Is religion somewhere between fact and fiction?

[nilsz]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

I have used and ascribed to religious traditions of religions I did not believe in for aesthetic value, but most religions do not accept these as aesthetics but try to claim them to be fact.

 

[bobhikes]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

The problem we have is that reality is constantly changing you only have to wait until tomorrow and fiction becomes fact or fact becomes fiction. The biggest problem religion has over science(today's fact) is that it refuses to change. It sets itself in a time period that the people of today have no realistic relationship with. For religion to work it needs to be based on experiences and knowledge and change with those experiences and knowledge(new relate able prophets or writings). While a sheep herder was a valid profession in the past today it is hard to relate.

 

[nilsz]

The problem we have is that reality is constantly changing you only have to wait until tomorrow and fiction becomes fact or fact becomes fiction.

The way I understand it, true statements remain true if we understand them to be implicitly specific to the contexts in which they were made.

For instance, if I say there is an apple on the table. Then the apple is removed. The statement I made remains true for the moment in which I said it.

 

[bobhikes]

The way I understand it, true statements remain true if we understand them to be implicitly specific to the contexts in which they were made.

For instance, if I say there is an apple on the table. Then the apple is removed. The statement I made remains true for the time before the apple was removed.

I've already had a debate on this but for me True is subjective and Fact is objective.

 

[rusra02]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

I don't think so. Either a religion is true, based on facts, or it is false, based on unrealities, myths, and lies. Since there can be only one true religion, it follows that all the others are false.

 

[George-ananda]

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

I'll go with 'No' to that question. Why would someone follow a 'part-fiction' as their religion? Now there may be parts that they consider stories with a deeper meaning.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

Not 'between' but 'other than' ... as with art.

 

[SSDSSDSSD3]

I would say religions have their own section depending on how the same people receiving the revelation, some make the revelation left-wing, the others right-wing. Ultimately 2 people of the same religion will get the revelation differently than that of others.

 

[LuisDantas]

I would say yes. Religion at its best is akin to art, but with more of an ethical ambition.

 

[Augustus]

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

It's something that grew out of human experience. It reflects reality in that the stories contain meaning that can be beneficial for people in their lives.

The focus on things being 'factually true', rather than simply practical and meaningful is mostly a pretty recent development

 

[Riverwolf]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Well... that depends on how you look at it.

I regard fiction as a reflection of reality, but in a different sense. There's that old addage "artists use lies to tell the truth", as well as the fact that many old stories, though fiction, were intended to convey lessons about living in reality.

So, I think depiction is more what the difference is. A non-fiction depicts something that is supposed to have happened some time in the past, such that if you got into a time machine and went to that point, you'd see the things being described. Whereas fiction doesn't (always) depict something that is supposed to have happened sometime in the past.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

I don't think religion itself has anything to do with either. Religions narratives and mythologies, sure, but religion is far more than its stories.

The religion I follow, for example, places very little emphasis on any one story or narrative (though this is largely because very, VERY few such stories survive to this day), and far more on what to do in everyday life. Whether those stories that do exist are fiction or not (and, seeing as they were written by humans, they're pretty much guaranteed to be fiction) doesn't really matter because ours is a religion that cares more about how we behave, than what we believe.

And from what I've seen, this is pretty consistent with most forms of indigenous religions. (Mine is not an indigenous religion, but a revival of one.)

So, religion inherently has nothing to do with the fact/fiction dichotomy. It just so happens that the dominant religion in the West, Christianity, does frequently care about that dichotomy, and this frequently colors Westerners' analysis and understanding of non-Christian religions, even when approaching them from a secular standpoint.

 

[nilsz]

So, religion inherently has nothing to do with the fact/fiction dichotomy. It just so happens that the dominant religion in the West, Christianity, does frequently care about that dichotomy, and this frequently colors Westerners' analysis and understanding of non-Christian religions, even when approaching them from a secular standpoint.

It is my understanding that secularists' schism with Christianity is in part due to Christianity's failure to maintain clarity in this distinction, and that the distinction's emphasis has much more to do with Enlightenment ideals, inspired by pre-Christian philosophers, than with Christianity.

