Is religion the same as theism?

@john2054,

JPB, I tend to think of it in the same way.
But if I were to explore my spirituality, and then proceed to write a book about it, it would be religion to anyone but me.
Just the same as if a philosopher has a great idea and writes it down in a book. The book isn't really philosophy. It is a report of the activity being done. If you read it and believe it that doesn't make you a philosopher.
If you read and believe the bible that makes you a christian, but not neccesarily religious. If you believe only because you read it you do not believe in a deity. You believe in a text someone wrote. Your personal connections on all levels of your existence with nature, be they known to you in christian, buddhist or scientific terms is religion, these are what religion is about, since it is inevitable for all of us, and also different for each of us....

John
Faith isn't good or bad. That depends entirely on what you believe. But it's hard for many to accept that belief is a matter of choice.
I have already said that I do not think christianity is religion anymore, though it was once upon a time..

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@dyslexia,

Well, I will accept a failed attempt at a unified field theory, since it is at least evidence of a desire for one, regardless of their inadequate means of recording it.

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@Cyracuz,

I'm not sure how you can arrive at the conclusion that christianity is no longer a religion. You seem to define religion and atheist differently than how most interpret them.

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@cicerone imposter,

For an individual christianity may be a religion. It may be the spiritual landscape in which he grows as a human. But if this individual acts and thinks as he does because he was told by christian officials or texts he is no longer performing religious activity. He is no longer growing.

We are creating all these isms to distance ourselves morally from the wickedness of religion as we have seen it's effects in the world. But the effects are in reality the ineffectiveness of religion.

And yes, i define religion differently. I define it as an individual's efforts to be a growing spirit as a contrast to the body's inevitable decay.

And an atheist is simply a person who disagrees. He is incomplete without his theist to disagree with. It's a quarrel about who's right, where both sides state belief as fact. Silly, and not likely to increase the understanding of either side, unless they made an effort to agree instead of disagree..

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@Cyracuz,

You are using statements such as

Quote:

He is incomplete without his theist to disagree with.

What makes you believe we are "incomplete?" Your conclusion makes no sense.

You still can't accept the fact that religion is a man-made organization. Think back to human evolution; we are descended from primates. Our closest cousin is the chimp.

My being an atheist has nothing to do with religion; I don't believe in it. You still have a problem dealing with reality.

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@cicerone imposter,

I do accept that religion is a man-made organization. But it was the making that was religion, not the organization. If people understood this there would be no theism or atheism. We would realize that regardless of what may be, all we can relate to is what we believe, and no amount of empirical fact and verification can ever get around the fact that the truth of it as it relates to you is decided by your choice. Either you believe it or you don't.

But if no one ever believed in a deity, would everyone be atheists?

Let me put it like this:
A man says, this is what I believe, and it defines me.
Another man says, I don't believe what he said, and that defines me.

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@Cyracuz,

I arrive at conclusions by observing simple concepts; if I don't see it, I question it.

All religions are man made "organizations." It establishes hierarchy as in all man-made organizations. One need only look at Leonardo's Last Supper to see that Jesus is the head with his 12 disciples; hierarchy. Catholic church begins with the Pope down to it's lowest rank that is given the title "Holy Government."

My belief system is built on observation and perception. Most religions are a fraud. They build beautiful buildings they call churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues, that are built with much sacrifice by their adherents.

Your question,

Quote:

But if no one ever believed in a deity, would everyone be atheists?

tells me you have very little knowledge of human history.

Words are created that can identify something. Man has created Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy even though they are imaginary. You can still call me an atheist.

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@cicerone imposter,

I do not question your capacity for understanding or the integrity of your personal belief system. It isn't particularly exclusive to atheism anyway.

But try this: Explain atheism without any reference to theism.

