s/o Do people attend religious services for the religious aspects, or for community?
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Anonymous
DP. So do you. |
Anonymous
| Communionity |
Anonymous
“We” already have a “definition of religion.” The definition is easily accessible to all of us. “We” as anonymous forum users don’t define words and concepts like religion, or soul. I notice someone keeps proposing that people posting here make up definitions for words. It’s really intellectually dishonest to pretend words aren’t already clearly defined. |
Anonymous
Pew says you’re massively wrong. |
Anonymous
DP. We may each have a definition in our own heads, but that may be different from another poster’s definition. I do research (I’m not the atheist “I’m a research scientist” poster) and it’s not only very common, it’s actually expected, that you will establish a working definition at the very start of your report. |
Anonymous
The dictionary and encyclopedia records the definition and meaning of words. I don’t care who you are or what your job is: you don’t define words. You use the definition of words from dictionaries and encyclopedias in your “research.” 
You are intellectually dishonest. |
Anonymous
The definiton of religion is a heavily contested and complicated thing that often depends on the person using and what they are doing with the word. This is a quick introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5KHDR8jdbA |
Anonymous
Fake news. PP never thought about it that way so it never happened. |
Anonymous
You get your information from youtube, I love that for you. However, there are long established and reputable dictionaries and encyclopedias that provide humanity with definitions for words that are not heavily contested. They are considered the gold standard and accepted by educational institutions, etc. If you don’t like the established language that’s a you problem and youtube is not going to help that problem. If you attended college or university you would have learned how to gather information from reputable sources and make sure your professors had that information so they could verify your papers and work. |
Anonymous
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Who determines the definition of a word?
Merriam-Webster has that honor in the US. To decide which words to include in the dictionary and to determine what they mean, Merriam-Webster editors study the language as it's used. In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. In 1807 Webster started two decades of intensive work to expand his publication into a fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language. To help him trace the etymology of words, Webster learned 26 languages. Webster hoped to standardize American speech, since Americans in different parts of the country used somewhat different vocabularies and spelled, pronounced, and used words differently. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1843, after Noah Webster died, the company bought the rights to An American Dictionary of the English Language from Webster's estate. All Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to this source. Merriam creates entries by finding uses of a particular word in print and recording them in a database of citations. Editors at Merriam spend about an hour a day looking at print sources, from books and newspapers to less formal publications, like advertisements and product packaging, to study the uses of individual words and choose things that should be preserved in the citation file. Merriam-Webster's citation file contains more than 16 million entries documenting individual uses of words. Millions of these citations are recorded on 3-by-5 cards in their paper citation files. The earliest entries in the paper citation files date back to the late 19th century. Since 2009, all new entries are recorded in an electronic database. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriam-Webster So we have an established and accepted and highly respected and reputable source for our word definitions. We can make word definitions different in our own heads if we want, but society and institutions of education/business, the media, government, etc, uses established definitions. |
Anonymous
OK, fair enough: From Merriam-Webster's religion noun re·li·gion ri-ˈli-jən Synonyms of religion 1 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 2 a (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance b : the state of a religious a nun in her 20th year of religion 3 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith 4 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS Personally, I think it's the second one. The first one is too broad (and contains the word "religious" which isn't defined). So I do think religion requires worship of God or the supernatural. |
Anonymous
Maybe this poster is answering for themselves. When I attended church, it was for the community. |
Anonymous
The poster who keeps talking about using a dictionary is a huge nerd who will do whatever the establishment tells them to do, people don’t need to read books to find out what words mean. All truth is in our heads. Books are useless. Also I made up the names of these animals for my “research.” |
Anonymous
The video is from a religious studies scholar synthesizing work from anthropologists and religious studies scholars. I used a YouTube video because it's easily accessible, but you can't dismiss it simply because it's "YouTube," you have to look at what its saying and who its source are. I happen to know the sources he cites precisely because I did go to college. The definition used by Emile Durkheim is incredibly influential in the definition and study of religion. I know this because I read him when I was in college. You can read Elementary Forms of Religious Life, if you're interested there. J. Z. Smith's thoughts on defining religion are also cited there and they hugely important over the more recent decades. His "Religion, Religions, Religious" is here: https://womrel.sitehost.iu.edu/Rel433%20Readings/SearchableTextFiles/Smith_ReligionReligionsReligious.pdf. I know his work, because I studied under him in college. My point is primarily that "long established and reputable dictionaries" are a starting point for a definition, but in a lot of cases they mislead you when you get into details. Ask any scholar of virtually any subject and they'll tell you that there's a long running dispute about how to define a basic term in their field. What's a language? What's a species? Linguists and biologists fight about this all the time. Scholars of religion have different definitions of religion, even though they all know about dictionaries. |
Anonymous
That’s all well and good, but because academics and scholars have time to quibble about definitions, doesn’t mean people can’t access actual definitions from reputable and established sources. Durkheim is irrelevant. To the vast majority of scholars and historians and definitely students. |