Downvoted not for the claim “religion is good” but for the definition of religion. Sure, It’s easy to define religion so broadly it captures almost every group activity people are highly invested in, and then say it’s good. But that’s meaningless.
“Religion” as conventionally used is already so broad that it includes examples that lack almost every individual feature we typically associate with the category. It hardly seems coincidental that the OP chose Soto Zen, which manages to reject a lot of the components of other religions that are more problematic.
Some religions lack gods. Some lack moral laws. Some lack a consistent set of claims about the universe at all. Some lack worship or prayer. Some lack priests or other intermediaries.
If we start from words being defined extensionally instead of by dictionaries, then this is fine. But if you try to find any vaguely natural seeming intensional definition at all, I think it’s going to include a lot of extra stuff we don’t usually think of as religious. Some of that stuff is good, and it might add up to a net good.
Is it, though? As I see it part of my confusion when younger is that I only really thought of religion as one thing. By expanding what we think of as religion it changes the category in a way that is more useful to us. As I think of it, it’s like taking back a word that we’ve let a few organizations take away from us and control the meaning of.
I’m having a hard time seeing the difference between “expanding what we think of as religion” and “define religion so broadly it captures almost every group activity people are highly invested in”.
Downvoted not for the claim “religion is good” but for the definition of religion. Sure, It’s easy to define religion so broadly it captures almost every group activity people are highly invested in, and then say it’s good. But that’s meaningless.
“Religion” as conventionally used is already so broad that it includes examples that lack almost every individual feature we typically associate with the category. It hardly seems coincidental that the OP chose Soto Zen, which manages to reject a lot of the components of other religions that are more problematic.
Some religions lack gods. Some lack moral laws. Some lack a consistent set of claims about the universe at all. Some lack worship or prayer. Some lack priests or other intermediaries.
If we start from words being defined extensionally instead of by dictionaries, then this is fine. But if you try to find any vaguely natural seeming intensional definition at all, I think it’s going to include a lot of extra stuff we don’t usually think of as religious. Some of that stuff is good, and it might add up to a net good.
Is it, though? As I see it part of my confusion when younger is that I only really thought of religion as one thing. By expanding what we think of as religion it changes the category in a way that is more useful to us. As I think of it, it’s like taking back a word that we’ve let a few organizations take away from us and control the meaning of.
I’m having a hard time seeing the difference between “expanding what we think of as religion” and “define religion so broadly it captures almost every group activity people are highly invested in”.
ETA: localdeity said it far better.