Myrtonos wrote:Your post is quite long, and it's hard for me to reply to it all.
Apologies. It happens as conversations go on without any points being accepted, because each iteration necessarily calls back previous points.
Ill try to be brief, but as you may be able to tell, that's not exactly my strong point!
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:One never needs to wonder about what a word means unless the person using it expressly defines it as something else. Everyone knows what the word 'secular' means, it's not ambiguous in the slightest.
Most people think that secularism has grown and that religion has lost centrality and importance.
Well, it's true. Secularism both indicates an indifference to religious considerations, and also the separation of social institutions, particularly political or governmental ones, from religious authority. Either way, secularism has grown dramatically in the past century, and to a lesser extent, for the 2 prior centuries before that. Of course, secularism hasn't 'grown' so much as that religion has lost dominance over society and the apparatus of government - in the same way that cold doesn't grow, it's just a function of a decrease in heat.
Myrtonos wrote: But according to Yuval Noah Harrari (in Sapiens, not Homo Deus), it is theist religions that have lost that and many religions without gods have emerged and gained centrality and importance.
Actually, if you read Homo Deus, I think you'll find he expands further on that in the second book.
From a historical perspective, looking at the relative importance of various human phenomena, then I agree with that claim. To religionists, it's obviously not true because for many of them their religion is still central to their thoughts about many things and to them would/should affect every aspect of society. However, in terms of comparisons of percentages of people suffering under such religious afflictions, then it's safe to say that the modern world is startlingly different in those terms. We no longer are entrained by a religious narrative.
Of course, a question still remains as to whether we've replaced it with something genuinely different, or whether we've just revised the details of the story while maintaining the psychologically satisfying narrative structure. For example, there are many non-religionists who accept scientific knowledge with what is basically blind faith, never checking the explanations they've uncritically accepted, and actively filtering out any information that contradicts the narratives they've brought into. It's something of a human psychological dilemma.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:But please actually address my question. Buddhism predates secularism by thousands of years, so how can 'secular Buddhism' be 'a pure form of Buddhism'? Surely logic alone negates that argument?
I did explain, it is called secular Buddhism to distinguish what is actually the teachings of Buddhism incorporated into other religions such as Hinduism.
To explain my problem here. There's a central claim one must buy into here which I think is very dubious, and that is the notion that the followers of self-declared 'Secular Buddhism' are really rediscovering some uncontaminated version in its original pristine state, or whether they're just cherry-picking and employing idiosyncratic interpretations based on the knowledge they've accrued in other areas of life which Buddha and his contemporaries knew bugger all about.
From what I know of Buddhism - and while far from an expert on Buddhism my academic background includes both ancient history and anthropology, plus I've lived in a Buddhist nation for the majority of my adult life - I would suggest that their position wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. Perhaps I am wrong, but I know enough of the early texts and beliefs of Buddhists to be fairly confident in saying that they'd have to provide some powerful evidence to convince me that theirs is 'pure' or more aligned with the original formulations of Buddhism.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Further, if you look at the history of Buddhism it has *never* been secular - the very people who maintained Buddha's teachings sufficiently long so that the chap writing that article could even have heard of Buddhism were all clergy in one of the oldest religions in the world!
I'm not quite sure what this means but it is secular as in being without gods and founded purely on belief in natural law, as is the case with poltical ideologies.
For clarity, at least in a Western tradition, the concept of 'natural law' is more typically used in theology rather than a philosophy. There is, of course, liberal secularism's idea that individual rights are justified by appeal to specific aspects of human nature or nature in general... but to me at least there's a form therein which is ironically religious in quality, a psychological hold-out mentioned before.
What I meant is that whoever wrote the article about Buddhism only knows of the existence of Buddhism in the first place because of the religious structure of Buddhism which both made it so central to the populations which maintained it throughout that time, and which allowed it to be conserved down the ages. The person interpreting Buddhism as 'not-a-religion' has a hard row to hoe here justifying their contention. And that's leaving aside the only source materials which are replete with points that contradict the notion that it is 'secular'.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Can you cite this better description, please? You've linked me to the front page of a website with dozens of internal links, so I have no idea what it is you read that you are citing for me to read.
I linked to the wrong page. 
This is the right page.
Ok, thanks.
Please allow me to explain to you how my mind works so you can see between the lines of my thoughts.
Here's what I see when I look at this website.
