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What do we replace religion with?[W:675]

Re: What do we replace religion with?

gfm7175 said:
Here, these dictionaries agree with each other, but I included this to show the problem with both conflicting definitions of the word fact. They both speak of "the state of things as they actually exist"... The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that this 'actuality' differs from individual to individual similar to how a fingerprint does... Reality is not "the state of things as they actually exist", since that differs for everybody, but rather, reality (the same for everybody) is "one's own personal model of the universe and how it works". This definition is offered by philosophy, specifically the branch of phenomenology.

I'm not just "being obtuse" in my rejection of dictionary definitions as 'authoritative'... There are major issues with them, and they cloud people's understanding of philosophy, logic, religion, science, etc. etc...

Notice how the definitions I have offered aren't in any dictionary? They came from philosophy... Definitions can also come from things such as Logic, Science, Engineering, etc... They never come from an inanimate object such as a dictionary... Dictionaries can't reason...

...It is. Dictionaries are a collection of words. Those words get standardized in spelling and pronunciation. I've never appealed to a dictionary to define a word for me... I've looked to see how words are spelled and pronounced, however...
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Reality is a concept. You can't compare its definition with, say, the definition of a table.

How fortunate you are to have a vocabulary so extensive that you're familiar with every word you read. When I read a word I don't ordinarily use such as, oh, "recondite," I look it up. In fact, because I value precision in language, I check Dictionary.com for one reason or another maybe five-ten times a day.

I should point out here that the link you provided is not to the OED; it's to the Oxford Living Dictionaries. Unless you have a (pricey) subscription, the only way you can access the OED is through a university library. What's great about the OED is that it provides information on the birth/first use and transformations of words. To give you an idea of the difference between the OED and its publicly available little siblings, I once here at DP needed to look up the definition of "baby" and pasted the entire definition into Word. It was 96 pages long.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

nota bene said:
Reality is a concept. You can't compare its definition with, say, the definition of a table.

How fortunate you are to have a vocabulary so extensive that you're familiar with every word you read. When I read a word I don't ordinarily use such as, oh, "recondite," I look it up. In fact, because I value precision in language, I check Dictionary.com for one reason or another maybe five-ten times a day.

I should point out here that the link you provided is not to the OED; it's to the Oxford Living Dictionaries. Unless you have a (pricey) subscription, the only way you can access the OED is through a university library. What's great about the OED is that it provides information on the birth/first use and transformations of words. To give you an idea of the difference between the OED and its publicly available little siblings, I once here at DP needed to look up the definition of "baby" and pasted the entire definition into Word. It was 96 pages long.
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I would be curious to know what the OED says about the word "human". The definition appears to be at the center of many political debates here. I am going to guess that any true definition will be longer then 96 pages.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

nota bene said:
Reality is a concept. You can't compare its definition with, say, the definition of a table.
...
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Hmm. I don't know. Is it the thing or the word for the thing that receives a definition?

Also, some words, like the word "reality," require a theoretical definition, a definition attached to a theory.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Great! How do you plan to make that happen? Something along the lines Stalin and Mao used or do you have another plan?
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I plan to make people aware of the weak positions that the religious try to grab a hold on. But rather than replace their old religious beliefs with something that I believe in (i.e., the religious model), I intend to invite the person explore other means of living a meaningful life freely instead, but in positions with more evidence.

How is that?
 
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Re: What do we replace religion with?

DDD said:
I plan to make people aware of the weak positions that the religious try to grab a hold on. But rather than replace their old religious beliefs with something that I believe in (i.e., the religious model), I intend to invite the person explore other means of living a meaningful life freely instead, but in positions with more evidence.

How is that?
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Good for a start. Do you have any examples of "living a meaningful life freely instead, but in positions with more evidence"?

While I agree more people in the industrialized nations are turning away from dogmatic religions, that doesn't mean they don't have spiritual beliefs or that they're atheists who think we're all ambulatory meat computers responding to biochemical programming.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rising Sun said:
Good for a start. Do you have any examples of "living a meaningful life freely instead, but in positions with more evidence"?
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It depends on what is meaningful for a person in particular.

Rising Sun said:
While I agree more people in the industrialized nations are turning away from dogmatic religions, that doesn't mean they don't have spiritual beliefs or that they're atheists who think we're all ambulatory meat computers responding to biochemical programming.
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I agree.

Whatever floats your boat is fine IRL.

However, if you need to assert the wonders of your inner world onto others so as to have them also be like you, then the position is more convincing if supported with actual empirical evidence compared to a mere opinion.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

DDD said:
...However, if you need to assert the wonders of your inner world onto others so as to have them also be like you, then the position is more convincing if supported with actual empirical evidence compared to a mere opinion.
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Agreed, but that applies equally to atheists and theists alike.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Rich2018 said:
So you disagree with the OED when it says that most English dictionaries focus on present day meaning.
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I agree with OED on that. What I disagree with all of them on is their assertion that dictionaries define words. Sure, dictionaries such as the OED offer definitions and examples of how words are used in sentences... Sure, plenty of those definitions may very well be correct. However, not all definitions in the OED are correct, and not all of them are derived from their proper authoritative source (which might be Philosophy, Logic, Science, Engineering, etc...)


