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20:00
@MrHen But anyway, as you say, it is a complex notion, especially in the context of anthropology or sociology. Calling whatever functions like a religion (Chinese communism?) a religion because it exhibits certain characteristics typical of the archetypical religions (monotheism, polytheism) can be worth the inexactitude. But they are then still not typical religions, but rather fringe religions, I would say.
Religion is believing in God.
@skullpatrol No it isn't.
@MrHen My point is that your statement seemed rather random and the burden of proof was on you.
!!define religion
@KitFox religion The belief in and worship of a supernatural controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.
20:01
Qed
@skullpatrol Even the lightweight dictionary definition disagrees with you. :P
"Controlling"?
@Cerberus In this context, isn't "typical" is merely a measure of popularity?
I know. Kind of an inyour face god
@MrHen If I am careful? Or if I am a zen Buddhist?
20:02
@MrHen No, not at all.
!!youtube your own personal Jesus
@Cerberus I am not trying to prove any of this. It would take too long. The point is that the term "religion" gets less and less useful the more you try to define it using specific beliefs.
How do you mean?
What if you use "ideology" to describe Communism, Christianity, etc.?
@Cerberus Then what is it? "Typical" doesn't have a lot of meaning in this kind of context.
20:04
Sure it does.
@Cerberus Ideology would be an umbrella term. You can have religious and non-religious ideologies.
What is "typical" is based on history, I guess (diachronically) and hermeneutics (synchronically).
The Wikipedia Religion article has a pretty good working definition. It's the first sentence of the article.
@Cerberus But if you keep going down that path of definition it will boil down into popularity.
@MετάEd I agree.
@MrHen Perhaps you can do without that sub-distinction, if, indeed, all you want to do is study phenomena that fulfil certain similar functions for...humanity.
@MrHen I don't see why.
20:05
@Cerberus It depends on what you are studying. If you are studying the effects of religion, what are you studying?
Petitio principii.
Circular reasoning.
@Cerberus It isn't begging the question. It is just rephrasing it.
To say it another way, distinguishing between religion and other ideologies is useful if there are differences among the effects of the various ideologies.
"If", yes.
The relevant question, then, is what determines the differences?
But what if those other ideologies fulfil the same functions in society?
20:09
@Cerberus It is a good question and I think it is very relevant. I don't know the answer.
Very well.
My original point was just that the definition of religion matters more when discussing social impact at this level.
"This"?
matters more == more useful
Comparing religious ideologies against non-religious ideologies (e.g. the scientific method)
Yes.
Although I would hesitate to call the scientific method an ideology.
Why not Communism or Fascism?
20:11
So in my opinion the question of whether something constitutes a religion should not get bogged down by details like the divine.
Or atheism?
@Cerberus Sure, that is a better example.
You'd have to prove why it is so important to group Buddhism with Christianity instead of with Fascism.
Although in that sense, communism and facism are both political ideologies. They wouldn't directly compare to the term "religion".
I'm not sure other religions aren't political.
20:13
There are pipes in my data. facepalm
You can use all ideologies for/in politics.
keep them pipes greased
@Cerberus I don't think so. The grouping isn't the important part. The important part is what common human behavior there is between them.
Christianity is exquisitely suitable.
@MattЭллен My splits got all messed up with the new data.
20:14
@Cerberus I don't think there is a clear cut line, no.
@MrHen Then why is the word "religion" important?
@KitFox dang it
I guess I need a different delimiter.
what's happened?
I see
Or I suppose I could preprocess it.
20:14
@Cerberus Only in the sense that a political ideology doesn't automatically determine non-political ideologies. That's why there are "political" ideologies and "religious" ideologies.
That could work. I take out all the pipes, then replace the <br> with pipes.
@MrHen Umm I have no idea what this means.
why do you need to replace the <br> with pipes?
You can be fascist and not participate in politics at all. You can be Christian and base all your political actions on Christianity.
@Cerberus It's just a term to describe a common set of ideologies. I don't think it is that important.
20:16
@MattЭллен So I can split the search terms.
Then why do you insist on calling Buddhism a religion for anthropology?
@KitFox I see. oracle not let you split on <br>, then, I guess?
@Cerberus But your Christian based political actions don't automatically determine your political ideology.
Oh balls. I should have just deleted the 0 results data.
