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Old 01-01-2008, 07:16 AM   #5 (permalink)
Og
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There's no such thing as a society without religion. Religion is a word built from two components that have latin roots. "Re" which means "pointing back" which you find in words like remake, reply, renew, etc. Ligio which means to connect (words such as ligament and ligand).

Religion is a structured cultural system that links people to human existence in a manner handed around by the previous members of a culture.

This is the way that Joseph Campbell described religion in "The Power of Myth" interview series with him and Bill Moyers. A religionless society is without culture or cohesion and really wouldn't be considered a society at all. There would be no bond or interaction between people.

Using this definition, science is a religion. In my opinion, science is the religion that the world is going towards. Religion doesn't have to mean "belief in some ultimate being" or any manner of mythological crap like that. For example, buddhism and shinto are atheistic religions but religions none-the-less.

Let our icons change from Genesis, the virgin mary and jesus to maxwell's equations, the voyager satellites, and images returned by the hubble telescope. I see no reason why society needs to be without real religion in terms of the definition provided by Campbell.

In fact, buddhist cultures are agnostic cultures. Science is necessarily an agnostic approach to truth. Both of these cultures don't actively seek to find what is truth. They seek to remove what is not truth from the scope of possibilities.
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