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Orginally posted by nehajain

Well,
"Fear" this is a deep insight. I would term it more as social regulation and conditioning. Anyone who has read Michele Foucault and social constructionism would know what Mercury is talking about.

Also, in relation to another post. We do not always know by instinct what is right and what is wrong. Issues of Gay rights, Women's rights, Racism - If we knew what is right naturally we wont have these issues. It is because we have ideologies (religious, social, national) that we can not be morally objective.

I think mercury's post was the most profound so far. Fear explained it all in one word.

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I once made a mistake, but I was wrong about it.

I think this is one of the simplest explanations of a huge field of study called social constructionism. If you look it up on the internet you might find it quite interesting in understanding social phenomenon as constructed reality and not objective reality.

Social constructionism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


"Social constructionism is a school of thought introduced into sociology by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book on The Social Construction of Reality. The interest of social constructionism is to discover the ways social reality and social phenomena are constructed. The sociological method of social constructionism is to look at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. Their focus is on the description of the institutions, the actions, and so on, not on analyzing causes and effects. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretation and their knowledge of it. It can be seen here that social construction describes subjective, rather than objective, reality - that is, reality as we can perceive it rather than reality as it is, separate from our perceptions.

In the sociology of science, Karin Knorr Cetina and Bruno Latour use the ideas of social constructionism to relate supposedly objective facts to processes of social construction to show that human subjectivity imposes itself on those facts we take to be objective, not the other way around.

Social constructionism is often described as a part of the postmodern movement, and has been influential in the field of cultural studies. Some have attributed the rise of cultural studies (the cultural turn) to social constructionism."

Also see,

http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/michael/soc_con_disc.htm (this is more about applying SC in the field of psychology)

What is social constructionism?


Epistemology (not theory)

Social constructionism stems from epistemological position - not an explanatory theory. It is an approach to psychology (and other bodies of knowledge) which focuses on meaning and power. It focuses on meaning and power because its epistemological position dictates that meaning and power are all that we really can claim to know about. It is called ‘social constructionism’ because it aims to account for the ways in which phenomena are socially constructed. For example, consider the various constructions of ‘war’ which are currently in dispute. We can see that there are multiple ways of constructing what a ‘war’ is and what it would mean, that these are often mutually-exclusive, and that they are developed from various ideological and political interests (i.e. power). For constructionists, all phenomena are like this. (Note that this is different from a ‘social theory’ - it does not say that a behaviour like ‘aggression’ can be explained by social variables; it says that ‘aggression’ itself is a social construct).

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Orginally posted by mercury6

Quote:

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Orginally posted by nehajain

Well,
"Fear" this is a deep insight. I would term it more as social regulation and conditioning. Anyone who has read Michele Foucault and social constructionism would know what Mercury is talking about.

Also, in relation to another post. We do not always know by instinct what is right and what is wrong. Issues of Gay rights, Women's rights, Racism - If we knew what is right naturally we wont have these issues. It is because we have ideologies (religious, social, national) that we can not be morally objective.

I think mercury's post was the most profound so far. Fear explained it all in one word.

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I was merely trying to be concise....

So what exactly is Social constructionism?

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neha

message was deleted

Hi CDs,

I enjoyed all your inputs. I started writing this over a period slowly on my machine, while many contributions from others were poring in this forum. This resulted in me to think further inwards. Later it started becoming too much to handle. So I abruptly stoped and to post it as it is.

I am a brought up of a remote village ,studied in my mother tongue until my higher secondary. The language is just what I have picked from various persons and places where I lived . I always scared to write. However this time I thought LET ME TRY. These words are all my agreements to many persons and occasions that influenced me over years.

What is a religion? What is God? what is the relation between them?

Why we have so many religions and sub sects with in them.

Could I have universal definition for GOD?

Last year during my annual leave to my parents, while we were in a discussion, they gave different definitions to GOD. Now if my two children ask my wife and me, they too will get more than one definition. Seems age-old confusion.

To me, the extremist preaches and try to force on us. Best is to share the experiences

Ones understanding of God is unique and very personal. Every one feels differently while some rarely don’t feel at all. So, there could be as many definitions as the number of individuals that are living on this earth.

My definition may explain that Religion is something associated with God, and God is some thing associated with every thing. Something in every thing is universality.

So am I to believe every thing, which is either covered or not covered by space and time, comes under religion.

No one has taught any religion nor he made himself a religious head. They taught some thing applicable universally. To our understanding, we people have made them tribal heads. So Christ and Buddha and others have become tribal heads of Christians, Buddhists and so on. We coined Christianity or Buddhism etc. Recently we thought of calling something as Gandhism.


Their teachings are applicable to all. However parts of their teachings may seem not applicable to us due to our position in space and time. Both space and time arise from our intentions, which are imaginary.


These teachings are applicable to the society of individuals and for the benefit of the seekers, which lead them from bad to good and finally to a stage where there will be no Character.

These teachings are left to remain in the scriptures while we are all interested in rituals.

Smoking, drinking, killing animals for the food and fun , discrimination of fellow beings in the name of caste, creed, religion, race, age, physical appearance, intelligence etc are all prohibited by these teachings. Many of the followers of all religions have conveniently forgotten them. We have forgotten the central idea of not to become slave to our sensual pleasures.

