heretic888
Senior Master
Ray said:
The meditations and contemplative prayers I'm referring to are religious practices, insofar as they are methods handed down for centuries from established religious traditions (most often monastic communities).
This notion that praying and meditating can be done in a "secular way" is true, insofar as one takes the elements of these prior practices and dumbs them down to align with a modern audience. This is why many moderns regularly take Zen classes and think its little more than "relaxing" or "stress reduction". Its also the same with people that understand yoga as "Indian stretching".
In these cases, my guess is money was the motivating factor behind this dumbing-down process...
Ray said:
First off, its "collective unconscious".
Secondly, I'm not sure what this has to do with definitions concerning "religion" (admittedly, there are many). All of the terms you used ("deity", "cosmic consciousness", "spirituality") are just as open-ended as "religion".
Thirdly, my point was that you can't apply the scientific method to "religion" as long as you divorce active practice from religious expression. When referring to religious traditions of contemplative practice, however, its all fair game to "scientists".
Ray said:
Gould's notion that "religion" and "science" (which he apparently defines as subjectivity and objectivity) can be neatly compartmentalized, separated, and isolated. Reality doesn't work like that.
Laterz.
