Cult or Religion?

[JDaniel]

JD, whats up!? long time no see!

as for me any group that teaches anything in matters of faith, that is not in Communion with the Holy See is a cult.

it may not fit technical definitions, but what does that matter? there is one truth, and that is Christ. anything else is a pale imitation, a shadow of substance and a waste of ones soul.

At first glance, it appears that I cannot disagree. Even at a second glance, I cannot disagree.

I have moved to Wyoming where I am working with fossils and digs. Very fascinating stuff. So, I have been set back two hours and I’ve been working many hours. I’ll be on CAF as I can. I promise.

jd

 

[warpspeedpetey]

At first glance, it appears that I cannot disagree. Even at a second glance, I cannot disagree.

I have moved to Wyoming where I am working with fossils and digs. Very fascinating stuff. So, I have been set back two hours and I’ve been working many hours. I’ll be on CAF as I can. I promise.

jd

great, quite a change from city life. we will make a country boy outta you yet. if you come back through kc let me know and ill show you all the interesting bones i can dig out of the worlds best barbecue ribs. i think you will find those nearly as facinating!

 

[1holycatholic]

Agreed. There isn’t a whole lot that logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology doesn’t cover, and THIS thread? I would put it solidly in the epistemological and metaphysical camp. Not to mention a little ethics in there…

This is, at best, a question of sociology or anthropology. Your net of what constitutes philosophy is so wide as to be meaningless.

Which philosopher has written a discourse on “Cult or Religion”? I’ve got the entire set of Copelston’s A History of Philosophy on my bookshelf. Which volume should I check?

 

[dianaiad]

This is, at best, a question of sociology or anthropology. Your net of what constitutes philosophy is so wide as to be meaningless.

Philosophical thought constitutes, if looked at properly, the whole of human thought.

Including religion.

Which philosopher has written a discourse on “Cult or Religion”? I’ve got the entire set of Copelston’s A History of Philosophy on my bookshelf. Which volume should I check?

I would check the volume that treats of Abrahamic philosophy, specifically Christian philosophy–perhaps where Greek ideas were introduced, personally, but hey; it’s your bookshelf. You pick.

My own forays into formal philosophical thought got waylaid by my studies into rhetoric specifically, then by epistemology, specifically metacognition.

No worries, though: it’s all just philosophical anyway, right?

 

[James_S_Saint]

Which philosophy do you follow in categorizing what is philosophical?

 

[dianaiad]

Which philosophy do you follow in categorizing what is philosophical?

(snort)

Stick the tongue back in, bub…y’got me.

 

[1holycatholic]

I would check the volume that treats of Abrahamic philosophy, specifically Christian philosophy–perhaps where Greek ideas were introduced, personally, but hey; it’s your bookshelf. You pick.

Christianity is not a philosophy.

 

[dianaiad]

Christianity is not a philosophy.

You mean…

Christians can’t think?

 

[dianaiad]

Christianity is not a philosophy.

I did not say 'check out Christianity."

I said “check out Christian philosophy.”

Becoming a Christian does not preclude thinking, and I would very much hope that one’s deepest religious beliefs would affect one’s philosophy.

 

[JDaniel]

great, quite a change from city life. we will make a country boy outta you yet. if you come back through kc let me know and ill show you all the interesting bones i can dig out of the worlds best barbecue ribs. i think you will find those nearly as fascinating!

Warp:

You might just find me on your front porch, knocking on you door! I have things in storage in Lakeland, FL, Jacksonville, FL, and Columbiana, OH. I may have to condense these compilations in the near future,

This is very interesting stuff, up here in Wyoming. As it turns out, at 7,200 ft., this part of the Rockies was a sub-tropical paradise for the flora and fauna that lived fifty million years ago. We have intact palm fronds from those layers of limestone. That means, most of the earth was covered with water - including the higher altitudes. There are ancestral fish embedded with the palms, in the limestone.

I’ll send some pictures to you soon.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

I’m a little confused as to your point. Each of those websites use the word differently than the dictionary defines it. That was my point. The way it is used in reality is NOT related to how it came into the language.

James:

Your statement may perhaps have some truth. I would think that much of the English language has habitually been mangled by Americans particularly. So, we might not be the best judges of what’s in concurrent world-use. Nevertheless, I knew that the two words had little or nothing to do with each other and that was the impetus for investigating. And, it appears that I wasn’t alone.