To divert from the sensual pleasures, people were taught to pray bazan, idol worshiping, meditation etc depending on the level of the seeker.
I may belong to one religion, which may not answer all my queries, but by some another religion. That does not mean the later is superior to the former. The need to globalize the religions has now araised than before.

How many of us have read the scriptures of at least one so called religion other than the one we belong to.

A discussion on public forum will never end because it is basically not meant for discussion in public forum.


So what am I doing?

We need to interact either with the God or with our teacher on one to one basis. This is because, if you imagine that, when two people approach a guru on the same subject, he teaches such that it is understandable to the weaker student. Unlike the other subjects, religion is understood only after having some knowledge in psychology. When there is more than one seeker it is to be taught at more than one level because no two people will have the same level/ plane of mind. Since we all have some variation in our minds we differ from one another. Thus we differ from one another, starting from a stupid who says that there is no God to the person who says that He Himself is God.

Thus we may also disagree with / vary from others who prefer to take different path even though we are all destined to the same place.

There could be some one in this forum that will say that the religion/God has no logic.
He is true and false as well.
He is true because he has applied logic on the peoples’ thoughts, which support the existence of God, are inferior to him, and he is false for not applying the logic beyond, assuming that he has reached the top most where there is no scope for improvement.
He is false because he stopped thinking logically.

In a boundary less space, who is up above the rest?

One who stops thinking is nothing but God.
He has no mind but soul.

Rest, think continuously with mind.

Are we the same as we were yesterday .we don’t agree. We all continuously disbelief ourselves. That is nothing but progress. We do agree that we are being upgraded every day. There is a day in every atheist’s life to say that there is God. On a particular day he too upgrades himself.

It is like every smoker who has to stop smoking for his own benefit. Many stop wisely and voluntarily while on earth. Many are forced by others (people/circumstances) to stop. While the rest are stopped themselves to exist for the sake of not stopping smoking. In all these cases the end result is, one stops smoking.
What happens to non-smoker? Doesn’t he die? He does with less suffering.

It is also like that those two people separated by a jail gate .No matter which side of the gate one is. Both can look at each other that the other one is in the jail.
Which one of the side do you call really in a jail?
We suppose the person who has limited space inside the jail but a broad mind is in fact a free man than the outside person having large free space but with narrow mind.
Yes, end of the day both are in jail with different levels of freedom.

The world is inside, not outside.
Inside what?

One, who looks outside, applies logic and remains at materialistic level.

If we look inside we apply intelligence.


Logic is no superior to intelligence. Logic is applicable to materials. Intelligence is to reality. One is true when he is intelligent.


Who invented religion?

Religion and God are like the human instincts. They were there within every body by birth.

Some complained that the religion is ones weakness/addiction ..

The converse is true!?

Week persons get addicted and will say there is no God. God is in good taste. There is always scope for improving. From idol worship to bajans to meditation to samadi.
Many turn to God when all other routes are closed.
Some even try to bribe God.
Whom should we blame? The THIRST or the one who is THRSTY or The WELL he approached.


Some realize the strength of the universal Friend and Servant who is willing to help one and all in need and all the time.

Just smile, fill your heart with joy and look at the person in front of you ,try to help him / seek his help.


The one who helped the other is nothing but God.
It is my choice to be God or not. It is my choice to be helped or not.
I shall not complain. For every reason I should not be unhappy.
It is my choice to happy or to be unhappy.

Any weakness is due to non-realization.

Where from ,the great men like Arjun (You may not agree his existence) and Gandhi, who is our recent past, have drawn energy /courage to fight the mightiest of their times .
Timidity arises from the possessiveness. Those possess nothing, have nothing to loose.
Religion fills us with things like vastness, which is Very light in nature. , Love, energy, strength and happiness. This state is inexplicable but to be felt.

Rajuu, Those are some very deep thoughts indeed.

I enjoyed reading it , I am sure others would too. Thanks for posting and you write very well.

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What can be imagined, can be achieved.

Great going guyz.... Some really thought provoking insights into the subject. I must sa,yNeha you gave an altogether new perspective to the idea of religion which was very interesting....

The last two posts, one posted by space, which answered a question that was not asked, and second by rajuu, which even though was very interesting and enlightening seemed to go on a tangent.
I dont think anyone in the discussion has denied the presence of some power which makes the world go round ( literally !!!! ) whom most of us call God. Just to get the discussion back on track.... the topic of discussion is.... considering the fact that God is there, why was there this need of religions which ultimately have become a cheap means to dividing people, dividing pretty educated people for that matter.

So, guyz.... will request you to keep sending in your valuable comments. I am sure it will go a long way in clearing fog from some people's mind about the idea of religions.......

and again, Rajuu please dont get me wrong.... what you wrote was very good, interesting and educating but just confused a little between god and religion. My basic idea to spawn this thread was to drive this point home that one can be god fearing but not religious.... So friend apologies in advance if you dont like what I wrote.....

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Cheers,
JSethi

JSethi,

I would like to say I dont believe there is a power as such.

I personally think events happen at random in the universe. Our mind is limited to see them only as cause-and-effect relationships or one with a definete begginig and end (as religious texts will tell you).

The other question is If you believe there is a power do you also believe that Universal truth is within that power or exists outside of it?

disclaimer: If this is off topic , please ignore. This is not meant to offend any relgion. Its a general observation.

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I once made a mistake, but I was wrong about it.