posted
So I just saw a book named "From Primitives to Zen", apparently an overview of religious history. And I'm shaking my head; how could they have missed such an obvious chance to call their book "From Animism to Zen"?
posted
It is an important part of religious history, though.
edit: and it is a religion by any reasonable standard, it just lacks certain aspects strongly associated with western religions.
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posted
I'm fairly certain that Buddhism started and spread amongst nations that most definitely had theistic religions already in place.
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posted
Well yes; what is the relevance? You need to unpack your thought a bit more.
In other news: In December I visited a bookstore that had a religion section, and noticed that they had a whole shelf marked 'Zen'. If I were running the store, that shelf would be empty.
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posted
Exclusivity is one aspect strongly associated with western (well, mostly judeo-christian, especially nowadays) religion that isn't nearly so common in non-western religions.
edit: the association of zen with emptiness nowadays is strangely amusing, given it started by celebrating the primacy of experience.
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posted
fugu: I thought you were talking about the existance of a god or gods. Why should exclusivity have anything to do about whether a religion is really a religion?
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posted
fugu: And I'm saying it's not a religion. You then said it was a religion by any reasonable standard and went on to say it was just different than Western ones. What are the necessary components for a system of beliefs to become a religion to you?
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posted
It depends on the context, but zen buddhism meets the standards of most contexts. Per Durkheim, it is sociologically a religion -- unified system of beliefs and practices, check, relating to things set apart, check, that unite a community by adherence, check.
Then there's the boring Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, "relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity". That requirement is satisfied.
What do you think makes it not a religion?
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posted
By those definitions why wouldn't say, Manifest Destiny not be a religion? It seems the belief that America's constitution and nationhood are both divinely appointed systems, along with the idea that if we do not maintain certain core principles that God will stop allowing us to prosper makes some forms of American patriotism religions of sort.
I'm not sure what you mean by "things set apart."
I feel God is an indispensibel aspect of religion that sets it apart from philosophy. Further, Buddhism itself does not have prescribed rituals, a feature of every other religion I can think of.
The fact you could stack it on top of just about any already existing religion without modifying much of the other religion's doctrine leads me to believe it in of itself is not a religion.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Buddhism does have ritual I'm fairly certain.
And I would say yes, Manifest Destiny was an officially supported American Political Religion that existed for a short period of time just as much how a Cult of Personality and Marxist Leninism was a political religion in other nations.
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posted
Certain sorts of political movements are considered religions -- the so-called 'state religion'.
"things set apart" is a way of talking about sacred things. Things that are set apart from the mundane.
quote:I feel God is an indispensibel aspect of religion that sets it apart from philosophy.
As I pointed out, the unified enlightened consciousness of zen buddhism is basically the same as how a good number of Christians nowadays describe god.
quote:Further, Buddhism itself does not have prescribed rituals
Numerous varieties of buddhism, including zen buddhism, include extensive rituals.
quote:The fact you could stack it on top of just about any already existing religion without modifying much of the other religion's doctrine leads me to believe it in of itself is not a religion.
Beyond being extremely western -- combining religions, even things you would concede are religions, is common in many parts of the world -- this is not quite true. Many zen buddhist beliefs are pretty much incompatible with, for instance, any belief system that says non-believers are morally disadvantaged vs believers, a trait shared by many religions.
(For the sake of exactness, I'd like to point out that what we've been calling "zen buddhism" is maybe as many as a dozen separate schools of thought).
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quote:I feel God is an indispensibel aspect of religion that sets it apart from philosophy. Further, Buddhism itself does not have prescribed rituals, a feature of every other religion I can think of.
It seems like many animist belief systems wouldn't count as religions under this definition.
At any rate, I think the claim "souls are continuously reborn" would be a religious claim by most people's definition.
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quote:Buddhism itself does not have prescribed rituals, a feature of every other religion I can think of.
Unitarianism? Quakers?
Quakers, at least traditionally, had the ritual of meeting together, sitting facing each other, and waiting for the Holy Ghost to prompt people to say things. I don't know much about Unitarians, I'll have to take a look.
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fugu:
quote:As I pointed out, the unified enlightened consciousness of zen buddhism is basically the same as how a good number of Christians nowadays describe god.
I don't think so. In Zen Buddhism that collective consciousness does not affect anybody's life. It isn't responsible for our existance, it seems to serve no purpose other than to just be the way things are. I feel like Buddhism more closely matches the Theory of Evolution rather than a religion. It describes the universe as existing in a certain state, and that's just how things are. There's no plan, or agenda.
quote:Numerous varieties of buddhism, including zen buddhism, include extensive rituals
But those rituals seem to be loans from the existing culture's religion, rather than specifically prescribed or universally applicable for all practicioners.
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quote:I feel God is an indispensibel aspect of religion that sets it apart from philosophy. Further, Buddhism itself does not have prescribed rituals, a feature of every other religion I can think of.
It seems like many animist belief systems wouldn't count as religions under this definition.
At any rate, I think the claim "souls are continuously reborn" would be a religious claim by most people's definition.
Animal spirits are still a sort of higher authority or government controlling the world we live in.
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quote:It describes the universe as existing in a certain state, and that's just how things are. There's no plan, or agenda.
This is equally true of, say, the Norse or Greek pantheons, which I trust you'll agree are religions. The gods exist, and interfere with humanity regularly, but they don't have a plan for the universe. They just are.
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posted
KOM: They most certainly do have plans and agendas. They might not be long term, but they make choices that supposedly affect us.
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posted
That really doesn't mesh with my understanding (cursory as it is) of animist religions. Spirits, in this sense, tend not to be authority figures (except in some cases, and then with authority over well defined niches). It's more like they're co-inhabitants, with powers and weaknesses, virtues and flaws. Facts of the natural world. You might make certain motions to calm the spirit of a horse, and you might make certain motions to calm the spirit of a storm.
I am, of course, speaking very very generally.
EDIT - The main point, to me, is that religions make supernatural claims about the way the universe works. Both animist and Buddhist belief systems make supernatural claims.
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quote:I don't think so. In Zen Buddhism that collective consciousness does not affect anybody's life. It isn't responsible for our existance, it seems to serve no purpose other than to just be the way things are. I feel like Buddhism more closely matches the Theory of Evolution rather than a religion. It describes the universe as existing in a certain state, and that's just how things are. There's no plan, or agenda.
It is an aspirational goal. There is an agenda: for sentient beings to attain that state.
quote:But those rituals seem to be loans from the existing culture's religion, rather than specifically prescribed or universally applicable for all practicioners.
What? No. For instance, there are numerous meditative practices that are used (and frequently shared even across very different varieties of buddhism). Of course they've integrated local cultural practices as well; this is common among religions.
Heck, Buddhism's more unified in that way than many traditional religions. For instance, there's basically nothing uniting practitioners of even theistic Hinduism like that.
What you seem to be fixated on is the lack of believing in supernatural entities that act much like humans.
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