I most strongly suspect it came into the language by being an indicator of the “seed of a culture”. This is how historians used it at one time.

Possibly. Of course, we know how historians like to hold to the English language when writing history!

The first example is the most common thought and use, not the dictionary’s etymological deductions which just happen to be such as to imply that all religions are merely the pejorative “cult”, including the CC.

That goes without saying! Secularists seek every opportunity to do that to Christianity.

This implies that the dictionary is the one in error and has a very common and well known agenda reflected in almost all popular media.

No. If anything, it reflects the intelligences of popular media spokespeople.

Never mind that etymologists get very many words wrong as their job is very restricted and controlled (language can cause and define thought/belief).

Hmmm. Perhaps. Rather I would think that etymologists, and their employers, would have to take care so as not to be in gross opposition to other competing dictionaries, not only from the U.S., but also, from elsewhere in the world.

jd

 

[James_S_Saint]

When an etymologist says, “this word came from there”, what he means, by necessity of his restricted job, is that where he found it being used in history was “there”.

The actual concept derivation is not something the etymologist can report on as he cannot see into their minds, but only see what written records were left behind.

This leads to serious error in belief of what many words meant. The meaning itself gets relegated to the last known written use rather than the concept that caused the writing to take place.

An example would be the word “race”. By etymological record, the word race has 2 distinct meanings, unassociated. Yet in reality, the word had only one concept that was used in application to different concerns.

A) race as in human race
B) race as in foot race

Etymologists report that these applications have completely different origins because as one people were using it in writings about one application, a different people were using it in writings for the other application.

Thus if you were to say that the word has only a single conceptual meaning and origin, you would be declared wrong because the French used it to mean one thing and the Romans used it to mean the other thing.

This expresses the inherent limited perspective that an etymologist must yield and how it causes error in presumption of the true origins of words, which happens to be their task to determine.

By not allowing etymologists to be anything more than mechanical historians, they cannot display the sometimes obvious connection of words on the concept level which leads to false reporting as to not only what the word meant, but also from whence it came.

 

[dianaiad]

When an etymologist says, “this word came from there”, what he means, by necessity of his restricted job, is that where he found it being used in history was “there”.

The actual concept derivation is not something the etymologist can report on as he cannot see into their minds, but only see what written records were left behind.

This leads to serious error in belief of what many words meant. The meaning itself gets relegated to the last known written use rather than the concept that caused the writing to take place.

You mean, etymologists attempt to trace the history of a word (phonemes and morphemes) according to how they were actually used by people, and this is wrong because…you want to attribute the source of a word by how you feel regarding its meaning at the moment?

An example would be the word “race”. By etymological record, the word race has 2 distinct meanings, unassociated. Yet in reality, the word had only one concept that was used in application to different concerns.

A) race as in human race
B) race as in foot race

Etymologists report that these applications have completely different origins because as one people were using it in writings about one application, a different people were using it in writings for the other application.

Yes. there is even a word for that. It’s called ‘homonym.’ Every language has those. English especially has a bunch of 'em because we so gleefully steal words from other languages and make them our own, which is why English has the largest vocabulary of all the world’s languages. It is a joyful thief; if we don’t have exactly the right word to convey a specific meaning, we’ll find the word somewhere else–and adopt it as our own.

“Race” is an old example of that, from when English was formed from the collision of Old English (a germanic language) and Old French. Thus, the OE word “raes” became the middle English “resen” became ‘race’ or ‘contest of speed,’ While the French (Old and Middle) “razza” (recognise THAT one? It’s still around, sort of) became “race” meaning “of common stock” or “group of people having a set of physical peculiarities in common.”

Sometimes the false cognates from other tongues become homonyms in ours. It happens a lot. It does NOT mean that “cult” must come from “occult” simply because they share a syllable in common, and because you have a need to assign yet another pejorative meaning to the word “cult.”

Thus if you were to say that the word has only a single conceptual meaning and origin, you would be declared wrong because the French used it to mean one thing and the Romans used it to mean the other thing.

This expresses the inherent limited perspective that an etymologist must yield and how it causes error in presumption of the true origins of words, which happens to be their task to determine.

By not allowing etymologists to be anything more than mechanical historians, they cannot display the sometimes obvious connection of words on the concept level which leads to false reporting as to not only what the word meant, but also from whence it came.

