bacht

I agree. If you are saying that religion is rational and philosophical, then you are not using the conventional definitions of one or more of these words.

Elijah

Religion is a very broad word if you are using Religion as supernatural I think it is you who are using your own definitions. Religion can be based in the supernatural or a philosophy.

Amaleq13

Which is, apparently, everyone except you (and, I guess, No Robots)?

IMO, Don has a much better grasp of the source materials and related concepts than you have demonstrated.

It is not an assumption but a conclusion from the texts which quite explicitly describe supernatural beliefs with no disclaimer or alternate explanation.

What you continue to lack is any indication in those texts that early Christians like Paul were as thoroughly rational as you claim.

bacht

religion

1a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

philosophy

1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
3. A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.
4. The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
5. The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.
6. The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
7. A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity; an underlying theory: an original philosophy of advertising.
8. A system of values by which one lives: has an unusual philosophy of life.

rational

1. Having or exercising the ability to reason.
2. Of sound mind; sane.
3. Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. See synonyms at logical.
4. Mathematics Capable of being expressed as a quotient of integers.

supernatural

1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
4. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
5. Of or relating to the miraculous.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

Elijah

point?

bacht

The point is that you need to provide us with your definitions of such words, if it's not the standard usage. Otherwise we won't understand what you're saying.

Elijah

I am using them standardly. It's you who are limiting the word religion to supernatural which the definitions you provided do not illustrate.

Amaleq13

Or you can just read Paul:

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1Thess4:16-18, KJV)

Elijah

Yea Paul the dead were going be resurrected with different bodies because he saw the flesh as corrupt. As in 1 Corinthians 15:50.

spin

And resurrection itself, be it in another body, was not seen as contrary to the natural way of things?


spin