The point where I object is where you say that all religions are man made organizations. It is true that there are man made organizations that call themselves religions, but they are not religions regardless of what they themselves say, they are organizations. Religion happens on a personal level. As soon as it is organized it is not religion anymore, but politics. Christianity is a political organization containing members that share the same belief system and interests. At best it is a political representation of religious values, but it's religious aspects are far from it's most defining attributes.

I am not a christian. I do not follow any theism. As I see it, god is the ultimate contrast to self, one requires the other. Both are concepts we have come to define ourselves by. And with this way of understanding the concepts, the mystical improbabilities of religious texts took on a whole new meaning to me.

It is interesting to apply the same objections an atheist would raise against the concept of god against the concept of self.
Because at the end of the day self is no more than a deity we believe in...

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@Cyracuz,

Cyra wrote:

Quote:

But try this: Explain atheism without any reference to theism.

I already did; I don't believe in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy, so you can call me an atheist. My belief is based on the real world as I perceive it. If you don't like the word "atheist," you can name it anything you wish that has the same definition as "it's a fraud, so I don't believe it."

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

What I am proposing in this thread is that our definition of "religion" comes from a misunderstood version of the concept. One tainted by abuse and worse things. Christianity isn't religion; the thing inside a human being that makes it seek out christianity is.

Good God,

you are mistaking effect for cause. The thing inside a human being that seeks is not generally considered to be the same thing that is sought nor the impliment used for discovering that which is sought...... unless you are in agreement with the ancient Sanscript saying "Tut tvam asi" or "you are It," and that which you strive to find outside of you is the same as your true being inside.

Religion is an artifact of sentience that strives to make sense out of the condition of human self-awareness.

I am using the ideas of Joseph Campbell, speaking of myth, because at heart, they apply equally as well to the term we call “religion.“

Quote:

“The first function of a mythology (religion) is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is."

Quote:

"The second being to render an interpretive total image of the same, as known to contemporary consciousness. Shakespeare’s definition of the function of his art, “ to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature,” is thus equally a definition of mythology. It is the revelation to waking consciousness of the powers of its own sustaining source."

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"A third function is the enforcement of a moral order: the shaping of the individual to the requirements of his/her geographically and historically conditioned social group."

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"The fourth, and most vital function is to foster the centering and unfolding of the individual in integrity, in accord with d) him/herself (the microcosm), c) his/her culture (the mesocosm), b) the universe (the macrocosm), and a) that awesome ultimate mystery which is both beyond and within ourselves and all things.”

Can these things occur or be resolved without the presence of an over-arching personal deity? I think that they can. Which is why I do not consider religion the same as theism.

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@kuvasz,

Yes, I am in agreement with that sanskrit saying.
Or more specifically, I believe that at the base of all our knowledge lies a series of assumptions that steer our thoughts, what we think of and how we relate to it.
Self, for instance, is considered real and unproblematic because it is one of the assumptions that lies at the foundation of our logic.
But it is self that is the origin of god. Where self is the ultimate concept of identity and individuality, god is it's inevitable cunterpart to a dualistic perception. Accept or reject belief in it, it is still something every human must experience and deal with.
And that is religion, and inevitable. It's what led people in the past to form organizations, or perhaps it was an attribute in humans some managed to exploit to their own ends.

Seems to me that my idea of religion doesn't conflict with yours in the statement "Religion is an artifact of sentience that strives to make sense out of the condition of human self-awareness."
Perhaps theism could be described as a "control function" applied to religion? And the result is organied religion, which has completely usurped the definition of the concept, while having little or nothing to do with it's actual meaning.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

On wikipedia "theism" is defined as the belief in the existence of a deity, or several deities.
"Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe..." - Wiki on "religion".

But deities are projections of self. Regardless of what actually is, anything we are capable of percieveing is projections of self. Particularly anything we percieve ourselves not percieving.
To clarify, if we accept that we cannot really see a stone, just the measurments made of it that we refer to as the sensory experience of a stone, then the existence of everything becomes as controversial as the existence of god. And then it doesn't matter anymore.
If everything is projections of self, then study of self and how to define it to the greatest benefit to everything becomes the only possible and true religion... Religion is the process of defining yourself?

