Talk:Religion

I have removed the prominent mention to mythology here. Now, I could simply be misinformed about how "mythology" is used in religious studies, but my understanding is that it is usually used pejoratively when applied to modern, living religions. If I am right (as a Google search seems to indicate), it is inappropriate to refer to the stories associated with any given religion as its "mythology"--unless you're trying to malign the religion, or religion as such. Hence, having an article labelled Christian mythology seems (though, again, perhaps I'm just confused or misinformed) inherently prejudicial. If you want to argue that Christianity is false, do so on Usenet; if you want to present prominent, common, well-documented arguments against Christianity (as opposed to your own idiosyncratic arguments--in all likelihood, you, dear reader, are not a religious scholar of note), there is certainly a place for that here. We want as much detail as we can get about such prominent, common, or well-documented arguments. We also want an absolutely huge Christian apologetics section. --LMS

I have traded 'Christian sects' for 'branches of Christianity'. The reason for this is that the word 'sect' also has a different, negative connotation. And that is not what is meant by this list, is it? Well, who doesn't agree can change it ofcourse. Another point: when adding some 'branches' I wondered for instance whether to type 'Methodists', Methodism, 'Methodist Church' or 'Methodist'. The list has all variations. Shouldn't we have some more unity here, or will the terrific new search function have to solve it?

In order to avoid apparent bias would it be appropriate to alphabetize some of the lists on this page, eg.

Religions: Buddhism -- Caodaism -- Christianity -- Demonolatry -- Druzism -- Hinduism -- Islam -- Jainism -- Judaism -- Mandaeanism -- Manichaeism -- Paganism -- Process Church of the Final Judgement -- Santeria -- Satanism -- Scientology -- Shamanism -- Shinto -- Sikhism -- Taoism -- Voudun -- Yezidis -- Zoarastrianism

--Matt Stoker

I think that in order to institute some rational discrimination we should divide them first into "groups with more than 1 million adherents" and THEN alphabetize. I just followed the link for Puritan, which is a recent addition, thinking that someone had misplaced a Protestantism link. NOOOooooo. "Wikipedia is (evidently) an advertising spot for small religions." --MichaelTinkler

Michael: If we want to organize them by size here is a rough list taken from adherents.com of religions over 1 million adherents today: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Nonreligious, Buddhism, Chinese traditional religion (Confucianism, Taoism), Sikhism, Judaism, Baha'i, Jainism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Tenrikyo, Neo-Paganism

I deleted from the adherents.com list Juche (North Korean Communism) since I would question if it counts as a religion. I also took out "Indigenous/Primal Religions", "Yoruba Religion" and "Spiritism", because although they have over 200 million adherents, it is rather difficult to separate the three of them.

Also, we might want to mention some religions which are quite small (Zoroastrianism, Mandaeanism, Manichaeism, Samaritanism) which while small or extinct today, are of significant historical importance. -- Simon J Kissane

Looks like somebody's cruising to get "Yaohushuahim" filed under the "mock religions". :-) Need to write myself a zapper... sjc

Added Spirituality here...my preference would be to change the home page Religion to Religion and Spirituality, or separate it completely, as well as move mythology.

Eob: The following passage which you added states highly controversial claims as fact, without any evidence or references:

From a scientific viewpoint the widespread existence of religious belief in societies around the world indicates that such belief is inherent in the human brain. In fact, recent studies in how epileptic siezures can cause transendent religious feelings has started to point towards a particular neurological basis for religion. It is not clear what is the evolutionary advantage of such belief. Perhaps it helped produce more stable hunter-gatherer societies.

Firstly, while there is some research that indicates that religious experiences have some link to particular structures in the human brain, I don't think this research at present provides an adequate total explanation for religion. And you totally ignore sociological theories, such as Rodney Stark's and the various other economic theories of religion, which are arguably equally scientific, yet they don't need to explain it in terms of specific features of the human brain. And "perhaps it helped produce more stable hunter-gatherer societies" is both pure speculation, and shows anti-religious bias (since perhaps it helps produce more stable modern societies also...) -- SJK

I agree that a section on a scientific view of religion needs some fleshing out to include other areas of science like sociology, and it needs some references to bolster statements that may be considered controversial. I will try to dig up some references on the neurological stuff. (I was thinking for example of Ramachandran work at UC San Diego. See also http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Eguae.html) I do not know much about sociology, or anything about Stark's economic theories of religion, so perhaps SJK that is something you could write up. By the way, I think it is valid to look at hunter-gatherer societies for evolutionary advantages to genetically determined behavior, because that was the last time evolution had any significant effect on us. Any advantages or disadvantages for living in modern societies is purely a side-effect. --Eob

Is Scientology more of a religion (in and by itself), or more of a cult, such as perhaps the Branch Davidians (though maybe not as evil/suicidal)? And, would cults be considered religions anyway?

Technically, a cult is "Religious practice; worship" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 1], and thus everything on this page is a cult. However, from what I've seen, quite a few Christian (and perhaps other) denomonimations prefer to use this one instead: "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious ... a minority religious group holding beliefs regarded as unorthodox or spurious; sect" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 4] If going with 4a, the question is then: Who calls the shots? Who says what is orthodox or not? In the case of Christianity, non-biblical doctrines are usually enough to get you into the cult category, but that includes a lot of major denominations -- thus 4b is probably the most used, since it implies a splinter group, or a minority. Strength in numbers.