Arbitrarily assigning cause to an effect because of philosophical prejudices does not mean that the effect was actually the result of that cause. In fact, there is a logical fallacy specifically assigned to doing that; cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

 

[James_S_Saint]

It’s called ‘homonym.’

Is this not merely what you want to believe?

English especially has a bunch of 'em because we so gleefully steal words from other languages and make them our own

And this as well?

It is a joyful thief;

And this.

“Race” is an old example of that, from when English was formed from the collision of Old English (a germanic language) and Old French. Thus, the OE word “raes” became the middle English “resen” became ‘race’ or ‘contest of speed,’ While the French (Old and Middle) “razza” (recognise THAT one? It’s still around, sort of) became “race” meaning “of common stock” or “group of people having a set of physical peculiarities in common.”

“English” came from “Anglish” as from the language of the Anglos who were within the group North of Rome refered to as the Germs and thus all languages North of Rome (of which were very many) were called the “Germanic languages”, not associated with current German (which didn’t even exist at the time). German language is the result of a specific tribal union within the Germanic region that took the name “German” even though none of those tribes had that name.

Thus to say that English is of Germanic origin is misleading even though technically correct.

But still, from whence did the French word “razza” come? It came from the language of the tradesmen, the messengers, the “angels”, the Anglos, use of the word for “race of a species or people through time” which is why a “foot race” also refers to a time concern. The concept of speeding through time is what carried by phonetics. This is what creates most homonyms. They often have a conceptual association.

Sometimes the false cognates from other tongues become homonyms in ours. It happens a lot.

Again, what you prefer to believe?

and because you have a need to assign yet another pejorative meaning to the word “cult.”

I didn’t assign it. I merely exposed it. Why are you trying to change it?

All I see in this is your preference claiming authority over mine.

That is the problem. Etymologists can only trace so far and still remain un-speculative. Yet the speculation that they infer leads to misunderstandings for people to argue about latter. They grow a politically preferred inference so as to moderate argument.

By omission, they allow the politically preferred inference to create belief. I don’t blame the etymologists. They are much like the scientists who merely do a job, they are not the ones using the results to politically influence others.

Another example would be the word “evil”. If you merely look at what the etymologists report, you will be misled.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Warp:

You might just find me on your front porch, knocking on you door! I have things in storage in Lakeland, FL, Jacksonville, FL, and Columbiana, OH. I may have to condense these compilations in the near future,

This is very interesting stuff, up here in Wyoming. As it turns out, at 7,200 ft., this part of the Rockies was a sub-tropical paradise for the flora and fauna that lived fifty million years ago. We have intact palm fronds from those layers of limestone. That means, most of the earth was covered with water - including the higher altitudes. There are ancestral fish embedded with the palms, in the limestone.

I’ll send some pictures to you soon.

jd

send me some pics on my email, let me know whats up with you.

 

[JDaniel]

When an etymologist says, “this word came from there”, what he means, by necessity of his restricted job, is that where he found it being used in history was “there”.

You are asking me to assume that each etymologist works in a vacuum. They, of course, do not. There is shared data from current findings as well as findings from the past. When a particular word is encountered, the etymologist traces the word as far back as he/she can go (and continue to encounter it) with reference to the word’s usage(s) in the common vernacular of each time period where the word appears. This includes its usage in daily periodicals from that time, legal promulgations, edicts, letters, notices, etc., including more formal writings such as poetry and prose.

A consensus is taken of the word’s meaning(s) from those appearances in the then current usages, derived from the apparent intention in the sentences and paragraphs where it was found. The entire process is not so limited as one might assume. I was fortunate enough to witness a translating of the Bible when I was at Yale (just visiting, mind you!) some years ago and saw first-hand how a very similar process works.

I do not believe that their jobs are “restricted” such that they are hindered from reporting the best possible meanings of sounds in such a limited manner. Different cultures adopted different sounds to signify the “object” under scrutiny, or, being spoken of. Thus, sounds obtained different meanings, e. g., “feet” and “feat”. Across the many sets of peoples, common sounds signified different things. As societies commingled, those homophones became incorporated into the general idiom of the population. Most people recognized the differences because of the usage contexts. Others “played” around with the usages in order to convey sometimes funnier ways of describing mundane exigencies.

The actual concept derivation is not something the etymologist can report on as he cannot see into their minds, but only see what written records were left behind.

But, as I said, they can read periodicals, etc. of the various times and intelligently surmise meanings from the vernaculars - on the same basis as we do today from our current vernacular.

This leads to serious error in belief of what many words meant. The meaning itself gets relegated to the last known written use rather than the concept that caused the writing to take place.

You would have to supply a not too meager list of such “serious errors of belief of what many words meant” in order to convince me. Most world languages do not take the liberties with their respective languages that we like to take. We have a severe predilection with wreaking havoc on our language because of our predilection for “spin”.

An example would be the word “race”. By etymological record, the word race has 2 distinct meanings, unassociated. Yet in reality, the word had only one concept that was used in application to different concerns.

A) race as in human race
B) race as in foot race

Again, two words that are homophonic and not related except by commonality of sound.

Etymologists report that these applications have completely different origins because as one people were using it in writings about one application, a different people were using it in writings for the other application.

And, this would be true, EXCEPT that the “sounds” usually meant something quite different to each set of people.

Thus if you were to say that the word has only a single conceptual meaning and origin, you would be declared wrong because the French used it to mean one thing and the Romans used it to mean the other thing.

Why would one do that?

This expresses the inherent limited perspective that an etymologist must yield and how it causes error in presumption of the true origins of words, which happens to be their task to determine.

Again, I must resist the temptation to view this so simplistically. I believe etymologists do an incredible job in differentiating between the different meanings extant.

By not allowing etymologists to be anything more than mechanical historians, they cannot display the sometimes obvious connection of words on the concept level which leads to false reporting as to not only what the word meant, but also from whence it came.

I do not believe this is the case, in reality. The addition of the “t” to the past participle of the Latin occulere is what is taken from the Latin in our translations. It does not express the entirety of the parts of speech and meanings found in the Latin. The Anglicized word was all that was needed, at the time, and thus, all that was incorporated into our vernaculars, as time went on. If there is fault, it is with that first person who incorporated it in some particular usage, while ignoring the other parts of speech that could have been taken along with it. If those other parts of speech, or, tenses, were not taken into our idiom, that is not the mea culpa of the etymologist.

Most English speaking peoples of the past spoke more than English, so the intermingling of two, or more, idioms in their common parlance was to be expected, as they understood that the rest of the gentility would understand that they were merely importing such words to amplify the meanings of what they were attempting to convey.

jd

 

[dianaiad]

Is this not merely what you want to believe?

And this as well?

And this.

Actually, there is little ‘want’ involved on my part. I simply go with the evidence and historical usage. I believe that the ‘want to believe’ is more on your part, since your view is the one that is so divergent from etymological and linguistic opinion.

“English” came from “Anglish” as from the language of the Anglos who were within the group North of Rome refered to as the Germs and thus all languages North of Rome (of which were very many) were called the “Germanic languages”, not associated with current German (which didn’t even exist at the time). German language is the result of a specific tribal union within the Germanic region that took the name “German” even though none of those tribes had that name.

Thus to say that English is of Germanic origin is misleading even though technically correct.

I am quite familiar with the Indo-European language tree and the English position on it.

But still, from whence did the French word “razza” come? It came from the language of the tradesmen, the messengers, the “angels”, the Anglos, use of the word for “race of a species or people through time” which is why a “foot race” also refers to a time concern. The concept of speeding through time is what carried by phonetics. This is what creates most homonyms. They often have a conceptual association.

Interesting if rather forced, theory. It is not difficult to see how the sound of “razza” (which means…group of things having something in common"…like collections of wine bottles of the same vintage, beer kegs of the same brewing, groups of people with the same profession, etc.,) and comes from (probably) Italian…is all that allied with “raes” or “resen” …meaning “a contest of speed,” or “that which is fast” (hence “race” as in 'millrace") could each be transformed into ‘race’ without mixing up the meanings. That’s what false cognates are all about, after all. The same thing goes for ‘cult’ and 'occult."…though in that case, the two do share a root concept. The problem here isn’t that they don’t have something in common, etymologically speaking. The problem is that you are insisting that because they do share, however far back (beyond Latin, certainly) that common root might be, that “cult” MUST, therefore, be the direct child of “occult” when in fact the two words are cousins, at best.

Again, what you prefer to believe?

I didn’t assign it. I merely exposed it. Why are you trying to change it?

No, sir…you have committed severe eisegesis.

All I see in this is your preference claiming authority over mine.

I haven’t actually claimed authority status, y’know. If my ‘authority’ is judged to be superior to yours from what we have written here, it will be because of the quality of the argument, not the flashing of degrees.