You are utterly wrong in the "projection of self" it's the projection of group think if anything.

"theism" Imo is either superstition of beliveing in undefined deities/deity or god complex, where "religion" is "theism" but with a greater/complex set of rules, of defining the deities and which procedures there must be taken ..etc.

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@HexHammer,

I think both of you are touching the elephant in different places, and concluding different things.

Cyracuz is referring to a self-image as the godhead, Hex is referring to the image a particular society or culture has generated. But both are pieces of the same thing and have been described by Adolf Bastian, who coined the term 'ethnic ideas' (Volkergedanke) for the local, historic transformations of the archetypes that I believe Hex references with his

Quote:

projection of group think if anything

, and the term 'elementary ideas' (Elementargedanke) for the archetypes themselves Cyracuz references with his description of “self.” “Archetypes” are common to myths and religions throughout the world and suggests they have deep evolutionary basis.

Such universal patterns or motifs come from the collective unconscious and are the basic content of religions and mythologies. They emerge in individuals in the forms of dreams or visions.

The Archetypes stem from a common human experience:

Sentience, of self-awareness……“Self.”

Short gestation of humans – years of living in a relationship of dependency.

We all share birth, adolescence, initiation/education, marriage, death and all the psychological challenges to the ego that go along with all that.

Society is like a second womb - “a marsupial pouch,” from which we must be born, and myths/religions/rituals help us through to that second birth.

While religions may have different inflections, viz., Bastian’s Volkergedanke, due to the cultures and environments from which they arise, and is the basis for Hex’s criticism of religion aqua “group think,” the basic psychological structures of religions arise from the universal experiences of the human condition; sentience the most, and is aligned closely with the idea of self-image mentioned by Cyracuz.

To reiterate:

The four functions of religion:
1. Mystical – realizing the wonder of the universe, awe before the mystery
2. Cosmological – a picture of the universe (e.g., Hebrew worldview).
3. Sociological – supports and validates a particular social order.
4. Pedagogical – how to live a human life.

Again, a belief in a personal Supreme Being is unnecessary to support these functions.

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@kuvasz,

Sorry can't really agree with anything you say, people doesn't just belive in some random deity, it's through suggestion either group think/flock instinct, or individualistic manipulation ..evedenly by observing that people in various countries/regions just doesn't belive in random dieties, but those which are local to the area. Only if some person, media comes to manipulate them into converting to another deity, they will change. Also poeple can indeed change by themselves if their inner selfish desires are stimulated by another religion.

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@kuvasz,

I am not referring to a self - image as godhead. I am saying that it is the nature of our perception that every concept has an oposite. The concept of self naturally raises the question of an absolute in the other end, which is god. But we tent to view self as unpoblematinc in it's definition and god very problematic.
But upon closer examination of the concept of self we may just find that this concept shares some of the same problems as the concept god.

But I agree that belief in a god is unnecessary to support your four functions of religion, and that religion and theism are not the same thing. Still, the question of an absolute entity in contrast to the belief in an absolute self is inevitably asked by all humans.

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@Cyracuz,

Buddha was a human.

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@cicerone imposter,

Yes, but he didn't believe in an absolute self.

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@A Lyn Fei,

And before the idea - Australopithecus, hitting nuts and rats with crude clubs - before that tapir-like mammals..........Fish, proteins, molecules, atoms, and a local big-bang.

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@Cyracuz,

Buddha understood about life, but what he practiced can be considered "absolute self."

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@cicerone imposter,

I am pretty sure the Buddha didn't percieve himself as a distinct entity apart from everything around him. He didn't believe that the borders of his mental self were as absolute as the borders of his physical self.
Most people, however, tend to believe just that. At least until they start thinking about it. And I believe that it is from that belief, and in the interest of maintaining that belief, our deities come from.

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Is religion the same as theism?

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