I see a website written in English. Strange? Possibly not as it's the lingua franca, but it's not like one intrinsically connects Buddhism and English given that the vast majority of practitioners of Buddhism both past and present didn't speak English. But it's something that comes to mind.
Then I look at the article you cited; it's written by Dana Nourie, presumably a practitioner of Secular Buddhism. Fortunately, there's a hyperlink to look at her profile:
http://secularbuddhism.org/author/dana-nourie/Dana Nourie
Dana is Technical Director of the Secular Buddhist Association. She learned Buddhism through a DVD course on Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, followed by a two-year course in person. She then studied Theravada Buddhism through the Insight Meditation South Bay with teacher Shaila Catherine. She has been a practitioner now for over a decade.
Which makes me think... hmmmm, so she studied Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism for a couple of years - something that clearly is a religion - and then studied another form of Buddhism with someone else in a place called 'Insight Meditation South Bay' which, google shows me, is in the California area of the USA:
https://www.imsb.org/Now the hmmm from before, adds some more m's to the end of it.
Laying aside a massive screed I might launch into here through respecting your criticism of me waffling on endlessly, I will attempt to make this succinct with respect to your argument.
Is it really believable that a bunch of Westerners with their cultural preconceptions can, after watching a DVD and telling each other things, somehow alight on the 'pure form of Buddhism' that somehow all those millions of traditional native practitioners failed to achieve after thousands of years of practice?
To me, the suggestion is quite the contrary - what it looks like to me is the New Agey type Buddhists who are basically counter-culture people of their respective nations who have latched onto something, projected their own ideas onto it while abandoning much of what genuinely makes it Buddhism, then congratulate each other on the depths they're plumbing.
If nothing else, it seems rather like ideological colonialism to me, and is probably the version furthest away from the original intent.
Then you have Barnum statements in the article:
To define a secular Buddhist is not easy, and anything we come up with that may fit one person is not going to apply to many others. One thing we can say with accuracy is that secular Buddhists are a diverse bunch.
So to define it, it depends on who you are?
And even those who self-label are sufficiently diverse as to make it the most compelling aspect of the definition of that label?
Finally, in order to keep my response brief, Dana says this:
It’s impossible to say a secular Buddhist is this.
Kind of makes it hard to employ towards an argument of anything when even the cited author strongly declares they don't know what it is they believe.
Do you see where I am coming from?
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Plus, as I've pointed out before; your notion of 'superhuman' here is a bag that catches too much and too little. The fundamental forces are 'superhuman', ergo science is a religion?
But I have explained countless times why science is not a religion,...
You have attempted to, yes. But the problem is that your argument still entails it. So when you make a different argument as to why science is not a religion, it's actually your own previous argument that you are defeating.
Myrtonos wrote:... yes the laws of science are superhuman, but no rules, laws or customs could conceivably be derived from them.
A statement of incredulity on your part, that is once again trivial to show wrong.
Flammable liquids are either forbidden or their quantities restricted from being brought onto a plane: a rule/rule derived from scientific laws
Quickening is the outdated term for when a foetus starts becoming mobile, and this state was used both customarily and as the basis of laws regarding abortion, personhood and homicide, derived from scientific knowledge of embryological development.
For example, the British jurist William Blackstone wrote in the 17th century that:
Life... begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter.
I would hazard a guess that we could come up with dozens of rules, laws, and customs that are derived from science.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:I already addressed this. You are defining religion as being fundamentally based (no less) on a 'superhuman system' - that IS a definition of a religion.
Listen, I am not defining religion at all, just only accepting definitions that include being founded on a belief in a superhuman order, not just because all religions are founded on a belief in such order, but because belief in such and order and deriving rules, rights and customs from them ensures social stability in large groups.
Ok, but no one else agrees, so where do we go from here? We can only really do 3 things as far as I can see. Either you produce more compelling arguments to convince us, you drop the argument and try something else, or we just say 'we disagree' but then allow it as an 'if it were true then...' so that you can follow up with your next idea. I am perfectly happy to engage in the latter; I don't need to agree with something to inspect what follows from it. But of course, I can't be obliged to agree with you, regardless of how confident you are that you're correct.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:MUST is what you're supposed to be arguing and expressly what I am contesting, not something that is taken here as an axiom. You cannot support your argument by repeating your argument numerous times and using words that mean 'must' - that doesn't even amount to begging the question.
I use it hoping others won't argue against it.
Then may I suggest a new grammatical approach?
The Second Conditional.
If your argument were true, then what
would follow?
