A More Accurate Categorization of Religion

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

There are two continua, one of certitude and the other of the boldness of the claims you are making. The first is the agnostic/gnostic axis, and the other is the theist/atheist axis.

Agnostic side (Strongest to weakest):

Radical agnosticism: Essentially solipsism or epistemic nihilism. Denies the possibility of knowing anything.

Strong agnosticism: Denies the possibility of ever knowing anything about god/the supernatural.

Weak agnosticism: Has theological positions but claims that too little is known at present in order to have any confidence.

Gnostic side (Weakest to strongest):

Weak gnosticism: Has theological positions and is open to the possibility of being wrong but still thinks there is enough evidence to have
confidence

(I would place Richard Dawkins here between the two).

Strong gnosticism: Is nearly 100% certain about currently held theological positions and thinks that considering the possibility of being wrong is a waste of time, because while the belief may technically be wrong the chances of it being so are to small to warrant consideration.

Radical gnosticism: Basically History Land or Bluth but with regards to theology rather than economics.

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Theist side (Boldest to least bold)

Total anti-science/anti-rational: Flat Earthers, Answers in Genesis, Gorilla199 (batshit crazy Christian YouTuber and conspiracy theorist)

Militant Fundamentalist: Al Qaeda, the abortion clinic bombers and shooters, suicide bombers, etc.

Literalists/Fundamentalists: Reject large parts of modern science if it conflicts with their worldview. Believe their holy text is 100% literally true.

Biblical Seriousnessists (could not come up with a better word): Take the Bible (or the Koran or Torah or whatever) very seriously. May take large portions of it literally. Probably reject evolution and old Earth.

Catholic Church/Mainstream Protestant: Often not sola scriptura. Usually accepts evolutionary theory. Still takes most of the bible seriously.

Liberal/Moderate Christian: Accepts evolution and all of modern science (all of it they know of until neuroscience advances). Considers large parts of the bible to be symbolic or even errant word of man. Believes in modern sensibility trumping biblical law. Tends not to believe in hell.

Universalist: Believes that the given religion of choice is just one of many, apparently equally valid, paths to get to god. Does not consider any religion to be wrong.

Deist: Does not believe in a personal god, just a prime mover. May not even believe in an afterlife

Atheist side (Least to most bold):

Pantheism: Like Albert Einstein, Percy Byshe Shelley, and Baruch Spinoza. Calls god and nature the same thing. Has a religious belief or attitude toward nature.

Non-Theism: Does not accept that any gods exist. Does not believe in the gods of any given religion.

Naturalist: Not only rejects gods but also rejects any and all supernatural/paranormal claims. Considers epiphenomena to really exist.

Materialist: All that exists is physical phenomena. Considers both QFT actions and particles to really exist. Rejects that epiphenomena are anything more than a convenient abstraction.

Naive Materialist: Believes that only matter exists. Denies that energy or momentum are real.

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There's a more sophisticated picture of what's really going on.

I would place myself probably where Dawkins is. I think the probability that I am correct is rather high. I have yet to conclude whether or not epiphenomena are real, so I'm either a naturalist or a materialist depending.

[Stargate Centurion]

A More Accurate Title would be "A More Accurate Categorization of Religion (Christianity)".

[Taeshan]

Oh this will be fun.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

A More Accurate Title would be "A More Accurate Categorization of Religion (Christianity)".

If you have some other religious positions that you know enough about so that I could categorize them, please tell me.

[New Kereptica]

Radical agnostic. Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh.

[Conserative Morality]

In that case, I'd be described as a 'Strong Agnostic Deist'

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Radical agnostic. Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh.

You don't believe in the possibility of knowing anything at all? You don't believe that we can have any confidence in anything even with mountains of evidence?

[Takaram]

'Bout the same as you, UnhealthyTruthseeker

[New Kereptica]

Radical agnostic. Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh.

You don't believe in the possibility of knowing anything at all? You don't believe that we can have any confidence in anything even with mountains of evidence?

Confidence? Perhaps. But we certainly can't know.

[Maurepas]

Strong Agnostic, my position exactly...

Non-Theist as well...

[Bavin]

When I saw this thread, my first thought was: Hmm, I categorize organized religion as Death Insurance, wonder what other people think... Turns out that's not what the thread was about.

[Stargate Centurion]

A More Accurate Title would be "A More Accurate Categorization of Religion (Christianity)".

If you have some other religious positions that you know enough about so that I could categorize them, please tell me.

