Steven Brust writes:
>It is certainly possible to define religion that way. It even makes a
>certain amount of sense. But then we're left with needing a word that
>means, belief in and reverence for a superhuman power.
I think that's "'holy other'-style religon". There are lots of
existing, self-proclaimed religons that don't have belief or reverence
for a superhuman power -- Zen (the universal counterexample, and
usually mixed up with a lot of superstitions that -do- have
supernatural powers attached, but nevertheless); confucianism, and
discordianism don't, certainly.
(also, a lot of things are hard to seperate -- a lot of religons that
feature belief in and/or reverance for superhuman powers also have
other distinctive aspects; reverence for stories, traditions, or
codes of behavior, which are part of religion and tend to get
unfairly deemphasized if you overemphasize the "holy other" bit).
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-'