What is a legitimate religion?

[crocodile deathroll]

What is a legitimate religion. This guy is one of those "Breatharians" (http://www.randi.org/jr/071103.html)
His wife told reporters that
"Occasionally he takes coffee, tea or some other liquid."
Well that statement alone is an admission that he does eat some food as I find some liquids like living of chocolate thickshakes up in the Himalayas would make me look well fed but also morbidly obese. And I can still claim just by narrowing the definition of food to solid foods, I do not eat food.
Is this a religion or a fraudulant cult?
His eyes do not look like they have suffered either from all that staring into the sun, maybe because he holds his eyes shut all that time without battering a eyelid.

[Yahweh]

Perhaps the man is a freakish lying maniac... I'm sure if we put him in a room with constant sunlight, a water bottle, large running wheel, but neglected to feed him food, the man would be dead in a few weeks (1 if he overexerted on the running wheel)...

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by crocodile deathroll
... This guy is one of those "Breatharians"...

Is this a religion or a fraudulant cult?While many religions incorporate dietary rules as part of their religion, I don't think that dietary rules on their own are sufficient to be considered a religion.

Many 7th Day Adventists, for instance, include vegetarianism in their religious beliefs; but one can be vegetarian without being religious.

Orthodox Jews are religious people who follow strict dietary rules; but strict adherence to the dietary rules alone would not be sufficient for me to consider a person Jewish or religious.

It's quite possible that this "breatharian" has religious beliefs, one part of which is a belief in abstaining from solid foods. But until / unless those other beliefs are explained, I would be reluctant to call breatharianism a religion.
originally posted by Yahweh

I'm sure if we put him in a room with constant sunlight, a water bottle, large running wheel, but neglected to feed him food, the man would be dead in a few weeksNot sure how many you mean by "a few", but assuming ample water supply I would not be surprised if he remained in good health for well over a month. I was on a prolonged fast some years back, drinking nothing but water, and was able to walk 10 to 20 miles a day without difficulty. Those of us who were fasting often had an easier time walking than those of us who were not. (Running would not be recommended, nor attempting to lift extremely heavy weights.)

Fasting (as opposed to starving) is not that difficult, debilitating, or dangerous. The widespread idea that fasting is difficult is one of the things that makes it easy for "breatharians" to impress naive people. It is not uncommon for people to be able to fast for 6 weeks or longer.

I do think that people who consume miscellaneous thick "liquids" should not use the term "fasting" for what they are doing, since (as the croc noted) one can live quite well off these blenderized meals. "Drinkable diet" might be a better term.

[Drifterman]

If legitimate means true, then I'm not aware of any that can claim that distinction truthfully.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Drifterman

If legitimate means true, then I'm not aware of any that can claim that distinction truthfully. I don't think that's a useful definition for legitimate in this instance.

For instance, I can think of numerous political parties that I consider legitimate, even though I think their political doctrines are mistaken. I can think of numerous charitable groups that I think are legitimate, even if I think they are mistaken or misguided in their aims.

With respect to charities, groups that sincerely are promoting the cause they claim to be concerned about, and which spend a considerable proportion of the money they raise on the cause, would generally in my eyes be legitimate. Groups that exist primarily to extract money, in order to benefit the people who created the group, would generally be illegitimate.

That seems a sensible and workable definition for me in dealing with a number of situations (such as telephone solicitors who called my parents, fund appeals I receive in the mail, etc.). I see no reason to apply an entirely different standard of legitimacy when dealing with religion.

If your definition works for you, that's fine. Do you apply this standard of legitimacy to other groups such as the ones I mentioned?

(If so, I am curious how that would work, since it would seem you must consider either the Democrats or Republicans, or both, to be illegitimate, and therefore not worthy of news coverage, participation in debates, etc.)

[Drifterman]

Originally posted by Nova Land
I don't think that's a useful definition for legitimate in this instance.

Your arguments are compelling - I concur.

[Fun2BFree]

The main difference between the legitimacy of charities and political parties and religions is the issue of reality and the falsifiability issue...Religions delaing with afterlife and spiritual and other totally unmeasureable phenomena do not lend themselves to any sort of verification process---(if they did they would all soon be certified for the BS that they are)---political parties and charities deal with measureabale real world phenomena---even with the case of different political philosophy- we can agree there are certain real/realistic goals as a basis of legitimacy--most of the parties share the same goal--social harmony---just differ in the means to reach that ideal state of affairs between people living together.

If there were a party that was entirely devoted to political changes to increase the aura of each citizen and secure their spot in Heavan then I don't think that would be considered a legitimate political party.

So I would say there is no such thing as a legitimate religion.

[Drifterman]

There was a party in the UK that advocated Trancendental Meditation and Yogic Flying to cur the world's ills. I forget their name, but they were a legitimate party, even though they did spout drivel.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Fasting (as opposed to starving) is not that difficult, debilitating, or dangerous.
For adults.

Children will suffer permanent damage from fasting.


A legitimate religion is one in which the preachers actually believe in the doctrines.

[Fade]

A legitimate religion is one in which the preachers actually believe in the doctrines.

Beat me to it.

It is legitimate as long as the people believe it is.

That doesn't mean they aren't all ridiculous though :D

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Yahzi

For adults.

Children will suffer permanent damage from fasting.Never having fasted as a child, or read any studies of the effects of fasting on children, I don't know, but that sounds intuitively reasonable that fasting would pose much greater dangers for a child than an adult.

Almost certainly that would be true for an infant, when a steady supply of adequate nutrition seems essential from what little I've read.

Do you have any studies or personal knowledge relating to fasting and children, or is this simply something you have intuited? I'm not disagreeing, just wanting to know if this has been confirmed, since what is "intuitively obvious" is not always true.

(I'd be interested in reading up on this, if you do have sources, to see where the dividing line between fasting being dangerous and fasting being relatively safe might fall as far as age.)
A legitimate religion is one in which the preachers actually believe in the doctrines.
Yes, I agree. That's a good basic definition.

However, I am inclined to add in that their belief in their religious doctrines should be more important to them than their desire to make money off the religion, since it is possible (and, alas, common) for religious leaders to be strongly dedicated to both.

A religion in which the leaders did not actually believe in the doctrines is clearly illegitimate, but I feel religions in which the leaders genuinely do believe in the doctrines but are motivated more by the desire to exploit their followers than by their desire to live up to their doctrines could be called illegitimate as well.
originally posted by Fade

It is legitimate as long as the people believe it is.Here I slightly disagree. I would consider the Moonies and whatever-the-religion-of-the-guru-Maharah-Ji (the obese 13-year-old grand master) was called to be examples of illegitimate religions. My opinion is that the leaders of these groups did not believe in their religion (except as a way to scam people out of money and other things), but many of the people who followed these "religions" seemed sincere in their belief.

So the fact that followers may be sincere does not make a religion legitimate to me.

Another example is Peter Popov. From Randi's The Faith Healers it seems likely that many of the followers of Popov (and other faith healers) sincerely believe. I consider Popov to be a scam artist rather than a legitimate religious leader. I'm not sure I'd classify his entire religion illegitimate, because there may be a significant number of people in leadership positions who do genuinely believe the doctrines (I'm not familiar enough to know), but I'm also not willing to classify his entire religion as legitimate just because so many of the adherents genuinely believe the doctrines.

If a phony charity successfully scams millions of people, I still consider it illegitimate. So it is the genuineness of the leadership, not the followership, that seems to me to be the key in determining legitimacy.

(I'm not sure if that is what you meant by "people" as well or not. Quite likely you did and we are saying the same thing.)

[rwald]

I concur with Nova Land, and would like to cite Scientology as another example of a illegitimate religion.

[crocodile deathroll]

Originally posted by Drifterman
If legitimate means true, then I'm not aware of any that can claim that distinction truthfully.

No, that "legitimate" religion in our country can be legitiamate and simply just preach a load of rubbish. It it is merely a techicality where if more then 5000 people fill our the same word on the census form, it qualiifies as a religion. I wrote on mine "d^ogn#sag~~~~a" and if 4999 other people wrote the unpronouncable gibberish on their form then that is a legitimate religion.

[Lord Kenneth]

A legitimate religion is a system of beliefs that basis itself not on facts but on dogma, disregarding the facts unless no question can be made on the facts' validity, and the church/religion head will do better to admit it is wrong than to stay in its deeply rooted dogma.

[Fun2BFree]

Originally posted by Drifterman
There was a party in the UK that advocated Trancendental Meditation and Yogic Flying to cur the world's ills. I forget their name, but they were a legitimate party, even though they did spout drivel.

The methods are LIKELY drivel--but the goal of "curing the world's ills" is presumably testable, verifiable, measureable...thus this is legitimate...religion's goal of saving the "soul" is a load of illegitimate rubbish-since it is none of the adjectives above.

[Drifterman]

Originally posted by Fun2BFree


The methods are LIKELY drivel--but the goal of "curing the world's ills" is presumably testable, verifiable, measureable...thus this is legitimate...religion's goal of saving the "soul" is a load of illegitimate rubbish-since it is none of the adjectives above.

Depends how you define an "ill". If the "ills" are linked to a woowoo concept, the verification might get a little, shalll we say, tricky.

[hgc]

Originally posted by Nova Land
snip...

I do think that people who consume miscellaneous thick "liquids" should not use the term "fasting" for what they are doing, since (as the croc noted) one can live quite well off these blenderized meals. "Drinkable diet" might be a better term.
Yum. How about a delicious meatshake?