[C Elegans]

First, I would like to welcome Inter to our forum, I am quite happy that a real Furry appeared here since that may provide me with answers to some of my question. Below, I will pose these questions mostly to Hill since he replied to my reply to his post, but the questions are really to Inter as much as to Hill - whoever who wish and can reply.

Originally Posted by Hill-Shatar

Do you ever read any books on Eastern society? Would you describe this (/sub)culture as just another group of people satisfying their infantile needs?

No, I don't read many books about Eastern, ie Far Eastern culture anymore, I used to when I was younger. As a child and a young teenager, I read a lot of the classical English, French and American anthropologists and ethnographs like Levi-Strauss, Motherwell and Mead. I was most interest in African and Polynesian cultures. Then, in the mid-teens my interest changed over to the Far East and Australia, but I merely scratched on the surface. I put my university years into neuroscience as you know. During this period I was most interested in the Orient, Middle East and Inuit culture.
Since my mid-teens, travelling has been my biggest interest. Consequently, I have had the privilege to visit many of the cultures I have read about, providing they still exist of course. Today, I know people who are "shamen", "fetish men", "medicine men" or "priests" - to use some simplified terms - in many different cultures. I have also recently been adopted by a Saharian clan.
Over the last few years, when I have had time to pick up my interest for native human cultures again, I've been most interested in African cultures. Africa is the home of mankind - as a geneticist I am sure you can understand my interest for African culture as an extention of my interest in hominoid evolution.

As for your question "Would you describe this (/sub)culture as just another group of people satisfying their infantile needs?" I have no idea. My response was directed to the group of people Fable described, which I suppose in one group of Furries. It is important that you understand that I have never heard about Furries in all my life before I read this thread. I don't claim to know anything about Furries. I do know quite a bit about African, Inuit and Polynesian tribal animist and shamanistic religious though. And my main point is that based on the information given in this thread, including the links, there is nothing to support the idea that Furry is a religion equivalent of the tribal African religions. Not even similar. If you claim that, please back up this claim with more information. As I am sure you know, any idea, belief, habit or behaviour cannot be defined as religion. If I enjoy parachuting and spend a lot of time doing parachuting, it does not necessarily mean I believe parachutes have a role in creation, that a specific value system is related to parachutes or that a parachuting has a transcendent level. For a belief syste to be defined and classified as a "religion", it must, among other things, include some kind of creation myth, some kind of transcendent level and some kind of value system. Not only a practice, a liking and an interest. I could recommend you hundreds of books and hundreds of scientific papers, but since none here except Fable seems to either knowledgable or interested in tribal religions, I recommend you to just start reading the basics in Wikipedia or something similar.

As mentioned in my post, there is a small group of people who actually follow a religion based on this culture you speak of, and that some are heavily into roleplaying. For the note, if you did read the few parts of the Wiki article as it looks like you did in your first post, you would have noticed that this has been around since the turn of the century

Hill dearie, I am European! The turn of the last century is modern and recently to us - the standard definition used in the arts is 20th century = modern, still within a living persons lifetime = contemporary. When I am referring to tribal religions I am in many cases talking about religions that has been around for thousands of years.

Quite cutting to say this is just made out of children's books and comics, CE, as this form of culture was even around before then, as I mentioned, in the medieval ages.

I got the impression that Furry was a fandom culture based on contemporary fiction. Can you please provide information that gives the history back to the medieval ages? Not that it matters for the issue whether Furry can be a religion or not, but I am interested anyway.

Originally Posted by Inter

As for the African tribes, no, that was not an excellent description from Hill, but you did ask whether people immerse themselves so completely into these forms of roleplaying. Like it or not, those African tribes can fit into that description, even if it is a ritual.

African tribal religion can fit into the term "roleplaying"? Is this a joke? Please explain yourself further. This comment suggests that you may lack knowledge about African tribal culture. Which cultures are you referring to, which religions? Which rites, specifically? There are thousands of distictly different cultures in Africa. I just hope you and/or Hill are not trying to suggest that mask dancing, shamanistic rites or fertility rites where a person use a costume to change his identity for instance into into an animal, a spirit or the opposite gender, has anything to do with entertainment, or "joy of role-playing". If that is indeed what you mean, you are so ignorant so you should not even be discussion African tribal religion but instead read some basic textbooks on the subject.

Originally Posted by Inter

What you need to know is that our religion is something that I believe whole heartedly in

Everything both you and Hill have posted so far, including links, lack information that support the idea that any form of Furry fandom would fulfil the critera for being defined as a religion. Yet, both you and Hill have both compared Furry to religion and claimed a Furry religion exist. The FAQ Hill linked to also claims a Furry religion exist, but the only description it provides is that Furry religion may include having a totem animal, and then they mention some brief superficial nonsense about Australian and North American cultures also having totem animals as if this sole element made up a religion. (It does not mention any African religions.) Thus, there are two alternatives:

1. Do you use the term "religion" in an overinclusive way so that it includes fandom and fan fiction subcultures? If this is the case, you would also view islam and christianity as equavalent with fandom and fan fiction culture. My opinion is that such overinclusive language use is incorrect, and also makes the use of the term completely meaningless since it deviates so far from the lexiographic definition of the term. It's simply inventing a new word: now I take the word "computer" and decide it should mean a device you can fly with it because it means that to me. Same thing goes for the term "Anthropomorhpism". Just because there may be a subculture who have choosen to call themselves "Anthropomorphists" does not mean any human behaviour than involves anthropomorphisism can be retroactively placed into this self-defined group. Or do you claim that Konrad Lorentz was a Furry? (If so, he'll be rotating in his grave together with CS Lewis.)

2. Is there a subgroup of Furries who hold beliefs that fulfil the critera of the term "religion"? If so, please provide information. I am not rejecting that this may be possible, and if it is indeed the case, I view it as all other religion: I am a what is commonly described as "scientific atheist". If if other people want to believe in religion, they have all the right in the world to do so as long as it is not damaging to themselves or others. However, unless I am provided with information that demonstrates that Furry fulfils the critera for religion, I completly reject the comparison between Furries and African tribal religion and view such comparisons as astonishingly ignorant.

EDIT: tried to remove as many typos as possible, I know I am horrible, I am sure there are some left.