As for Scientology, most people refer to it as a cult because Dianetics satisfies this definition to the 'T': "a system for the cure of disease based on the dogma, tenets, or principles set forth by its promulgator to the exclusion of scientific experience or demonstration" [Merriam-Webster; cult; 5] It also has elements of 4a, as its decidedly non-biblical structure would put it in the unorthodox realm, and additionally, elements of 6a, extreme devotion to a person. L. Ron Hubbard is considered inspired in the religion, and his words over-rule all other words authoritatively and without question. Ioa 22:47 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)

What are our priorities for writing in this area? To help develop a list of the most basic topics in Religion, please see Religion basic topics.

I severely edited the following text regarding The Virgin Mary:

In her earlier origins she was worshipped, and many mysticsmysticism have asserted the female aspect of Deity but apart from Hinduism this has not been regarded as mainstream by major world religions for several centuries. Goddess is routinely recognised in Hindu Mahadevi, Mahayana Buddhism, Western Paganism and Goddess Spirituality, and it is little known that Mary was once also fully worshipped as Deity by the Collyridians and some Gnostics.

First of all, the phrase 'earlier origins' seems to imply that she wasn't an historical figure at all, but a folk tale that evolved over decades or centuries. There is too much evidence to the contrary for that to be credible. Secondly, IF some Gnostics did in fact worship her, that should not be confused with Christian practice, as the two always differed in many respects. I would be interested to learn more about the Collyridians, as I've never heard of them before and there doesn't seem to be an article about them yet. Wesley

Hostility to religion comes either from an inability to feel spiritual states, a deep preference for rational explanations, or a reaction to unpleasant experiences within a religious context.

The above sentence really gets me annoyed. Consider the following:

Belief in religion comes either from the inability to seperate delusions induced from one's emotions from rational analysis, a deep preference for unfalsifiable speculation over empirical fact, and the subtle (or not-so-subtle) psychological pressure and indoctrination employed by followers of religions, including one's own family.

Now, I'm not suggesting that my alternative directly above is NPOV either, but hopefully it illustrates the point that the original sentence seems to me to be written with the attitude that being an atheist is some kind of mental incapacity or the result of childhood abuse.

In fact, that whole paragraph seems to me to be content-free and an introduction to flame. Is there any salvagable information in it? --Robert Merkel

In addition to being non-NPOV to the point of stating opinion as fact, the paragraph seems idiosyncratic and unnecessary to me. The only way to fix it would be to confirm that it is not just an idiosyncratic opinion and to insert logical counter-arguaments in a give-and-take. However, this shouldn't be an article about the merits either for or against religion (that discussion can be appropriate in other articles though). I vote for removal. --maveric149

The quoted statement above is simply false. There are other reasons to dislike religion besides the ones given, for instance the fact that religions have been the cause of wars. I'll ax the paragraph (that's why they call me the Axman). AxelBoldt

How about simply making it: "Some people believe that belief in religion comes either..." I think Bertrand Russell would fall in this category. --Chuck Smith

The first statement was previously in the article, the second was purely an example I dreamed up to show why I didn't like it. As Axel has pointed out, the first statement (the one from the actual article), was flat-out wrong. As to the argument as to whether the reasons for belief in religion belong here or not, the philosophical angle is, to a large extent, covered in pages such as the rationality of atheism. The societal and psychological angles are less well dealt-with so far. --Robert Merkel

I removed the statement ", and it is little known that Mary was once also fully worshipped as Deity by the Collyridians and some Gnostics" because, besides being little known it is almost certainly not true. The only source for this idea is Epiphanios' Panarion. Look it up there and you will see that Epiphanios, as all too often, got carried away with a tiny bit of information and got too excited. -- Kleinecke

I have added a paragraph to give a Rationalist's perpective on religion. GrahamN 18 July '02

I changed the word irrational to unempirical because I believe it more closely matches the sense of the paragraph. To call religious believers irrational without further qualification suggests that they are somehow mentally impaired. To call it unempirical suggests that their beliefs cannot be verified through scientific methods based on evidence gathered by the five senses. This seems to fit the contrast with science better. Wesley

I had occasion to look something up here recently. It seems to me the entire section "Controversies about changes in religious doctrine" is highly non-NPOV. I'm not clear on why it needs to be here. I've removed a reference to Orthodox Christianity in the last paragraph, where an ecclesiology was attributed to it that it does not in fact possess, but as I'm not a regular contributor here I'm unwilling to introduce the more drastic edit I think is called for. Csernica

Hmm ... I have to agree with you. The article is stronger without the material you mention. Although the topic of apparent changes in doctrine is certainly interesting to anyone interested in understanding religion, it's a poor fit in the context: an excursus on a parallel, but very subjective issue, in an otherwise information-oriented article. Perhaps the segment originated as a place for depositing a few of the lessons learned from the experience of some of our edit wars on Wikipedia? It's a bold edit; but, I think that it is appropriate to delete or to move the material, perhaps to Metawikipedia. I invite others to revert my action here, if you think I've misjudged the value of the material (it's too long to paste it all here).