…though I do have them to ‘flash.’ The problem with doing so is that one can too easily be trumped by an idiot with a PhD, and I don’t have one of those yet (either the idiot or the PhD.)

That is the problem. Etymologists can only trace so far and still remain un-speculative. Yet the speculation that they infer leads to misunderstandings for people to argue about latter. They grow a politically preferred inference so as to moderate argument.

But that is what YOU are doing, sir. You are going at this backward; because you want ‘cult’ to have the specific meaning you apply to it, and because you have specific opinions about the people to whom you wish to apply the word, you want “occult” to be associated with ‘cult,’ it serves your purpose.

The problem is, the occult and ‘cult’ if they intersect at all, do so purely coincidentally and then only in the eyes of people who use the word as a pejorative, not a linguistically or philosophically sound descriptor.

By omission, they allow the politically preferred inference to create belief. I don’t blame the etymologists. They are much like the scientists who merely do a job, they are not the ones using the results to politically influence others.

Another example would be the word “evil”. If you merely look at what the etymologists report, you will be misled.

I’m quite certain you believe so. Please, enlighten me about the true etymological history of the word “evil.”

 

[James_S_Saint]

A consensus is taken of the word’s meaning(s) from those appearances in the then current usages,

You are exposing the very cause of the problem I am emphasizing.

When truth is relegated to consensus, truth is not what is found.

Consensus is gathered by “most popular belief”. If such led to truth, then we would all have to accept that Buddhism is the Truth.

The CC should know above any of how popular belief is not what reveals actual truth.

The idea of using popular belief as a decision making method is the plague and infection of the entire world population.

The USA had a chance long ago to prevent popular belief from being its only guide to rational behavior in forming laws. In effect, it used the idea that “might makes right”. But in reality, if the Constitution had what seems a very insignificant law added, the entire history of the USA would be different and today, the USA would probably be far more admired than it is. It would most certainly be far more powerful.

Imagine if Science was relegated to consensus. One scientist proclaims a truth, another proclaims a different truth, and 8 others proclaim yet another. The 8 would certainly win the consensus and Science would reflect the politics of each day.

But what if one of those had been the only one that was right? No one would hear him and the belief of how things work would be up to polotics (just as it is with the rest of the world).

By your testimony, you have revealed that this method of persuasion is indeed how etymologists decide what is true.

By necessity the best idea (or most truthful) is not the most popular in a large group. The “best” is one. The lesser are many. The average compromise cannot be the best or most true. And the idea that the most popular of the educated is truth, is a political impetus to ensure that it isn’t.

Science can very easily prove God (too easily in fact). But why would a Secular government want to reveal that the Truth is best known by a foreign power and even from a foreign country?

By virtue of group voting, it can be controlled as to what is most popular and thus what is accepted regardless of what is accurate or correct.

Information is power. Power to control belief. Power to control who remains in control.

How better to control information than to confound language. It worked on Babylon. But why merely destroy? “What one can destroy, one can control.” Why not merely subtly influence popular voting on what history really was? Who could testify against the consensus of the elitely educated?

God can. Even I can. But that doesn’t mean anyone would believe either of us.

The Devil loves consensus voting. It leads to such power to control the entire world (just as he revealed to Jesus that day).

The word “razza”, no doubt came by some people pronounced “rahs” while others pronounced “rays”, both conveyed the idea of a race through time. But in one case the word got eventually spelled “razza” and in the other, it eventually became “race”. They both came from the traveling messengers.

The word “evil” is another example of politically influenced etymology. What it means is being “spun” for political reasonings so as to gain consensus among the population, the mass.

God is not found in consensus of the educated.

 

[Sagefrakrobatik]

With if your using the Catholic Forums dictionary than it means

“Confusingly tangenital”

If you want to know who is a cut and who isnt just watch Dr. Phil.

 

[dianaiad]

You are exposing the very cause of the problem I am emphasizing.

The word “evil” is another example of politically influenced etymology. What it means is being “spun” for political reasonings so as to gain consensus among the population, the mass.

God is not found in consensus of the educated.

I see. Your argument, then, boiled down, amounts to : “cult” is derived from “occult” because I say so, and since I believe it is true, then, of course, it is true for all, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

The same thing goes for the word “evil.”

I will admit that I am still interested in your explanation for the etymology of the word, though I am now aware that you are confusing etymology with political correctness.