 

[allfoak]

By fact I here mean that which claims to present an accurate reflection of reality. Presenting this in an aesthetic fashion ideally comes second to it being accurate.

Fiction is typically formed primarily to have an aesthetic or otherwise entertaining quality, and we don't expect its content to reflect reality.

Religions are often both aesthetic in nature, and present stories and cosmology that to varying degrees are regarded as true by adherents.

Some argue that there is no one true religion. Few argue that there is one true fiction, but I think most agree that there can't be multiple contradictory truths in factual matters.

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

Today's religions are severely corrupted.
As a result, you will find a mix of fact and fiction.

 

[idav]

Can religion be placed somewhere between fact and fiction?

In a way this can be true because facts are often a matter of perspective. Otherwise I would have to deny a person their own personal experience. How can anyone ever say someone elses own experience is not truth?

 

[Riverwolf]

It is my understanding that secularists' schism with Christianity is in part due to Christianity's failure to maintain clarity in this distinction, and that the distinction's emphasis has much more to do with Enlightenment ideals, inspired by pre-Christian philosophers, than with Christianity.

I've never really heard that perspective before. I admit to being fairly unlearned in matters from the Enlightenmnet and post-Enlightenment/Early Modern eras. Certainly, the Tanakh/Old Testament doesn't depict such a simple good/evil dichotomy as more puritan/fundamentalist forms of Christianity claim. I'm also very unlearned in Catholic doctrine, but Dante's Divine Comedy seems to suggest a fairly clear-cut good/evil dichotomy was in place at that time, if nothing else.

Though since you mentioned philosophers, one thing I'll say is that it's best to use the term "Classical" in reference to pre-Christian Greco-Roman things. This can help distinguish from other pre-Christian cultures from back then (including our own, ironically), which often get ignored in Western, or at least American, understandings of history. This isn't really related to your argument, but it's something I wanted to point out.

 

[Acim]

Religion in terms of tales about events in the past are perhaps fictitious or taking dramatic license to convey magnitude of certain predicaments. IMO, they are likely fictitious to some degree.

Spirituality, which I find identifiable in most religions is where facts come into play, though of course depends on the assertions being made.

Physical 'reality' strikes me as fictitious and very challenging to substantiate it as 'fact.'

 

[Augustus]

It is my understanding that secularists' schism with Christianity is in part due to Christianity's failure to maintain clarity in this distinction, and that the distinction's emphasis has much more to do with Enlightenment ideals, inspired by pre-Christian philosophers, than with Christianity.

The Enlightenment grew out of Christianity (with a little help from some Jews like Spinoza), as did humanism , which is pretty much a godless, liberal Christianity.

Secularism was an evolution of Christianity, not a return to pre-Christianity. 'Render unto Caesar...' allowed for the distinction between church and state, that religion was distinct from other aspects of society was not something the Greeks or Romans would have understood.

 

[nilsz]

The Enlightenment grew out of Christianity (with a little help from some Jews like Spinoza), as did humanism , which is pretty much a godless, liberal Christianity.

Secularism was an evolution of Christianity, not a return to pre-Christianity. 'Render unto Caesar...' allowed for the distinction between church and state, that religion was distinct from other aspects of society was not something the Greeks or Romans would have understood.

To say that separation of church and state originates in Christianity, I think is about as accurate as saying that Norwegian cultivation of the potato originates in Christianity, in that Norwegian priests played a pivotal role in promoting the vegetable. It still does not make it specifically Christian.

 

[Augustus]

To say that separation of church and state originates in Christianity, I think is about as accurate as saying that Norwegian cultivation of the potato originates in Christianity, in that Norwegian priests played a pivotal role in promoting the vegetable. It still does not make it specifically Christian.

Humanists tend to suffer a great amount of cognitive dissonance when faced with the idea that much of what they value came from something they have a negative attitude towards. The Romans and Greeks didn't have such a separation.

Where did Western secularism evolve from then? Humanism too if you feel like it.