== Controversies about changes in religious doctrine ==

Many religions (such as Catholic Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Islam) teach not only that their followers should accept a given set of doctrines as true, but also that these doctrines have never changed, and never will change ...

Mkmcconn 05:00 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

Under spiritual phillosophies, I think that Zen should be listed, but not Buddhism. To categoize Tibetan Buddhism as "philosophical" is clearly false. -Alex S

Zen it is. I won't challenge this, though I do feel Buddhism should have the link under spiritual phillosophies. Or perhaps, may I suggest using: Zen Buddhism. Linking Zen alone insinuates or possibly excludes Theravada and Vajrayana as not stressing any philosophical thought in its methodology. Usedbook 20:45 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

While Theravada and Vajrayana both certaintly involve phillosophical thought, I would hesitate to call it a "spiritual phillosophy" since Theravada especially is highly ritualistic and iconistic.

I've never heard this before. Perhaps you meant Tibetan Buddhism is highly ritualistic; the Theravada school is known for emphasizing more on the philosophical Abhidharma. As for Tibetan Buddhism, each of the main five schools focuses on its department, the philosophical one notably gets overshadowed by the camera friendly ritual ones. Usedbook 14:33 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Someone peer review the addition made the article that I made and the person before me made (I just reformulated it a little). It may be that it doesn't fit in the article, but I didn't want to remove it because I have not written anything in this article. -- Ram-Man

1) I began with an edit to correct some typos such as [stucture or "concent"] in the following statement.

Although most cognitive psychologists agree that all religious ideas have the same origin, it is often useful to classify religions by their stucture or "concent." Following are several ways to classify religions:

And then I saw that the heading to the list SHOULD introduce the list--hence the change. Apparently, the list points to the different qualities in the sources of truth that the different religions consult. In any case, the reference to "cognitive psychologists" is out of place here and is probably wrong because of the unguarded use of the word "all."

2) Probably, ALL occurrences of the word "all" should be removed from this encyclopedia entry. But at least the following paragraph is wrong to use the word "all."

While individual religions have many differences, all religions share many common traits, such as ritual, concern with the afterlife, regulation of social behavior, and belief in the supernatural.

Counter-examples to the above use of "all" include the "Non-religion religions" discussed in the final section of this entry.

3) Other simplifications of text around various typos. Rednblu 18:47 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This page needs some organization, I say. I am thinking of putting in some provisional headers to just label what is there.

Any ideas? Rednblu 04:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Inserted headers--often a header for each paragraph--in order to label what is already there in the article. Some text was moved to keep paragraphs with the same topic together. Minor text changes for clarity, with an attempt to not change the substance of the text. Included all comments and suggestions made by email. I will refrain from further significant changes for a while so as to allow the community to respond to the changes made already. Rednblu 03:53 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To 203.51.27.104. Why did you put a link to atheism on the bottom of the religion page? I'm curious to know why you put it there. My first inclination is to think that the link to atheism is wrong here. But what was your reason for putting it there?

Surely it would be better to insert to the page a section on the atheism view of religion--with some explanation that would provide a purpose for the link. Since this is the only mention of atheism on the page of religion, I would say that the link is inappropriate--like putting a link to sponge at the bottom of the page on carbon. The reader can guess what the connection is, maybe. But surely it would be better that the connection between religion and atheism should be hinted at--at least by a picture or a diagram or some text. Rednblu 18:12 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

all other religions believe that man must build his way to God - this, surely, is not correct. In fact, most religions seem to have God reaching out to humanity in one way or another. Evercat 00:17, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I disagree. All religions have stipulations as to what man must do in order to reach heaven, nirvana, or whatever thier goal may be. Christianity is the only religion where God sent His Son to "pay the price" into heaven. I would like to know what other religion the God has done something like this in. Glenn Ansley

God's attempts to communicate with humanity are common to many religions. That's how holy books are supposed to come about. Isn't this God "reaching out" to us? Evercat 00:26, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, this is how different religions say God speaks to them. But in most of those revelations, the god is explaining what the person must do to obtain "salvation" with him. Christianity is the only religion where God says, I'll send my Son to die for you to get into heaven. All other religions say man must do something. Glenn Ansley

As does Christianity, of course. But I take your point that Christianity has God playing a particularly active role. Hmmm. Evercat 00:30, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

True, that's all I'm saying. Something to think about though. Glenn Ansley

Well, I think what you wrote in the article needs a slight rewording - most religions have God "reaching out" to humanity in some sense, it's just that in Christianity this is in a very strong sense.

I do feel that with the article as it stands, that bit looks like an attempt to promote Christianity above other religions, which is a problem. I mean, this may be something special to Christianity, but other religions could say they too are special in other ways. So this particular thing that's special about Christianity probably shouldn't be promoted in the article in this way... Evercat 00:38, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Do what you want, but I think you can find that what I said is a well established fact, agreed upon by members from any of the religions mentioned. User:GlennAnsley