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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: What is a religion?
Message-ID: <4118@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 00:20:49 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.4118
Posted: Mon Mar 18 00:20:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Mar-85 01:35:56 EST
References: <5199@utzoo.UUCP> <657@pyuxd.UUCP> <4012@umcp-cs.UUCP> <706@pyuxd.UUCP>
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 33

In article <706@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) writes:
> Anyway, as I've repeated several times in several
>places:  if 50 million people say that a tomato is a vegetable, must we
>change the botany books or alter the definition of vegetable?  Not at all.
>The people who say that the tomato is a vegetable have simply mislabelled it.
>Lots of things get mislabelled, and get stuck with the erroneous
>classification for all eternity.  That doesn't make the tomato a vegetable.

Neither does repeating "All religions have Gods" 50 million times.  The
problem is, you want to make American Heritage the expert on theology and
philosophy, instead of the true experts: the philosophers, mystics, and
theologians.

>> Belief in the supernatural in no way implies belief in a single God.
>
>Belief in and worship of a superior so-called supernatural entity (-ies) =
> ...
>(Fill in the "...")

What if you don't worship ANY supernatural entities?  This is the case in
both Buddhism and Taoism.

>Since it doesn't, I'd say the definition is still worthwhile.  And I'd say
>that another, more accurate word, perhaps a new one (that happens, you
>know--- new words...), would be more suitable to describe belief systems like
>Buddhism.

Well, we USED to call religions which believe in gods (be they mono- or
poly- ) as THEISTIC religions.  You could lay claim to that phrase instead--
but then your arguments all break down on Buddhism and Taoism, which was
what I believe Laura's point was at the beginning of all this.

Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe