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From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: What is a religion: American Heritage exposed.
Message-ID: <5591@duke.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 11:59:18 EST
Article-I.D.: duke.5591
Posted: Thu Mar 21 11:59:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 00:39:38 EST
References: <657@pyuxd.UUCP> <304@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <702@pyuxd.UUCP> <327@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <730@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 46
Summary: the form is in emptyness, and emptyness is in form.

OKAY, Rich, we've seen clearly that you firmly believe that ``religion''
only refers to deistic systems.

We've seen that your authority is the American Heritage Dictionary, and
you seem not to be interested in the definitions of other dictionaries.
(Even though the AmHer is not all *that* authoritative...)

But when I looked up Buddhism (a non-theistic whateverthehellitis) in
*my* copy of AmHer (1979), it states:

	Buddhism: 1. The doctrine atrributed to.... 2. The *religion* of
	eastern and central asia... (Emphasis is mine.)

And when I looked up Taoism in the same book

	Taoism: A principle philosophy and *religion* of China based on
	the teachings of Lao Tzu...

So, your own authority states that Buddhism and Taoism are
``religions'', and we already know that Buddhism and Taoism are non-
theistic, it follows that they must also be religions in the ``eyes'' of
the American Heritage dictionaries, and that religions do not then
involve a deity.

You know, Houghton-Mifflin has a department which handles errors;
you really ought to write them a letter about the bad definition of
religion.

Alternatively, you must argue now that Buddhism and Taoism *do*
have a deity; you must have a considerably better authority than
a dictionary for that to convince me, as I have been a Buddhist
for some years, have taught both Buddhist and Taoist religions at
college level, and have yeears of sutra-study.

Or, you can dredge up a definition from some other source that does
not class Buddhism as a religion.  But first, a challenge: look up
and type in unedited the definition of Buddhism from *your* copy
of the dictionary that you are using.

This sort of thing is why I stopped reading net.religion...

-- 
			Opinions stated here.

			Charlie Martin
			(...mcnc!duke!crm)