I'm happy to aspire to the Aristotelian ideal of educated minds being able to entertain thoughts without necessarily accepting them.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:So does your argument now entail that religion is about justifying the prohibition of certain behaviors?
Yes, religion is about giving a superhuman justification to prescriptions and proscriptions.
As mentioned, this then becomes an entirely different kettle of fish. If you look back at my earlier response to Aron Ra's cited explanation, I added some more points and one was the conceptual division of the sacred and profane.
In most cases, it's actually historically a fact that the cart here goes before the horse. Cultures and societies already had prescriptions and proscriptions against particular practices prior to possessing the religion which then set those pre and proscriptions into the cosmic plane.
The consumption of pork is a fascinating one because pork is just bloody delicious, pigs are incredibly easy to rear, and it seems counterproductive to pass up such a useful food source. But set in the geographical region which later spawned those religions, the people had already encountered the pre-refrigeration problems of porcine parasites and consequently came to a cultural belief in pigs being unclean before such ideas were co-opted by religions, ironically in a way to justify themselves.
To put it another way: do you think that people didn't know not to shit where they eat before the Bible told them so, or do you think it more likely they had pre-existing knowledge (and presumably some kind of internally coherent set of ideas around that knowledge) which meant they knew not to do it?
In this way, the 'structure' you are talking about is best - imo - seen as a narrative; a way for a population of humans to convey information generationally. Religions, for a while, became better (in a memetic sense) way of conveying that information in a holistic way because more developed institutions around this practice ensured that their version was recorded and passed down more faithfully than previous versions which contained the same information.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Again, to me you're just extrapolating the Abrahamic religions and pretending their theologies are necessary formats for all religions. This I reject completely and I would doubt very much you could persuade me otherwise when I could list dozens of religions both past and extant which do not posit such a god.
No, I'm just explaining how belief in god ensures social stability among believers in a common god.
Except, of course, when it doesn't.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Ok. Can you cite some, please?
No, but it is mentioned in Jared Diamond's most well known book.
Which one is his most well known book? Guns, Germs and Steel? As far as I recall, he discusses confrontation between different tribes, not revolutions against one's tribal leader.
Again, quick insight into my brain. I am not saying you're wrong here. Just looking to see what it is you're intellectually calling up when you make that claim.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:You could take literally thousands of examples of populations changing religious beliefs - in your analogy, revolting against their sanctioned God. I struggle to believe you have never heard of ANY of these events - history is rife with them. Look at a map. Anywhere you see Christianity or Islam - that happened. People who were previously pagans or polytheists or Zoroastrians or any number of other religions revolted against their own belief system and installed new ones.
They did change their beliefs, yes, Europeans were converted to Christianity by the missionaries,...
Ergo, what you previously said about not being able to revolt against a 'superhuman system' you now amend?
Myrtonos wrote: one big factor is that the Romans became Christian and imposed it wherever they conquered.
Addressed in other post.
Myrtonos wrote:But remember that different European cultures followed very different pagan faiths, but converted to a common monotheist religion.
This doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything you've previously argued.
Myrtonos wrote:But what I am saying is that believers in a common god can't revolt against that god as long as they aren't converted to a different religion.
Yet converting to another religion is clearly an absolute revolt against that common god, so for me, it really does make your argument nonsensical.
Next up we could look at schisms, such as the Protestant revolution whereby the same 'superhuman system' was maintained, but they revolted against many of the shared tenets held near uniformly between believers in a common god, but I think I've made my point.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Manifestly untrue and trivial to show. The environment is a 'superhuman order'. Humans can change it by disrupting the contents of that environment.
In that case, the contents of the environment are not superhuman.
Then your definition of superhuman is questionable.
We can also change physical forces using technology, therefore physics is not 'superhuman' etc.
Again, I would suggest that this shows that the argument is false rather than meaning that ad hoc explanations need to be contrived to save it.
Myrtonos wrote:The laws of science are superhuman, but cannot be a basis for any rules, rights, rituals or ceremonies.
Explained above why this is false.
Myrtonos wrote: The law of god (in Abrahamic religions), the law of karma (in Buddhism), and the law of history (in communism) are all superhuman according to followers of the respective religions or political ideology.
The first two may be, although the second's form is quite different than the first.. but the third is a different kettle of fish altogether as history is wholly human in every applicable manner, therefore it is not just changed by humans but actually created by humans and can't therefore be taken as being 'superhuman' in the same sense as either of the previous ones.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:But you've just contradicted yourself, and as I've said, you are now appealing to agency which is not just 'a superhuman system' as per your original argument; you're now positing a very particular format of god belief: a theology.