I forgot I could distinguish the two sets.
@MrHen Not sure what that means either.
20:17
dang
@Cerberus I was more insisting people shouldn't define religion so narrowly
@Cerberus I could be a Christian socialist, for instance.
@MattЭллен I sort of can, but I couldn't figure out how to get the tokens properly. regex wanted just one character.
Is this for the golf?
@MrHen So what? You can also be a socialist fascist.
You can be a Christian scientist. Though that is so 19th century.
20:18
Or a Christian pagan, for that matter → Christmas tree, Saints.
So, a really simple way to think about this: I can be Christian and republican but it is hard to be a Christian and Muslim. That suggests they belong to the same ideological category.
@KitFox you can put it in parens: (<br>)
@MrHen I don't think I agree.
@Cerberus I'm still typing up the point, hang on.
20:20
@MattЭллен Um.
I probably should have tested that update before I ran it too.
@MrHen Some ideologies explicitly define themselves as opposed to certain other ideologies. Then it becomes hard to take part in both. But that is because of their explicit statements, I would say—not because of inherent incompatibilities. Christianity and Islam are very closely related, and orthodox Jews and Muslims in my country often collaborate in politics on religious topics in my country, for example.
@KitFox eeep. sorry
@cerberus @mrhen can we take this discussion into another room please?
@MattЭллен Haha wts.
Nah, I'm sure it's probably fine.
20:21
@Cerberus how do your heads look?
@skullpatrol Uhh what?
@MattЭллен You tell me! Am I involved in a sex scandal?
@Cerberus I think the one on the left is
@skullpatrol Why? Is this discussion any more off topic than any other discussion that we have here?
@MattЭллен But with whom??
20:23
The question, then, isn't whether one *can* merge two ideologies together but whether people *do*. Something like Christianity will have a drastic impact on the rest of your belief system but it more directly impacts your relationship with, say, the supernatural. Christianity and Islam don't get along on the supernatural details.

Political ideologies, on the other hand, are more directly related to how one relates to the *government*. It is hard to be a socialist and a republican. It isn't impossible but when they bump heads it is due to political/governmental details. Not supernatural det
the great thing with religion is that you can say "I'm a christian, muslim, buddist, hindu" and people can call you wrong all you like, but if that's what you believe, then that's what you are
@MattЭллен Heh, well, true. It doesn't automatically make you correct, though. ;)
@MattЭллен No you're not.
@MrHen sure it does, for yourself. internal consistency is all that is.
@MattЭллен Whether you think you are self-consistent isn't hardly relevant. ;)
20:24
It's the only thing that's relevant to religious people
and even then
@MattЭллен Generalizations are typically over simplifications... so I'm not sure I would agree with you.
clearly, but that means I'm definitely right.
@MattЭллен Huh?
@MrHen I think I disagree with this. In some situations, some ideologies rarely coöperate, especially if their stated aims are relevant in the debate and opposed to each other. But in certain cases, all kinds of ideologies can work together with any other ideologies.
I don't think my mother much cares about being internally consistent.
Although I suppose she often argues that she is, despite the obvious contradictions.
20:26
@MattЭллен I once was at a party and couldn't think of how to describe myself, so I nearly went with "On the internet, I'm an invisible pink unicorn". It was only at the last moment that I thought better of it when I realized they might not believe me.
@Cerberus "work together" meaning they can get in the same room and agree on something? Or meaning you can have both ideologies at the same time?
@MrHen well, I'm saying that people who believe something, believe it. that's half of what religion is, the other half being getting at least one other person to believe with you.
@aediaλ lol
@MattЭллен Yes, self-proclamation is in my opinion an important characteristic for our "commonsense" distinction between religions (although it isn't the only one).
@MattЭллен That's just the definition of belief. A religious belief isn't really very different from a non-religious belief.
@aediaλ Oww you should have done that and posted a picture of it.
20:28
Man, I miss Vitaly.
He'd sure have made a couple of snarky comments by now...
@Cerberus Well, sure, but I don't think that is terribly relevant for the definition of "religion." As in, I don't see why you'd include that as a prerequisite for calling a particular ideology a religion.
I said "important characteristic".
@Cerberus Sure. And I was adding some clarification. :)
In the end, this is all just my opinion, of course.