Rich2018 said:
Oh claims now is it ?
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Yes, Oxford is making a claim.

Rich2018 said:
Still not accepting that the OED gives meanings/definitions...or that most English dictionaries focus on present day meaning
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I accept that OED offers meanings/definitions. I do not accept that OED is the authority of those meanings/definitions. The authority is rather Philosophy, Logic, Science, Engineering, etc... (it depends on the particular word in question).

I accept OED's claim that most English dictionaries focus on present day meanings. I deny anyone's claim that dictionaries are the authoritative source of any word meaning. Particular fields of thought/study define words, not dictionaries.

Rich2018 said:
They says they give present day meanings but go further and explain the origin of the word.
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Yes, OED does say that. They say that's why they are better than other dictionaries which only focus on present-day meanings.

Rich2018 said:
According to you, dictionaries are primarily for spell checking and pronunciation.
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Correct.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

nota bene said:
Reality is a concept. You can't compare its definition with, say, the definition of a table.
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This would be comparing a subjective thing with an objective thing... But I'd say that both subjective things and objective things can be defined in a way which applies to everyone... That's what philosophy does with the definition of reality, as I provided for you. That definition applies to everyone, just like the definition of table does. So I'm not seeing the issue...

nota bene said:
How fortunate you are to have a vocabulary so extensive that you're familiar with every word you read.
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I'm not that fortunate, nor did I say I was.

nota bene said:
When I read a word I don't ordinarily use such as, oh, "recondite," I look it up. In fact, because I value precision in language, I check Dictionary.com for one reason or another maybe five-ten times a day.
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I look up words too when I am unfamiliar with them. But I also realize that dictionary.com didn't come up with the definition of the word (nor did any person who works for dictionary.com)... Words are not sourced in dictionaries, but rather in differing studies of thought/reason, or different points of history from people making use of thought/reason, depending on the particular word in question... The word Democracy, for example, was defined by 5th Century BC Athens (Ancient Greece). They were the ones who came up with that particular governing concept and coined the term. Nowadays, people regularly twist the meaning of the word, and as a result, dictionaries provide that twisted definition as the definition of Democracy, so many people think that the USA is a Democracy, when it is in actuality a Federated Republic.

nota bene said:
I should point out here that the link you provided is not to the OED; it's to the Oxford Living Dictionaries. Unless you have a (pricey) subscription, the only way you can access the OED is through a university library.
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I'm aware of that. I'm not going to pay a pricey subscription for access to a particular dictionary...

nota bene said:
What's great about the OED is that it provides information on the birth/first use and transformations of words. To give you an idea of the difference between the OED and its publicly available little siblings, I once here at DP needed to look up the definition of "baby" and pasted the entire definition into Word. It was 96 pages long.
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I believe you, but that still doesn't change the truth that no dictionary is the authoritative source of any word definition. Definitions of words don't result from dictionaries or the people who maintain them; they result from philosophy, logic, science, engineering, mathematics, meteorology, astronomy, etc. etc...

That's really what I'm getting at here.
 
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Re: What do we replace religion with?

Vadinho said:
I would be curious to know what the OED says about the word "human". The definition appears to be at the center of many political debates here. I am going to guess that any true definition will be longer then 96 pages.
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I'm willing to bet that it is longer than 96 pages. I'd be surprised if it wasn't...
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

gfm7175 said:
I'm willing to bet that it is longer than 96 pages. I'd be surprised if it wasn't...
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And I will bet it really cannot define it biologically, philosophically or morally. The question has never truly been answered especially with the advent of new technology, advances in science and medicine and the new moral questions arising from legal decisions about what constitutes a human being.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Vadinho said:
And I will bet it really cannot define it biologically, philosophically or morally. The question has never truly been answered especially with the advent of new technology, advances in science and medicine and the new moral questions arising from legal decisions about what constitutes a human being.
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Your post raises an important question. If "human being" cannot be defined cogently, on what basis are these "legal decisions" being made? Is there perhaps a political definition of human being that has cogency after all?
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Angel said:
Your post raises an important question. If "human being" cannot be defined cogently, on what basis are these "legal decisions" being made? Is there perhaps a political definition of human being that has cogency after all?
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This is a fantastic question and one that has been debated over the ages. It was not that long ago when even children were not really legal human beings in some parts of the world. I believe this question was one of the central questions answered in Roe v Wade at least in terms of a fetus. The Shiavo case revealed the problem at the other end. Wait until human gene editing becomes more mainstream, it will get tricky quickly. Religious people in the last century or so gave up on defining it and just said it was conception. That is the religious basis for the pro-life movement. But we all know that the definition of a human being is more complicated then just stating a biological function.

