spin

In reading much of what people post to this forum, I often find mention of forgery, fraud, and deception given as having occurred in the development of religious culture. These things involve (remunerative) gain, and manipulation and control of the religionist. Do you believe that they are at the heart of religions?

Toto

I don't think that religion is based on dishonesty, but I do think that religious leaders are prone to self-deception and sometimes use deception for what they see as good. I.e., the motive is not private gain or remuneration, but keeping the religious community together or maintaining control over it.

There are lots of outright forgeries in early Christian documents. But I suspect that all of those forgers thought they were doing the right thing in some sense.

Did you mean to confine this question to Biblical religions of the sort discussed in this forum?

spin

I left it open, as I would think the reader would feel the same about any religion, but I guess most readers are aware only of those you mention.


spin


(Oh, and vote, Toto.)

Godless Wonder

I voted yes definitely. One word: "Scientology." Prosecution rests.

Cretinist

I think the well-documented history of modern religious movements pretty much forces us to conclude that yes, dishonesty is a fundamental aspect of the formation of a religion. And I don't see any reason to believe it was any different in the past.

rlogan

Spin -

In fairness, you are referring to people who promote an idea, and that would be me. But you are being like the creationist who says abiogenesis and origin of the universe are part of evolutionary theory - defining your own words to suit you.

I have been adamant that I am using these terms in accordance with their definitions:

Fraud, according to Merriam Webster -

1 a : DECEIT, TRICKERY; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : TRICK
2 a : a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : IMPOSTOR; also : one who defrauds : CHEAT b : one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

"Forge", according to Merriam Webster -

1 a : to form (as metal) by heating and hammering b : to form (metal) by a mechanical or hydraulic press with or without heat
2 : to make or imitate falsely especially with intent to defraud : COUNTERFEIT
3 : to form or bring into being especially by an expenditure of effort <working to forge party unity>

With respect to fraud, it is clear you wish to restrict its definition to a money crime. Same with forgery. That is one restrictive case only.

With deceit, you want to imbue the term strictly with those cases of deceit with bad intentions. I see that is being followed here by other posters.

Deception is not a matter of intentions. Magic tricks are deceptions. It is irrelevant if it is strictly for delight.

This is a strange thing coming from people who demand science and empirical history - making your own definitions. Especially when I have been so careful to advance the definitions as those in the dictionary.

So here is what you are doing, for example: The gospels were not written by their supposed authors.

What word would you like to use for that? You don't like forgery or deception. But that is what they are. So what are they then? What word can we use to describe that action of placing a false name upon the writing?

Moses claimed to be the man who talks to and receives physical tablets from God. That would be fraud. You don't like that word. Well, what word do you want to use? Besides, you don't think this representation brought him gain?

Tell me what word you want to use for the man who claims to have gone up on a mountain and received tablets engraved with commandments directly from God. Those are physical things, not stuff he could have hallucinated about.

Adulation is a powerful drug. If you have ever been in front of a big crowd of people you know what I mean. Whether it brings you money or not a deception based on a thirst for that "fix" is still fraud, deception, or forgery.

You have misrepresented my position.

spin

Wiggling on the non-intentional aspects of "deception" isn't very helpful -- I don't think.

I don't think so. This is what I said:

These things involve (remunerative) gain, and manipulation and control of the religionist.

See what I actually said (in bold above).

Yessireebob.

Wrongful accusation, I'd say.

When did the authors' name get attached to the works? Before or after Papias? We have four gospels that get names attached to them and as they aren't the names of the people who wrote them, there must be deception involved. Well, first, when people use the term deception as describing people's actions, it certainly has negative connotations, despite your card trick reference. I don't think there is any deception involved in the gospels and their supposed authors. Later tradition has exacerbated a problem that shouldn't be.

By the time the Moses stuff was written down there had long been a tradition with much interwoven in it. Do you want to say that there is deception in writing the stuff down? They were after all the traditions of the society. Do you want to call the development of the giving of the law deception? Or might it have been a collection of tropes that existed in the cultural continuum which gathered bones. Law-givers abound. Special relationshps between a culture and its gods abound. Mythological means of dealing with cultural reality abound.

Which man claims that? There isn't much point in reifying traditions.

We're not dealing with a stadium here. We're dealing with ordinary people who need to deal with their ordinary lives in a far off time and place, well before the advent of the new religion, science. People need to feel they understand the world around them, whether their understanding is correct or not being irrelevant.

Much of the Hebrew bible is aetiological, ie explaining how things came to be, giving some semblance of coherence to the world of 2000 years ago. It also gives explanations as to why things go wrong.

It also institutionalises traditions that existed at the time, such as all the priestly data found in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

Psalms have people wrestling with all sorts of problems, as do Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.

The prophets are trying to cope with events as they affect them, using all the art of poetry.

Most of this literature is built up through accretion, thoughts are added in various ways, and such additions tend to alter the original text in various subtle ways, producing new documents. These are complex documents. Retrojecting modern ideas into ancient times will not help very much in understanding the what and why of the documents.

I don't consider that I have misrepresented your position -- to the degree that I wasn't dealing specifically with you --, and I don't think I've done unfairly with what you have said.

I'm not trying to hassle anyone. I'd like these ideas to get debated.


spin

Adora

Hmm tough question.

I can't put it down to one answer in the poll, so I'll do it here.

I do not believe any relgion starts as anything except a view on life expressed by a legendary individual. Depending on the environment, the view then spreads or dies. You get issues of dishonesty though, when the environment changes into something else, and the group who still holds certain views realises that those views are not really applicable any longer, but give them power and make them feel safe anyway, so they'll just hang on to them. The dishonesty happens because of this fear of loss of control, and huge systems of thought and legend and morality and control are built to keep back the change. And yes, I think that is dishonest. I think this control without reason at the heart of religion is dishonest.

rlogan

Spin, I've seen you make some good points here & there, I'm disappointed to see you fudging in order to influence this poll. Look at your last poll category. I have quoted the "modern" definition from Webster - which precisely includes that which you are "wiggleing" so hard to exclude.

You introduce a strawman restrictive definition and then provide a question that says this definition is too restrictive as an option.

I really do mean this kindly, Spin - if this were a completely forthright approach then you wouldn't do that.

You also blew a lot of smoke, spin -

But you have not provided an alternative word for characterization of the sorts of things religionists did.

Please do so. What words for these factual actions do you wish to advance?

I see your definition was even more restrictive than I realized:

I have demonstrated the first part is deceptive. You would have to insert the word "can", or "often" for it to be true. You are pretending to be an authority on this word, above Merriam Webster.

Using the word "and" insead of "or" makes it necessary for both to be true. That is more restrictive still.

Helpful for what? Look, spin - I have stated repeatedly that sometimes religionists think they are acting out of noble motives. Sometimes it is outright greed. Either way, it is deception.

You are trying to ascertain how many people think there are bad motives behind religion - not whethere there is deception

So why don't you just make that clear instead?

In one sentence you could do this, Spin:

"I see, rlogan, that you are following the definition of deception, which does not distiguish motive"

Do me this kindness, Spin - recognize what I have said.


sincerely, rlogan

spin

Look at the synonyms of the word "deception". We are dealing with the way the word is normally used. Here are the synonyms from an old Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:

"fraud, double-dealing, subterfuge, trickery, chicane, chicanery"

We are dealing with the common understanding of the word "deception".

Fraud has as its adjective "fraudulent", whose definition (from the Collegiate) is

"using fraud or deceit; Characterized by or founded on fraud; of the nature of fraud; obtained or performed by artifice"

The Collegiate in trying to make distinctions, says of "fraud": "fraud always implies guilt, often criminality, in act or practice". (This is under "deception".)

Hopefully you won't need "forgery", which means something more than "copy".

I don't really want to say more, because we may skew the poll.

And can we stick to what is said rather than all this "you" stuff?


spin