If a certain sect calls itself Catholic but drops everything except, say, recognising the Pope as their Great Inspirator, would I still consider them Catholic? Probably. Self-proclamation is a very important factor.
20:30
I can safely state that most operating definitions of the term "religion" try to include Buddhism. (Or, at least, they used to. The field could have changed.)
And I'm not sure I agree with that statement.
@Cerberus In the case of Catholicism, it matters more if the Catholic church calls you Catholic.
Not sure I agree with that either.
The Catholic church is the de facto organized religion.
Chatholic. Freudian slip?
20:32
Whoops.
While I could claim I am Catholic with non-standard Catholic beliefs it doesn't make me accurate.
@MrHen I don't know what you mean, but this sounds like a lot of presuppositions.
"Accurate" presupposes many things.
It would be somewhat like claiming I am monotheistic while believing in 100s of gods.
@Cerberus I don't understand the confusion.
You first need to determine what criteria you use to determine "accuracy". However, what I was trying to do was establishing such criteria.
And you can't use "accurate" to determine the criteria, or it would be circular reasoning.
@Cerberus Not really. It presupposes two things: That there is such a thing as a Catholic and there is a consistent way to measure what is or is not Catholic.
@Cerberus Right; it was me just saying I disagree with you.
20:34
Measure?
@MrHen And the latter is exactly what I was trying to establish.
@Cerberus Right. But in the sense of an organized religion, there is literally an authority of inclusion.
It's also the entire point behind the concept of excommunication.
@MrHen Now you are presupposing that this should be a criterion.
Circular.
!!wiki circular
Circular Quay is a harbour in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the Sydney central business district on Sydney Cove, between Bennelong Point and The Rocks. It is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. The Circular Quay area is a popular neighbourhood for tourism and is made up of walkways, pedestrian malls, parks and restaurants. It hosts a number of ferry quays, bus stops, and a train station. History Sydney Cove, on which Circular Quay is located, was the site of the initial landing of the First Fleet in Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. ...
20:36
@Cerberus What? No, this isn't circular. These are descriptions of terminology. Are you saying that the Catholic church doesn't get to define what Catholic is?
!!wiki circular reasoning
@MrHen Of course I am saying that.
Circular reasoning (, "circle in proving"; also known as paradoxical thinking or circular logic), is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end up with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. However, the argument is useless because the conclusion is one of the premises. Circular logic cannot prove a conclusion because, if the conclusion is doubted, the premise which leads to it will also be doubted. Begging the question is a form of circular reasoning. Circular reas...
If by "the Catholic church" you mean the Vatican.
There can be no presuppositions.
@Cerberus Then I don't understand how any of your terminology is relevant.
20:37
I think he means addicted to cats actually.
@Cerberus We are using words. They have meanings.
@MrHen It should be relevant for sociology, historiography, and anthropology.
!!youtube addicted to love
@Cerberus It isn't if you throw out all the terminology those areas already use
20:40
@MrHen If you think "there is a certain group/person that claims authority on deciding who belongs to its religion" should be a criterion, then you need to make that sound convincing, not presuppose it. I'm not saying I think that would be a bad criterion, by the way; but I am not sure how important I would consider it among the various criteria that we would have to factor in.
@Cerberus Factor in to what?
It factors in to whether something qualifies as Catholic because Catholicism is an organized religion.
It is the definition of an organized religion.
Factor in whether a certain person is best considered by us, sociologists, to be part of a certain religion.
@MrHen I do not recognise this as valid reasoning in context.
@Cerberus It isn't reasoning. It is a definition.
!!wiki definition
:To get the definition of another word, try using :For other uses of the word "definition" itself, see Definition (disambiguation) A definition is a statement that explains the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). The term to be defined is the '. The term may have many different senses and multiple meanings. For each meaning, a ' is a cluster of words that defines that term (and clarifies the speaker's intention). As an example: To successfully define the word "Vegan", the definiendum (the word "Vegan" itself) must be given a definiens (actually vegan has at leas...
20:42
!!wiki organized religion
Organized religion (or organised religion—see spelling differences), also known as institutional religion, is religion as a social institution, in which belief systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established. Organized religion is typically characterized by an official doctrine (or dogma), a hierarchical or bureaucratic leadership structure, and a codification of rules and practices. The term organized religion is frequently used in the mass media to refer to the world's largest religious groups, especially those known by name internationally, and it also refers t...