It is still just an explanation of how belief in a common god ensures social stability.
And with respect, that's still nothing to do with anything relevant. It's not your initial argument, and it's not being challenged.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:And yet, as I've said, we've seen that happen throughout human history, which is why a map of modern religion is not an exact copy of the geographical religions of the ancient world. In fact, they have nothing in common.
What has indeed happened is large groups of people have been converted from one religion to the other.
Have been converted.... you use a passive voice as if it happened to them. Surely, there is usually an active element to this - the subject changes religion, the second religion doesn't somehow automate the mind of the adherent to cause them to change, it happens under the subject's volition. Ergo, it's in contradiction with your prior argument about them not being able to change.
Myrtonos wrote:As for Europe becoming not-very-christian, this happened after the scientific revolution, and it is due to the discovery of many facts about the world that are left out of the christian tradition of knowledge (such as knowledge about what lies in the oceans deep below the surface of the water), and even some things stated in Christian scriptures (such as the creation myth) being proven wrong as scientific knowledge progressed.
In part, but I don't think it really happened after the scientific revolution, or at least not the majority of it. Most scientists even remained Christian up until the last century. I would say if there's any preceding historical event that seems causally related, it's actually the World Wars and the effects they had are complex and numerous, but not least of which is the increase in social and legal individualism.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Before you claimed that social stability couldn't exist without the ideology, now the argument is 'more'?
Without any religion or ideology, there would basically be no more social stability among any large group of humans than among a large group of non-human primates, see below.
Ok, this is my field, so you'll understand that I am going to struggle with naive formulations.
In what way are non-human primates less socially stable? Factually, they're not. Humanity as a whole, and separate human groups undergo vast structural and social upheavals, whereas non-human primates have remained nearly the same in this sense for aeons. So clearly, in this comparative landscape, religion and ideology do NOT produce social stability - the absence of them would actually result in MORE social stability.
So please pay attention here: you are using false 'facts' to support your arguments. To me, this doesn't mean your argument is necessarily wrong, but there's clearly a problem with the formulation of it when the best support for it offered is manifestly false.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:No, there doesn't have to be a superhuman legitimacy to laws, rules, and customs in order for them to be perceived as beyond challenge, nor does a superhuman legitimacy necessarily ensure that people consider them as beyond challenge. Both of these ideas have already been explored in this thread.
So how could it be beyond challenge if there is no superhuman order?
Trivially: by rejecting it. I would warn against combining confidence and incredulity as it's more likely to cause you to overlook elementary aspects which contradict your position.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:So you are arguing that chemistry is a religion/ideology?
Chemistry is neither of those, see below.
Well, I know it's not. I am not saying it is. I am saying that it is a consequence of your argument. It's called 'reductio ad absurdum'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdumIn logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or the appeal to extremes, is a form of argument that attempts either to disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion...
Your argument, which I have contested on the grounds that it both says too much and says too little, has a number of flaws which I've tried to explain to you. As you've not seemed really to engage with the substance of my counters then I instead opted to use a reductio ad absurdum to show you that your own argument necessarily leads to a position you yourself do not agree with.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:A belief based on a 'superhuman order' is not necessarily a religion, and a religion does not necessarily posit a 'superhuman order'. Sometimes these may be the case, but one cannot use them as a guiding principle towards understanding 'what is a religion?'.
Yes, a belief based on a superhuman order is not necessarily a religion, it is only a religion if rules, rights and customs can be derived from it.
Then all beliefs based on what you call a superhuman order are necessarily religions as rules, rights and customs can all be derived from them. That's just what follows.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:I believe in physics, and my much-practiced custom is not to throw myself out of a 3rd floor window based on my belief that the laws of physics operate in such a way as to produce undesirable repercussions for contravening them.
But physics doesn't explain what happens to you or your soul after you die from the injuries,...
Nor does it have to under the previous argument you made, but now you are moving the goalposts.
Myrtonos wrote:... nor could anyone in their right mind claim that it is forbidden to throw someone else, or your pet or anyone else's pet, or a suitcase, out that window simply because it violates the law of gravity.
But it doesn't violate the law of gravity. It's the obligatory obedience of gravity that produces the undesirable outcome.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Citation, please? The link you gave was to the home page, not to the article you're appealing to.
