definition is not clear enough for them to grasp the context.
If it were we would not have so many problems trying to discuss the philosophical aspects of religion, simply look back a few posts.

Of course it does, not only does it compile several different attributes considered to be religion it puts them in an easily readable single sentence since most people apparently cant read more than one line in a dictionary, again read religion threads here.

 

I thought I said distribution didnt I?

Oh? Great! So what am I missing?

So you dont mind the futility of explaining college physics to a 2 year old? Then you would vote to shut down schools, no need for them? That is where it will lead.

Maybe we should have entry tests for people to post to make sure they have enough background to make an argument?

 

I think you made the intent of the thread crystal clear and I think whoeveritwas' comment was on that topic.

I mean, I'm not stopping you from doing it, it's just that when you're done, it won't be a universal definition.

Hm, to me it seems best to pretend that I am a person who every now and then want to make myself understood, because that's what I am.

 

And there lies what you are missing, in the subject of philosophy and religion it is all about opinion, there is no background that makes you or anyone else's opinion about the subject any more valued, indeed in the case of the two subjects at hand there are arguments which suggest the whole thing is just a pointless exercise.

 

I've had a look through the search hits on the flying spaghetti monster on this forum. Again, it's mainly you and "it's just me" and a few others bringing it up. The rest don't seem to suggest the flying spaghetti monster as a definition of God, so much as an analogue to God.

I mean, that's fine and all, but then why phrase it as a definition? Why not just put together a list of concepts that are considered religions instead of making some sort of claim of a universal definition?

 

Yeah, but a distribution of what? You could distribute people by length or shoe size and you would have different distributions. What is it you're distributing here?

Missing? I don't think there is a universal definition. It's not a matter of yours being off per se.

No, with the caveat that it takes 16 years or so to get there. I don't see why that should indicate that schools should be shut down.

 

Really? What no reason, you just feel that way?

and to do that you and every one else needs to get a degree in philosophy because you dont know where the art is at? Seriously?

huh?

I maxed out the search engine.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?search/3716874/&q=spaghetti&t=post&o=date&c[node]=46
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?search/3716877/&page=2&q=pilot&t=post&o=date&c[node]=46

Probably because it a compilation of definitions.

huh? people that are covered in the definition, of course.

Thats nice but again if by universal you intend to argue it requires every possible thing you can dream up, that is not what universal means. As I said before and repeat again over 95% is a great target, you have done nothing to show its missing anything what so ever, so maybe we are up to 100%?

Well its takes years to understand this too, everyone who knows, knows definiing religion is a complicated task well above the intelligence levels of people who on a good day can only spew spaghetti monster mentality around.

 

Sure and there are arguments that the earth is flat too, so what, meaningless unless you can support those arguments with counter arguments of greater weight

Inside a Flat Earth convention, where nearly everyone believes Earth isn't round


Thats not an opening to argue about arguments in this thread, since this is about existing definitions, once again not the way you would like to change them, best is to open up a thread to argue the arguments and then you can reference the link to the arguments thread in here if it turns out you have a valid point.

 

Oh dear back to different coloured text and silly cartoons, obviously it is clear that you are losing the argument.