!!wiki wiki
A wiki ( ) is usually a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a collaboration with others. Text is usually written using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. While a wiki is a type of content management system, it differs from a blog or most other such systems in that the content is created without any defined owner or leader, and wikis have little implicit structure, allowing structure to emerge according to the needs of the users. The encyclopedia project Wikipedia is the most popular wiki on the public web in terms of page view...
@MrHen In any case, I do not recognise it as valid in the present context. We're trying to establish what we think are proper criteria for considering someone part of a certain "religion", right?
I'm never sure if actually listening to these songs that start playing in my head upon thinking of the title will help them get unstuck or just make it worse...
20:44
...it makes it worse.
Depends on the song.
Have you tried it?
you see the signs, but you can't read... the lights are on, but you're not home
I listened to Flying Without Wings 100 times I think. I have finally gotten over it.
@Cerberus No, I guess we aren't. What you seem to be arguing is how to define a particular religion; not how to classify the religious identity of a particular person.
20:45
No?
If you want to reject the definition of "organized religion" then we are talking about the classifications of religions; not whether a particular person belongs to a particular religion.
It's a form of self hypnosis @aedia
I do not want to reject that.
And the latter does not follow.
@Cerberus Alright, to simply: An organized religion has some form of authority for determining who is or is not a member of that religion. Agree or disagree?
Geezis, after my shower, you are still talking abut religion!
20:47
@JasperLoy So are you! ;)
God will ultimately decide who is a member of His religion.
@skullpatrol Sexist!
@MrHen Not the "authority" to tell sociologists to consider someone a member of a religion, no. What a leader or leaders of a religion say can provide sociologists with an argument for considering someone a member, to be sure; but I am not sure how important that argument should be. I was trying to establish the extent of that importance.
Relatedly, I do find it amusing how touchy various religious people get about details like supernatural gender. :P
Does such a thing exist?
20:50
@Cerberus Yeah. I think it's sort of working, in that I want to listen to something else now...
Heh.
Hmm I don't even know that song.
HERE COME THE DRUMS!
hides in sack
My husband and I have been rewatching a little too much Torchwood and Doctor Who.
@Cerberus I would disagree with the first part of that. The authority of exclusion in an organized religion is the religious authority. Otherwise the term "organized religion" is meaningless.
20:52
@Cerberus Oh no! It's ok, puppies.
@MrHen Why? Convince me.
The authority is not providing an argument; they are providing a definition.
If sociologists want to redefine a particular religion they can, I guess, but that makes it an entirely different issue.
How can you define the undefinable?
Just because the Pope excommunicates King John for a year or two, doesn't mean that should be the only criterion for a sociologist. There are other criteria that you seem to think are of zero value.
@Cerberus To use a non-religious example, the United States of America has the authority to define what a US citizen is. Future sociologists cannot overwrite that authority without completely redefining what the term means. The US has final say on its definition because it is their term and they control access.
20:55
@MrHen That's exactly what sociologists do. They try to come up with a useful definition for their research, and they use various criteria to come up with one.
@Cerberus Those other criteria are more interesting when discussion non-organized religions or explicit schisms. For instance, there could be a challenge on the authority during a particular time in history.
@Cerberus And is it descriptive or prescriptive?
@MrHen The definition a certain social group or person uses may or may not coincide with whatever definition a sociologist considers practical or useful. But the connection is not necessary.
@Cerberus nudges sack See? Song's not that scary. It's not the end of the world or anything.
The end of the world is not scary.
@MrHen It is neither, it's just defining.
20:57
@Cerberus It is a necessary consideration for explicitly organized groups.
@Cerberus You can define things in multiple ways.
@aediaλ But the drums!
@MrHen I disagree. Convince me.
@MrHen Yes, thankfully.
If Mr Shiny were here, he would definitely take part in this discussion on religion. =)
He would, indeed!
The very concept of definition is being misused by religion.
It can be, yes...
20:58
@Cerberus Because otherwise you aren't discussing the organized group. You are just discussing a non-organized group that thought it was organized.
So what?
Who can define God?
The Pope!
For instance, if I thought I was the leader of an organized religion and arbitrarily decided who was in or out, the sociologists could reject my opinion and disagree that I was the authority of a particular religion.
I don't think a good sociologist would even consider such a question.

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