Given many religions don't have a specific religious text and many, including my own (my specific branch of Hinduism) don't have a singular religious text/have multiple religious texts, the entire "Theist" side of the equation goes out of the window, since it's not about accepting or rejecting [religious text] at all. You totally misunderstand religion in that for many religions, it isn't at all about *how much* of [religious text] you accept, it's about things like tradition and family (things, which incidentally, have absolutely nothing to do with whether you accept evolution as a theory or not). This is not the case for most Western religions (so a Western mindset would no doubt not see this), but for much of the rest of the world, religion is more about continuity and tradition and less about evolution and Darwinism.

The first problem with this list is how it defines "religion" and "religious belief".

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Confidence? Perhaps. But we certainly can't know.

I don't know as I would say that something has to be 100% undeniably certain in order to count as knowledge.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Given many religions don't have a specific religious text and many, including my own (my specific branch of Hinduism) don't have a singular religious text/have multiple religious texts, the entire "Theist" side of the equation goes out of the window, since it's not about accepting or rejecting [religious text] at all. You totally misunderstand religion in that for many religions, it isn't at all about *how much* of [religious text] you accept, it's about things like tradition and family (things, which incidentally, have absolutely nothing to do with whether you accept evolution as a theory or not). This is not the case for most Western religions (so a Western mindset would no doubt not see this), but for much of the rest of the world, religion is more about continuity and tradition and less about evolution and Darwinism.

The first problem with this list is how it defines "religion" and "religious belief".

I'm categorizing theism according to how bold of a claim the proponents make. A god that just starts everything out is less bold than a god that answers prayers. It's about deviation from the norm of a zero claim. In the Abrahamic tradition, this boldness tends to correlate nicely with how much of the holy book you accept. Just because that correlation does not exist in other religions does not mean that I can't put them on this axis. I just need to find out how far their beliefs tend to deviate from the zero claim.

[Stargate Centurion]

I'm categorizing theism according to how bold of a claim the proponents make. A god that just starts everything out is less bold than a god that answers prayers. It's about deviation from the norm of a zero claim. In the Abrahamic tradition, this boldness tends to correlate nicely with how much of the holy book you accept. Just because that correlation does not exist in other religions does not mean that I can't put them on this axis. I just need to find out how far their beliefs tend to deviate from the zero claim.

The problem comes in that a) you never actually define what a "bold" and a "less bold" claim is for a non-Western religion, b) you make the naive assumption that the reader can automatically do said transposition and c) you assume that "boldness" can be traced along a linear path. Along the lines of the last, the fact is that segments of the BJP and the Shiv Sena are radical about entirely different things and in entirely different ways, just as some of Mayawati's religious followers can be considered radical in how they uphold their traditions but less radical in that she's a Dalit and therefore voting for her goes against their traditions. Without any kind of actual scale (and I seriously doubt that a scale can be made that traced everything specifically linearly), your categorization becomes utterly meaningless. It just so happens that it's easier with Christianity (n your opinion - I happen to think there's a lot more as to how "bold" the proponents of a religion are than simply adhering to one religious text. After all, many so-called conservative Christians are known for abstaining in other ways, including the fact that the vast majority of Americans are not radicals in terms of things like going to church [afaik]), which is why I called the thread what I did in terms of simply Western religions.

EDIT: apologies if I'm not entirely coherent. I have ear infections in both ears and the flu, so I'm not in the best shape of my life.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

The problem comes in that a) you never actually define what a "bold" and a "less bold" claim is for a non-Western religion, b) you make the naive assumption that the reader can automatically do said transposition and c) you assume that "boldness" can be traced along a linear path. Along the lines of the last, the fact is that segments of the BJP and the Shiv Sena are radical about entirely different things and in entirely different ways, just as some of Mayawati's religious followers can be considered radical in how they uphold their traditions but less radical in that she's a Dalit and therefore voting for her goes against their traditions. Without any kind of actual scale (and I seriously doubt that a scale can be made that traced everything specifically linearly), your categorization becomes utterly meaningless. It just so happens that it's easier with Christianity (n your opinion - I happen to think there's a lot more as to how "bold" the proponents of a religion are than simply adhering to one religious text. After all, many so-called conservative Christians are known for abstaining in other ways, including the fact that the vast majority of Americans are not radicals in terms of things like going to church [afaik]), which is why I called the thread what I did in terms of simply Western religions.

EDIT: apologies if I'm not entirely coherent. I have ear infections in both ears and the flu, so I'm not in the best shape of my life.

