rely] How about nations and politics? Religion - A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. Are Humans Evolved for Polygamy or Monogamy? This solves the problem of why religion can be both a help to societies but also cause war. It's the social glue that keeps us from coming undone into shear chaos and rules of the jungle anarchy. is first recorded early 13c. etc. If there has ever been a flagrantly anti-intellectual movement it is religion. Why is it sometimes salubrious and others pernicious? Religion silences the questions, inventions, innovations, explorations and intrepid scientific spirit that has made our species so great and instead substitutes a pale, weak, impotent myth for the glorious reality of possibilities. When we do what the lord says and rely on him we will ascend the mountain, but if we do not keep all the commandments and covenants God has given we will surely fall. "monastic life" (5c. Religion binds when it is nothing but a stringent set of rules/laws to live by. to seek an understanding of the universe and our place in it. I don't need to list out the historical wars that it has perennially caused. The etymology wasn't disputed. Theme images by. What's the Evolutionary Purpose of the Hymen? Picture Window theme. No, it doesn't. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and here's my view of this with a metaphor. Transferred sense of "scrupulous, exact" is recorded from 1590s. Can such a society persist? The reason bad people do bad things in the name of religion is because they have distorted what they think is right. I personally own a set of software valued at somewhere around or over 1000 dollars that contains copious grammars and dictionarys cross-referencing every location each word is used in the Bible and potentially every time it was used in the surviving manuscripts of that day (I can't bring myself to sell it even though I've sold copious amounts of my other theology book). A paraphrase of something Stephen Weinberg said--good people do good things and bad people bad things, but it takes religion to make a good person do bad things. ligament) + -iōn--ion; cf. When man creates religion based on what he thinks he is not relying on God he is relying on his ideas. http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Definitions.htm. The word religion comes from the Latin and while there are a few different translations, the most prevalent roots take you back to the Latin word “Re-Ligare”. You couldn't learn all there is to know in several life times. http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln101/defi... E.g. Please comment! And too many people I’ve known have found spirituality and religion to be different constructs, including that priest.I’ve come to see religion as a powerful form of memory, carrying repeatedly within a person, a group, and across generations, certain important ideas.Perhaps religion, for better and for worse, has a place in keeping alive certain core values and structures required by societies for survival.Compare this to a modern ocean of politically tortuous, monstrously expansive, and utterly unknowable bureaucratic codes and laws which seek to determine human behavior instead.In my opinion:The extent to which internalized, prosocial values exist in a population is inversely proportional to the number of laws and regulations it feels it must have to survive.It seems that as a society’s values corrode and weaken from within, it attempts to compensate with externally imposed laws and rules. evolution, embryonic stem cell research, heliocentrism, etc. Therefore, the etymology of the word religion is completely irrelevant to the conversation. It's the social glue that keeps us from coming undone into shear chaos and rules of the jungle anarchy. It has nothing to do with seeking an understanding of the universe or our place in it. I would say his quote refers to spirituality rather than religion. It has nothing to do with seeking an understanding of the universe or our place in it. ); according to Cicero, derived from, ). the William James quote: "[Religion is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.". The key factor is "rely." > The word religion means to "bind back" or "yolk". Why did I just say all that? the William James quote: "[Religion is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. However, popular etymology among the later ancients (and many modern writers) connects it with, ), via notion of "place an obligation on," or "bond between humans and gods." That's basically another way of saying what I said, and I don't see any reason not to include scientists under that umbrella. I didn't realize the etymology was in dispute, so my bad. I mean even the phrase from the paper "a quantum state eternally evolving in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space" sounds an awful lot like a conception of "the divine". It very well may come from the same word that 'ligament' comes from--the means that keeps our bones and joints in place and working properly. It binds us back to God. ". The rope (religion) binds us by the commandments we keep and covenants that we make with God. To break the ice of discussing a very interesting root word. Link: Caucasians=Neanderthal Hybrid, Asian=Erectus... Link: "Evolution gave flawed eye better vision", Link: Worm Escape Inversion--Awesome Adaptation, Link: 'You Are Here' Size Comparison of the Universe, Link: The Human Camera--A Savant's Genius, Link: Awesome Adaptation--Mammoth Anti-Freeze Blood. In climbing you have the climber, the rope, the anchor point, and the belayer. Ever since I took Greek classes in seminary I have been fully aware of how awesome learning the roots of words can be. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary traces the word back to an old Latin word religio meaning "taboo, restraint." The lord has said, "I the lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise. It sets free when it becomes a knowledge of the truth...a fulfillment of law. > Here you are retconing. "Cicero's analysis appears to be the earliest on record and may be more accurate by virtue of temporal proximity to the word's origin.This document is also useful:http://academic.regis.edu/tleining/Word%20Docs/1%20CK,%20ch.%201%20Defin...A "ligare", or "binding" quality is described 3-4 centuries later. The top of the mountain is God and the belayer is Christ. I love it! Links: "The World's Most Terrifying Penises". What other system of thought has systematically denied and suppressed information and whole fields of study, e.g. Another possible origin is. It keeps us sane. Excellent! Biology, religion, and even some eLearning, I find these to be more useful ways to look at religion:http://www.economist.com/comment/1175422#comment-1175422http://www.economist.com/comment/1175826#comment-1175826. True religion means being bound to God and relying on God. “Ligare” means “to bind” or to “connect”. The Modern English word religion doesn't mean the same thing as Latin religare, or even Latin religio, or even the original Middle English sense of religion. What was disputed is the way you are playing with etymology in order to get it to fit your desired narrative. > The Modern English word religion doesn't mean the same thing as Latin religare, or even Latin religio, or even the original Middle English sense of religion. Do you still want some of that "old-time religion"? [1150–1200; ME religioun (‹ OF religion) ‹ L religiōn-(s. of religiō) conscientiousness, piety, equiv. Religion, quite possibly, comes from a root word meaning 'to bind' (and interestingly enough, so does 'rely'! Adding the “re” before “ligare” causes the word to mean “Re-Bind” or “Re-Connect.” But regardless of whether religare or relegare is the etymological origin of religio, wouldn't either predate the concept of a monastic bond by centuries? Thanks so much for sharing that! > E.g. On one hand, you could say that religion is the thing that 'binds' society together. This may include the covenants we make at baptisms and temple covenants we make to include being sealed to our spouse (Covenants are binding agreements between God and man). This is the Lee Walton kind of copyright: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en. Each word of the New Testament has been historically tracked, traced and gone over with a fine tooth comb to see the various contexts it has been used in both in the scriptures as well as other ancient manuscripts. "Don't ask questions, just believe, just do as we say.". How cools that?!). I believe that as we keep these covenants we will thrive, and so will our world, but when we break these covenants we fall.