On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:10:47 -0400, Christopher P McDill
<cpm20 at columbia.edu> wrote:
Dear McDill:
First thanks for your response.
> I feel I should give a nutshell critique of your manifesto here.
>You are clearly trying to promote an idea based on some kind of epiphany
>that you've had, but you've not done enough homework to justify turning a
>hypothesis into a "philosophy."
> Firstly, your definition of religious thinking suffers the same
>flaws that Sigmund Freud made in his work THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION. In
>this work, Freud pulled a definition of religion out of thin air based on
>his own western-protestant prejudices, further flavored by semantic
>relations found in his native German language ("this is synonymous with
>that").
Do you recognize the summary I presented as having it's origin in
Freud? I have been working on the ideas for some time but was
originally supplied the concepts from some mentors. If they are not
original, I would like to know.
> There has been a huge amount of research in the fields of
>Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Comparative Religion (and a
>consequent huge body of scholarly work) seeking to arrive at a definition
>or characterization of "religion" that can apply universally to all
>cultures. It's tougher than most people might think.
>"Faith" and "humility" are not universal, for example.
If there is a religion that does not contain faith and humility, it
escapes my knowledge. As a matter of fact, I think these are
qualities of all human beings, even though some deny them.
> If you care to get a start on a more all-encompassing definition
>of religion, start with Emile Durckheim's work, then look at Weber &
>Mauss, Malinowski, Bataille, and Foucault. Forget Jung, Campbell, Freud,
>and Frazer. Too cluttered with myth and archetype.
The areas of sociology, anthropology, evolution of religious
literature and philosophy, addressed by these cited authors are more
general than I am interested. But I certainly will continue to wade
through the tons of stuff by and about these writers. Much of it has
nothing to do with religion. Could you be more specifc?
> You further complicate your approach by attaching
>biological/functional attributes to religion, little or no hard-science
>citation. Please give a more convincing, empirical argument.
This is not just a furthur complication, it is the thrust of my post.
Also, I must mention that there is no "hard-science" citation. Most
people don't even consider this subject to be a aspect of
biodetermination. That's why I'm posting it.
>Science is no place for semantic games.
Science starts with semantics continues to evidence, inserts reason
and sometimes creates games. One can't get away from it, Chris.
> Good luck.
thanks for the authors, I had no idea, your response is deeply
appreciated.
rich
http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/idealism