1) Scales are not linear or non-linear. Linearity is a property of relationships like functions, functionals, relations, and equations.

2) It does not matter what they are "radical on," if they deviate strongly from the zero claim, then they are far along on the theist axis. The only reason that all the religious positions on my axis are radical in the same way is because the only religions I know a lot about are the Abrahamic ones.

[Ryadn]

I don't know what QFT actions or epiphenomena are. Do they give you money for your teeth, or steal your kidneys?

[Stargate Centurion]

1) Scales are not linear or non-linear. Linearity is a property of relationships like functions, functionals, relations, and equations.

Apologies, would you like me to have said "one-dimensional"? I was thinking in terms of the analogy of something like a number line versus a plane versus a 3-D graph. I'm not really thinking very clearly right now, tyvm. You knew exactly what I meant (I hope! Otherwise then I worse than I expected).

2) It does not matter what they are "radical on," if they deviate strongly from the zero claim, then they are far along on the theist axis.

And, given that they'll deviate in utterly different ways, at utterly different levels, how do you propose quantifying that? It's not like it's "adherence to book or not", which can be quantified, at least somewhat. You have an infinite number of variables and you don't even know how you're measuring them.

Such a scale is inherently going to be *really* subjective and, thus, moving further from "accurate".

The only reason that all the religious positions on my axis are radical in the same way is because the only religions I know a lot about are the Abrahamic ones.

Then don't say "religion". Which is exactly what my first post in the thread said. Essentially, I've proven the point that I set out to prove.

EDIT 3: anyway, I feel like crap, I'm going to sleep. Sorry for wasting your time.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I don't know what QFT actions or epiphenomena are. Do they give you money for your teeth, or steal your kidneys?

QFT stands for quantum field theory (and quoted for truth, but you already knew that). Actions such as the transfer of virtual photons is what I was referring to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomena

Basically, Newton's laws, the solidity of objects, consciousness, etc.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Apologies, would you like me to have said "one-dimensional"? I was thinking in terms of the analogy of something like a number line versus a plane versus a 3-D graph. I'm not really thinking very clearly right now, tyvm. You knew exactly what I meant (I hope! Otherwise then I worse than I expected).

Actually, I didn't know what you meant.

And, given that they'll deviate in utterly different ways, at utterly different levels, how do you propose quantifying that? It's not like it's "adherence to book or not", which can be quantified, at least somewhat. You have an infinite number of variables and you don't even know how you're measuring them.

Such a scale is inherently going to be *really* subjective and, thus, moving further from "accurate".

The one scale is about certitude. The other is about, let me put it this way, how much justification and/or evidence is required for the claimant's position. Do you know of a third axis to add?

[Ryadn]

I believe weakly in QFT actions--I simply don't know enough to take a strong position. With more reading, though, I believe that belief (heh) would strengthen.

I'm still unclear about epiphenomena... although I've been typing, deleting and re-typing for the past five minutes as I work through it, so I guess I'm less confused now but still uncertain. I keep returning to the reality of "thoughts", which I believe are the product of the physical brain, but can also change the physical brain... it doesn't seem like anything one could declare belief or disbelief in, does it? See, this is why I couldn't sleep all night after reading about neuroscience for four hours.

I suppose I'd tentatively say I'm a strong agnostic naturalist.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I believe weakly in QFT actions--I simply don't know enough to take a strong position. With more reading, though, I believe that belief (heh) would strengthen.

I'm still unclear about epiphenomena... although I've been typing, deleting and re-typing for the past five minutes as I work through it, so I guess I'm less confused now but still uncertain. I keep returning to the reality of "thoughts", which I believe are the product of the physical brain, but can also change the physical brain... it doesn't seem like anything one could declare belief or disbelief in, does it? See, this is why I couldn't sleep all night after reading about neuroscience for four hours.

I suppose I'd tentatively say I'm a strong agnostic naturalist.

Basically, if you take apart the brain, it's all neurons, glial cells, and chemistry. The difference between the naturalist and the materialist would be over whether the fact of hierarchical reductionism makes higher levels of abstraction real or not. The naturalist would say that even though you can ultimately pull things apart to a more basic level, the higher level of abstraction still exists. The materialist would say that the higher level of abstraction is simply a convenient model, and doesn't technically exist.

[Funk4ever]

I'm a Liberal/moderate Christian and weak gnostic?

Seems I'm a centrist in yet another... principle.

[Kagetora]

By your system, I am probably a Radical Gnostic Naturalist

[Techno-Soviet]

Somewhere around strong agnostic non-theist.