Just read the book or watch the series of videos on the history of humankind.
Which book or series? Yuval Noah Harari?
Already done that, although I didn't 'watch' the series, I viewed his course
https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~1804614 a few years ago to see whether it was something I wanted to set my students as required coursework. It wasn't, but it was very good.
Anyway, it's not much of a citation. You can't point to an entire book or hours of video to support a point. It's not reasonable to expect me to go and do that solely to find the thing you have in your mind. How would I know what it is you are thinking about to support your argument?
Myrtonos wrote:I'll leave discussion on humanism for another thread.
Ok, but I wouldn't use Harari as your basis for that, as a recommendation. I think other sources might offer a better historical picture.
Myrtonos wrote:And yes, I do live in a confusing system of beliefs, and also on the autism spectrum.
Ahh I see, then please accept my apologies as I may have phrased things a little more sensitively in the past was I aware of that.
For the former, I think that's just fine, and should really be seen as the usual state of affairs of a reasonably well-informed Homo sapiens. The more we know, the more confusing it all becomes.
Myrtonos wrote:There is nothing to do with Homo Deus as fas as I know.
Ah... if you haven't read it, then I think you're going to enjoy it. I would maintain the recollection throughout though that much of what he's saying is speculative albeit in a very creative way. It's a way of slicing the world and exposing it from that cut. But it's not the only way of slicing things up.
Myrtonos wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:This just says: Gorillas and chimpanzees aren't humans, nothing more. It's actually a point about cognition, not about what a religion is.
Yes, non-human primate co-operation isn't as flexible as human co-operation, and they don't even have the mental capacity to co-operate in groups nearly as large.
The latter is concerned with something called Dunbar's Number, and it's based on comparative neocortex sizes among mammals. It's not about mental capacity, rather it's about stress felt by a population when they routinely encounter individuals they are unfamiliar with. As there's a limit to the number of individuals a baboon can interact with (groom) in a day, purely based on time restraints, so there's a harder mechanical layer here too. In fact, some studies have shown that Dunbar's Number is more to do with other factors than neocortex size, but that behaviors can make that social number increase or decrease. For example, humans talk to each other, so it's much cheaper and easier to maintain more relationships, but in reality, most of us get nowhere near our upper limit anyway.
Myrtonos wrote:Bring together even a few hundred chimpanzees or a few hundred Gorillas, and they would basically fight with each other.
Only because they wouldn't be blood related.
But the sad fact is that it's probably the case with humans too.
Myrtonos wrote:Non-human primates tend to fight with strangers, at least of their own kind. But amazing co-operation does occur among millions of humans.
While I agree with the latter, the former clause is all too sadly descriptive of the preponderance of human history. However, the cooperation between millions of humans tends to happen on a more abstract layer. If they were all in close proximity to one and other, then things would be different.
Myrtonos wrote:You could never convince a non-human primate, or any non-human animate being, anything by telling them something like "There's a god watching you and if you kill that chimp, god will punish you after you die", it doesn't make sense to them. Nor do chimpanzees believe in some universal set of chimpanzee rights.
Well of course it doesn't make sense to them: they can't speak, they don't understand language, they don't employ human cognition etc.
It's like saying that you can't breathe underwater; it's obviously the case and for far more mundane reasons than you're employing.
But you would still need to explain how it is that chimpanzees LACKING these supposedly requisite comprehension of superhuman orders still have rules they clearly follow, and don't all set about murdering each other, but actually live in long-term socially stable groups. All primates do. In fact, all social animals do! They may have scuffles (as do we) but it's not like they're all engaging in rules unique to every individual and there's just as much social price to pay for their actions as there is with human societies.
Myrtonos wrote:Some insects do co-operate in larger groups than any non-human vertebrate, but even less flexibly than any non-human primate.
Flexibility is another addition which isn't part of what was being discussed previously. In reality, ants would exhibit far greater social stability, cohesion, and co-operation than any human group ever, in vastly greater numbers... without any conceived 'superhuman order'. So once again, it's shown to be superfluous.
Myrtonos wrote:Here is Yuval Noah Harari himself explaining why human groups where most are complete strangers to each other needs myths and legends to survive.
Sorry, your link doesn't work for me, but it's not too important really as I teach a course on exactly this subject (called
Homo narratus) so I expect I know the details, I just may differ in what I conceive as being the most useful way of explaining those details.
Re: What is a religion?
