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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Different sets of assumptions - response to Laura
Message-ID: <5176@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 11:41:17 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5176
Posted: Wed Mar  6 11:41:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 11:41:17 EST
References: <589@pyuxd.UUCP> <5135@utzoo.UUCP>, <617@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 39

Rich,
your personal definition of ``religion'' implies a worship of a deity,
and your personal definition of ``worship'' implies the existence
of a deity -- or deities, I suppose.

Unfortunately, you are in Humpty Dumpty mode again. Everybody else
(yes, I am sure you could drag up people who agree with you, that
wasn't meant to be taken literally) just doesn't use words that way.
This definition of religon is true for Judaism, Christianity and
Islam -- though I know Gnostics who consider themselves Christian
and who don't ``worship God'' (according to them, Jesus was *not*
God, and worshipping the Demiurge [sp?] is a mistake) (as opposed
to the Yezidees who have a similar world view and who are
proclaimed Satanists) and I am not sure how to characterise
Sufism.

You seem to have left out Hinduism (though some Hindus do ``worship''
as you understand the term) Buddhism, Taoism, and a great many
``primative religions'' found in Malasia, Africa, and the Americas.
The european pagan tradition (assuming that you believe that there 
was one, and that it is connected to current paganism, the point
being hotly debated in anthropological circles today) would be very
divided into worshippers and non-worshippers by your standard -- all
depending on what and how one takes to be symbols.

That is a lot of people who consider themsleves ``religious'' and who
have designed ceremonies, and build statues, frescos and temples
and in general gathered together to express a common belief and
practice which they considered religious whom you are not recognising.

Why must we all adopt your definitions? It seems that you are only
willing to discuss what are called ``Judeao-Christian religions''
(the authority centred, God creator ones) and, at that, I can't
remember you discussing Islam ever, or Judaism much. If what you
want to discuss is Christianity, then, you are in the wrong newsgroup,
even if ``religion'' is synonymous with ``christianity'' to you.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura