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ISRP February 5


Is there anything you want more of from this class? Suggestions were given in class, but if you feel that you didn't get a chance, then email me.

I then tried to transition from philosophy to religion by pointing out that while philosophy attempts to answer the questions "what is right?" and "what is real?," religion definitively answers them. Without defining religion, I claimed that two important components of it are:
  • required beliefs, called "dogma" (more or less, these are taken to be axioms), and
  • shared stories and rituals, that is, a culture.
For example, the Christian faith has various dogmata, such as: the Bible is the word of God, Jesus was the son of God, Jesus rose from the grave, etc. These are required beliefs. However, examining these required beliefs, one would never come up with the Easter Bunny or Easter egg hunts; these rituals, though part of the faith as it is practiced today, are separate from the dogma.

We discussed how members of a religion are identified. Though members of a faith, especially more extreme members, are quick to decide who else qualifies as a member of that faith, that is not our job. Those who study religion find out someone's religion by asking them. For example, if I ask John what his religion is, and he says "Christian," I say "okay;" I don't ask him to show me his credentials. We say that John is a "self-identified Christian."

Then I showed this (except with Chinese Folk Religion in 4th place, where some other counts put it).

I told you to use your best logical reasoning skills on this homework worksheet, an introduction to Buddhism.


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