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points by marky1991 3 days ago | 0 comments

'Religion is culture...'

This argument appears to me unjustified. This equating between culture and religion seems especially unworkable in modern times, where cultural groups don't have single religions at all. Eg in america there is in my opinion a single shared american culture, shared across people of different religions. If we were to equate these two things, does that imply that there is no shared american culture? I just don't see how this interpretation doesn't lead to a single stretched 'culture' term which basically ends up subsuming everything about people, and don't see how it is a useful term or how it aids in thought or understanding.

In this case, the point really isn't 'culture' vs 'religion' it's 'moral' vs 'preference'. Consuming vegemite is not a moral mandate for anyone, it's just a preference, like mayonnaise, fashion, or coke.

[–] ghusto 3 days ago

My argument is that a religion _is in itself_ a cultural group. Religion is culture, it's just that we have given it special status because people take it (much) more seriously than any other culture.

[–] Cpoll 3 days ago

> does that imply that there is no shared american culture?

I think you might've convinced me of this just with your comment.

Also, flip "religion" and "culture" and the post still (mostly) works, though I don't think that proves anything.

The moral/preference idea is closer, but you get a lot of gray areas like sports teams and Sunday roasts (complete with threat of excommunication for non-adherence).

[–] s1artibartfast 3 days ago

Right, which is why the distinction exists between religion and moral preference. One invokes a supernatural higher power, while the other does not.

In the US, we often make an exception for the former but not the latter. Sometimes we do both.

For example there is a conscientious objector exemption from the military draft.

[–] ghusto 3 days ago

Is Buddhism a religion? There's no supernatural higher power there?

Buddhism is actually a great example, because it shows how one can choose their religion just as they can their cultural preferences.

[–] TFNA 3 days ago

Buddhism as actually practiced for the last 2500 years ascribes all kinds of deity-like features and the supernatural to the Buddha – travel Asia and you’ll see people praying to Amitabha Buddha in order to be reborn in his Pure Land, and even Theravada Buddhism that doesn't go whole hog with pantheons still holds that the Buddha was divinely immune to fire, poison, and drowning. A non-supernatural Buddha is largely a feature of the twentieth-century West, which thought it could get something in tune with a more rational era by reviving, so it thought, “original Buddhism” with questionable results. Even non-revival, supernaturally charged strands of Buddhism have their converts in the West.

[–] ghusto 2 days ago

Sure, and there are followers of Christ who also do all the things he said not to (Catholics). I don't take a religion's followers as good examples of the founders intents.

[–] TFNA 2 days ago

The intent of Buddhism's founder is ultimately unknowable. The earliest source we have, the Pali canon, already contains the supernatural and the mythological. It cannot be emphasized enough just how modern attempts to reconstruct the "original" Buddhism are, and they are simply unfalsifiable.

[–] s1artibartfast 2 days ago

Yes? I dont think anyone disputing that religion can be chosen? How is this relevant?

[–] rendx 3 days ago

> One invokes a supernatural higher power

Like the flying spaghetti monster?

[–] s1artibartfast 2 days ago

If someone actually believed it, sure.

[–] ok_dad 3 days ago

> in america there is in my opinion a single shared american culture, shared across people of different religions

Describe that single culture.

[–] donkey_brains 3 days ago

“Fuck you, I got mine and I’ll step on your neck to keep it.”