Got the 2002 Britannica on CD today. Looked up religion. Snipped this amusing little quote.[1}
"But even if an inventory of types of belief and practices can be gathered-so as to provide a typical profile of what counts as religion-the absence of a tight definition means that there will always be a number of cases about which it is difficult to decide. Thus, some ideologies, such as Soviet Marxism, Maoism, and Fascism, may have analogies to religion. Certain attempts at an essentialist definition of religion, such as that of the German-American theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965), who defined religion in terms of man's ultimate concern, would leave the way open to count these ideologies as proper objects of the study of religion. Tillich, incidentally, calls them "quasi-religions." Though there is no consensus on this point among scholars, it is not unreasonable to hold that the frontier between traditional religions and modern ideologies represents one part of the field to be studied." So I was more on the right track than I even knew... [1] And the Britannica entry is written by (drumroll) Ninian Smart(d. 2001)J.F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions, University of California, Santa Barbara. Author of The Religious Experience and many others. -- William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