For instance, if by some technical means doctors were able to separate the head from the body and keep both alive, which one is a human being? We would all say the head because that is where the brain lies. But what if the brain is incapable of any thought at all yet the body keeps it alive? That is the essence of the Shiavo case and countless others. It's not an easy question to answer.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Vadinho said:
This is a fantastic question and one that has been debated over the ages. It was not that long ago when even children were not really legal human beings in some parts of the world. I believe this question was one of the central questions answered in Roe v Wade at least in terms of a fetus. The Shiavo case revealed the problem at the other end. Wait until human gene editing becomes more mainstream, it will get tricky quickly. Religious people in the last century or so gave up on defining it and just said it was conception. That is the religious basis for the pro-life movement. But we all know that the definition of a human being is more complicated then just stating a biological function.

For instance, if by some technical means doctors were able to separate the head from the body and keep both alive, which one is a human being? We would all say the head because that is where the brain lies. But what if the brain is incapable of any thought at all yet the body keeps it alive? That is the essence of the Shiavo case and countless others. It's not an easy question to answer.
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What a human being is can be defined, and it is defined legally.

From https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8

(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
(b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion
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Re: What do we replace religion with?

Vadinho said:
That actually is a decent definition but it hardly describes every condition of a human life especially at the end of life or if science can manipulate life.
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No, it doesn't... However, when it comes to 'end of life'.. there is the definition fro 'brain dead'. Some clarification of being 'alive' can be done.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

gfm7175 said:
I have already supported them...


You sound very open-minded... (sarcasm)
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1- No you have not supported anything, you have put your view forth and nothing else. I will ask you this...what expert can back up or support the claims you are making??

2- What people may these be??? Once again cannot support anything said. What is the definition of interpretation???

3- Once again you put forth broad and sweeping claims and can only support them with broad and sweeping areas. If I was asked in school, university or by my boss "Where did you get your views or logic from?" I most definitely would think you wouldn't broadly put forth the answer you did.... Avoiding the specificity of the question points to your inability to the answer the question.

4- I never stated they were identical. You seem to have glossed over my point of different countries and regions having differing interpretations and language conversions. Do you disagree that something said in English when converted over could mean something slightly different in French??

5- These areas still define a word.... You are attempting to avoid dictionaries for which define and have reverted over to philosophy, logic etc.. which also defines. Dictionaries are used by everyone in the world in school, university, college and work, yet you are going against what the masses are doing and have been doing for centuries just because it disproves your point on religion.

So you are claiming that education systems have been teaching wrong definitions for which everyone (except you) is basing there responses on this forum off?? What a sweeping, unsupported and far reaching claim you have made.

6- HERE WE AGO AGAIN. YOU JUST STATED THAT MY VIEW (THAT IS DICTIONARIES DEFINE WORDS) ARE NOT UNIVERSALLY HELD?? PLEASE... You have backed everything up with your view, of which has not been supported by academics, philosophical teachings, doctrine, articles etc..

7- It nots you haven't heard a good counter argument...its you don't agree with it thus asserting it as a poor counter argument. Its my view backed up by universally held ideas and yours which is merely opinion.

8- I will add something into the question to ensure clarity "So my parents didn't teach me some of the manners, respect, values, decisions and actions I hold today according to your fallacy??" Is that true or not??

9- I will ask this again...Is Science proving Pluto (the planet exists) an observation?
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Oy!
We're "discussing" definition, disagreeing about definition, without discussing "definition," without agreeing on the definition of "definition."
Sisyphus Redux.
 
Re: What do we replace religion with?

Angel said:
Oy!
We're "discussing" definition, disagreeing about definition, without discussing "definition," without agreeing on the definition of "definition."
Sisyphus Redux.
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Definitions
Definitions have interested philosophers since ancient times. Plato’s early dialogues portray Socrates raising questions about definitions (e.g., in the Euthyphro, “What is piety?”)—questions that seem at once profound and elusive. The key step in Anselm’s “Ontological Proof” for the existence of God is the definition of “God,” and the same holds of Descartes’s version of the argument in his Meditation V. More recently, the Frege-Russell definition of number and Tarski’s definition of truth have exercised a formative influence on a wide range of contemporary philosophical debates. In all these cases—and many others can be cited—not only have particular definitions been debated; the nature of, and demands on, definitions have also been debated. Some of these debates can be settled by making requisite distinctions, for definitions are not all of one kind: definitions serve a variety of functions, and their general character varies with function. Some other debates, however, are not so easily settled, as they involve contentious philosophical ideas such as essence, concept, and meaning.
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/
 
Angel said:
Eyewash, Tim the Plumber.
This sort of reasoning has put atheism in bad odor in the last fifteen years.
So, in case I don't believe in Odin and Santa, tell me why I don't believe in Odin and Santa?
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Well, you deliberatly condesending provocateur, you don't believe in them because there is a total lack of any supporting evidence to indicate that they are real.
 
Rising Sun said:
Because you choose not to believe for lack of evidence. Nothing wrong with that idea. However, when the idea of "disbelieving" becomes mandatory without proof, then societies have a problem.
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It is only you who has this idea of positive disbelief.
 
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