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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Response to Laura - what is a religion? (off the topic)
Message-ID: <5315@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 07:00:42 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5315
Posted: Thu Mar 21 07:00:42 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Mar-85 07:00:42 EST
References: <5199@utzoo.UUCP> <657@pyuxd.UUCP> <4012@umcp-cs.UUCP>, <706@pyuxd.UUCP> <5267@utzoo.UUCP>, <732@pyuRe: Response to Laura - whatThu, 21-Mar-85 07:00:42 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 56

Rich,

People in religion departments all over the world are very interested
in religion. Christians have found that they have something in common
with Buddhists and with Hindus. The complement is also true. Suppose 
you were able to forbid everyone to use the term ``religion'' unless
they believed your definition. Immediately the religion departments 
have a problem. They are going to have to call themselves something
else! But picking a new word is a hassle. It should have been easier
to convince Rich Rosen that the word ``religion'' has been used to
describe Buddhists and Hindus for centuries, and that if he wants a
name that excludes them we have a wide variety from which he can
select. ``Theism'' is a good one, as is ``Judeao-Christian'' or
``Western Religion'' or even ``Aristotelian Religion'' (if you want
to use a phrase that the philosophers sometimes use but that the
religion departments, on the whole are not pleased with.)

If you don't want to use the technical words that religious scholars
have come up with, you may have to invent your own. 

What you cannot do is take a word that already has a technical meaning
and say ``wow! some people don't believe this! you can't have that
meaning any more! what's more, you can't want it! How can you be
so crass as to let yourself be confused with those people?'' This is
akin to telling the botanists that they can't call tomatoes a fruit
because some people think it is a vegetable. After all, if you call it
a fruit then somebody will think that you are ignorant because they
``know'' that a tomato is a vegetable!

How can you know that the botanists are correct, and that the religion
scholars are wrong? I maintain that you can't. You simply accept one
definition and do not accept another. But you still haven't given
us a reason to change our beliefs to suit yours -- just more opinion
that your beliefs are somehow better. But I can gets lots of opinions
that you are simply obstinant in not either defining a new word, or
finding an existing one that means what you want to talk about.

Why do you assume that the people of various religions do not themselves see
they have something in common for any other reason than to confuse and be
obscure? Isn't this a paranoid assumption? Maybe, just maybe, they
know something about religion that you do not. Maybe, just maybe, you
could find out about it and then learn why it is that it is necessary to
have a word which encompasses both the theistic and non-theistic religions.
It isn't a big secret. If you spend even a short time at any religion
department of any university I know you will find people who are willing
to explain this to you -- assuming that you are willing to listen and
don't keep arguing with them all the time about whether they should be
allowed to use words as they have always used them. While you are
learning, I am sure that someone could point out to you that ``divine''
does not mean the same as ``god'' (at least to all people) and that
``worship'' does not imply a god that is the object of worship, or
any object of worship distinct from the self at all. 

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura