Anthropomorphism: What Do You All Know On It (Spam-be-not)

[Hill-Shatar]

Marty has come to GB? Hide your children! *tosses five bucks in collection box*

Martin has a lot more experience defending his views than I do, so he decided to stop by for a post or two before going back into the lands of the GB-unknowns.

Originally Posted by Inter

as Hill described to me at the time, totally nasty (he was eighteen at the time)

I actually used several more words to describe how I was feeling at the moment, if I remember correctly, right about six months before I cut all public connections with knowing the newer Furries.

and I don't want to watch as Hill tries to argue with you

I like to argue, and you made a lot of sentence structure mistakes in your last paragraph, Marty.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Inter

Hello, fable, as it appears to be you that is the lead of the most arguments between others here, then some of my comments might be directed more at you then other members. I only ask that those who believe that reading the Wikipedia article, as I have seen used in the first three posts alone, gives them a view on this, please perform some more research before you place your opinions or ideas here.

Inter, hi. Good to see you. When you get to know me well, have read many posts of mine, I'll take seriously your request that I do more research. Until then, you haven't established your own credentials yet. And I don't believe you know anything about me, my work, or what I think or do to offer a view concerning my knowledge.

I also decline the honor of being "the lead" in most arguments in this thread. I do, however, acknowledge that you're most angry with my remarks, which may explain why you don't bother dealing with any of the questions I've raised. Anger clouds judgement. I think, in fact, that you'll find CElegans is actually a lot more definite in rejecting whatever you accept.

My name is Martin, from New York, and I'm pleased to meet a few of you here. When I got an e-mail with a link to this I was interested in Hill-whatever-name-he's-chosen-here's thread almost immediately, and he showed it to me when I came to his house recently for a visit. As the topic seems to have swerved a bit in the recent posts, let's get it back on topic of what people here actually know of the furry phenomenon, rather than there opinions on it or those who are active members of the legitimate-but-little-known-of religion.

Wrong. The topic Hill-Shatar created was as follows:

Recently I got wondering on what you guys actually know about Anthropomorphism. It's basically a form of culture revolving around humans who look like animals. At least, that's what most of it is about... some are animals who can talk, and some such.

I've noticed how large Anthro is getting in today's culture, even if the actual population of "Furries" isn't exactly growing to huge amounts of people. Fans have been popping out of nowhere. So... what do people know about it? Your opinions? I'm a bit curious, see.

As you can see, the topic was about our opinions, which Hill-Shatar wanted to know. So you misunderstood the very first post, and continued throughout the rest of yours based on that misunderstanding. Please don't try to correct us on how we are supposed to run our threads, however.

Yes, I'm part of it, which I have no problem mentioning. I also work as an executive in a bussiness, leading to having to move myself and my wife of four years to this forsaken city, so this is not the preaching of a back country hick. ;-)

I take exception to your implication that because somebody came from a rural community, their opinions would be worth less than those from an urban background. I think you'll find that we have a lot of people from diverse backgrounds and cultures on GameBanshee, including rural ones. They're no less valued for what they have to say. And I really mean that.

What you need to know is that our religion is something that I believe whole heartedly in, and that yes, it is a small group of the more radical "Furs" that originally made it up. Although Hill never was really interested in it over the years, he tried to learn a bit of it over the years. In essence, we hope through study and similar texts of whatever form to find a way to leave and come back a different form. No, this is not exactly new, as there have been what have been called "Cults" throughout our history which have failed in the task. As for reincarnation, well... I do suppose Buddhism is not included here in a quest for Nervana, with millions of followers?

Except that Buddhism teaches reincarnation is something bad, a matter of chaining yourself to illusion. Achieving nirvana is to escape from reincarnation, and the sequence of birth and death. So I'm not quite sure why you're bringing it up.

So since you claim to represent a religion, could we have some details of your religion? You provide none. In their pure form (not as offshoots developed much later), religion is all about answering the whys of the universe: Why am I here? Why was I born, and why am I going to die? Why do perfectly good people end up being killed? So what are the answers to these questions that your Furry religion provides? And what else makes your religion a "religion?" And what are the methods of worship? Some clear exposition on this is required, and your links furnish nothing of the kind. Anybody can establish something they claim is a religion, whether it is or isn't.

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.

Only it isn't roleplaying, as I think I made clear, above, just as the use of animal symbology in, say, Egyptian and Hindu religion, doesn't mean a worshipper believes they are worshipping somebody with a hawk's head. To argue that African religions are engaged in some form of roleplaying completely misunderstands everything about those religions.

Most of these were probably from the time when Burned Fur was still around, and if you read it, I congratulate you. If you didn't, then no reason you described it in one paragraph as "some kid who hates life stroking him/herself off while reading furry porn?" Unless I have slits on my arms and am currently stroking myself to the picture of some macro wolf, I highly doubt your blatant insult to the community is anymore than the ramblings of a person who has been causing us problems for our entire time in this fandom/religion?

So we're in agreement that any kid who writes, and reads, furry porn is in need of real help? And that they furnish a large part of the furry community, unless 5 or 10 people are sitting around writing close to 1000 stories on the Web, and occupying numerous MUDs? Meaning no offense, but where do you get off attacking me in the name of a religion you haven't even established, especially since the documents you link to use the strongest language as I have in condemning these same porn furries?

Furry who has been a part of the actual group for the past eight years? As for the work of authors such as C.S Lewis and Brian Jauqes (Redwall), the latter of which has a huge following and has "people" with animal qualities such as swimming and climbing trees with ease, are they two bit stories that are not half way decent with no need with animal skins, when the entire basis of stories is on fighting more "Vermin-like" animals with all sides having abilities due to one's race?

I can't say I have ever heard of, or read, Brian Jauqes. If by CS Lewis you mean the fairy-tale elements in his Narnia series, those have nothing to do with furries and everything to do with using anthropomorphic animal elements to make his point to kids, in imitation of the bestsellers of his age: Mother Goose. You do realize the Lewis was a fundamentalist Christian who would probably have had a heart attack if he were alive, and found his name dragged into this conversation? Trying to claim anything Lewis wrote as "furry" is like trying to claim the Mahabharata for feminism. The terms have no relevance. If anything written that uses a talking animal constitutes furrydom, then every cartoon is, every fable is--in short, the word furry ceases to have any meaning. It becomes useless, as well as inaccurate.

As for your obviously misinformed "information" that has lead you to obliviously post such crap, or whoever it was, that we want to be animals, let's look at one of the few sites that Wikipedia got right, shall we? ( http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Burned_Furs )

First of all, I request that you keep a civil tongue in your head. I may have differences with Hill-Shatar, but I respect him, and he respects me. If you want to discuss anything with me, you can do the same, and that applies to all conversations with anybody else, as well. You agreed to this when you joined this board. Consider this fair warning.

Second, if you're one of a group of furries defining yourself as being separate from another group, that's all well and good: but Hill-Shatar's initial question didn't ask specifically about one group, or another. If you'd bothered to truly read and undestand his initial post, you would have realized that. He simply wanted to know what our reactions were to the sub-culture. Not sub-cultures plural, note.

AsI leave you with this. I may return some time to hear the arguments as they come in, but I see no reason to argue with a self proclaimed expert from the internet, and I don't want to watch as Hill tries to argue with you, which I have no idea why he is really doing that anyways, considering how you are analyzing such things as African Religion and then using Wicca as an example. I might have confused your meanings, but for the most part, your arguments make little sense to me at all, and they don;t seem to have much reason behind them either.

So you're the kind of person who likes to post-and-run, then? Not willing to provide evidence to back up claims? So much for dialog. And I don't suppose you'd be amenable to explaining how I used Wicca as an example of African religions? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Be that as it may, thanks for coming by. I hope that if you do show up again, next time your remarks will be a bit more courteous, and far more explanatory rather than simply asserting you follow a religion, which anybody can claim.

Hill-Shatar: You still owe me a response. When you get the time.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Ravager

How about Animal Farm for one, an excellent book that uses metaphors and such to describe Communism?

The fable setting (no joke, literally fabliaux) with barnyard animals had nothing to do with furries. It derived from the medieval "talking animals" fables, and before that, all the way back to Aesop. It was deliberately and ironically used to tell a brutal tale of Communist insinuation and subjugation.

Or Alice in Wonderland?

The Reverend Dodgson, in showing the state of Alice's mind during sleep, delilberately mingled fairytale stories with contemporary political satire. Just because a novel uses speaking animals, doesn't mean it has anything to do with a small, modern group of people who wish they were anthropomorphic animals. To argue otherwise is anachronistic.

[Athena]

I take exception to your implication that because somebody came from a rural community, their opinions would be worth less than those from an urban background. I think you'll find that we have a lot of people from diverse backgrounds and cultures on GameBanshee, including rural ones. They're no less valued for what they have to say.

I don't think he was saying they're less valued. More so he was painting a perspective to us of who he is,

[fable]

Originally Posted by Athena

I don't think he was saying they're less valued. More so he was painting a perspective to us of who he is,

Athena, he placed it in the context of reflecting negatively on people from rural areas. In other words, in defining himself, he belittled some others. I don't see how else I could interpret that.

[Athena]

Okay, maybe it was degrading in it's context, but

Originally Posted by fable

..some kid who hates life stroking him/herself off while reading furry porn..(Athena edit, did you actually type that?)

How you can make what I wrote about this into "a blatant insult to the community" is admittedly beyond my limited intellectual capacity.

I can understand where the community would be insulted. Don't you think you are stereotyping a bit? Then again, you both are.

Also, I think we have defined 2 kinds; root furries and hyped-up following.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Athena

Okay, maybe it was degrading in it's context, but
don't you think you are sterotyping a little bit?
Then again, you both are.

But how would I be stereotyping by telling him not to stereotype? Besides, telling others not to stereotype various groups is what I'm supposed to do here, as a mod. It's part of Buck's divine commandment.

That said, I could have been a bit less stiff in my reply. But I don't know anybody sane (or otherwise) who responds well to being immediately attacked by someone who hasn't even bothered to read the first post in the thread, and wants to tell me what I can and cannot discuss.

And for everything else, as Hill-Shatar knows, I remain open to new knowledge when it's presented. So far, we know from Inter's post that he belongs to a furry group that utterly rejects furry porn and its creators, and he claims he belongs to a furry religion, as well. That's about it. I accept that the first part, but then, I never said otherwise. And I've asked for evidence showing that he follows a genuine religion, rather than simply an elaborate, multi-person form of wish fulfillment. It's a fair question. It's the kind of question I've repeatedly suggested to my confreres in the pagan community at large, only to be met for years by largely hostile stares.

[Athena]

I think there is a bit posted by Inter on belief systems, I didn't read into much of the links, so I can't talk here. Just don't be so sure to doubt.(I understand your personality I think Fable, you'll read it if it's in front of you) This thread has scratched the surface for me of defining the lines between true believers and some kind of hyped-up following, I think. NHF no hard feelings It think I'm signing off for now.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Athena

I think there is a bit posted by Inter on belief systems, I didn't read into much of the links, so I can't talk here. Just don't be so sure to doubt.(I understand your personality I think Fable, you'll read it if it's in front of you) This thread has scratched the surface for me of defining the lines between true believers and some kind of hyped-up following, I think. NHF no hard feelings It think I'm signing off for now.

Oh, no hard feelings at all! But I've read through his posted documents, and I see nothing that goes into how his personal beliefs and wishes translate into a religion. It is a fair question for me to ask, you know.

Nor is it simply a matter of defining true believers, etc. Simply put, there are some qualifications that are used to determine whether something is a religion, just as there are whether something is a government, or a currency, or a book, or a piece of music. And while we can arbitrarily define, say, a few seconds of silence as music, that just ignores the definition rather than answering it.

Meanwhile, many people who have wish fulfillment fantasies will (and have) insist that they are followers (or starters) of religions, and they will become outraged when anybody asks for further details. But the definitions enable us to discuss these matters, and tossing them out is not a good idea unless we wish to doom all discussion and reside in uncritical acceptance of everything anyone claims.

Which is not a reflection on Inter. He may be a follower of a religion, or he may not. It hasn't been established yet, and I for one am genuinely curious. Personally, I hope he is. Finding a new wrinkle on the age old search for spiritual knowledge about the universe has always fascinated me.

[C Elegans]

What a nice coincidence, Fable is home with the flu and I am home at sick leave for OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a condition caused because I was egg donour to infertile couples recently. It's not legal to pay people for egg donating in Sweden, so nobody wants to do it. Now I understand why )

To the point, first the light ones then the heavier:

Originally Posted by Athena

Any person can't just jump up on any horse and go for a freaking joyride.

No? Maybe not any horse, but most people who can ride seems to be able to ride most horses, providing the horses are trained to carry people (I don't know the English word for this, what is it called when you train the young horse to carry people? And is there an adjective form of this word, when a horse is trained to carry people it is...?)

To train horses to carry people is obvioiusly not something anyone can do, and it's even more difficult with camels. You need people with a special knowledge, skill and personality to do this. However, just riding already trained horses is a completely different matter.

Horses are big and we are small. A horse could squash me. Humans master horses. It takes a ton of dilligent patient consistentcy experience and understanding to make them look nice under saddle. Concidering those facts, I know that being an adreneline junkie is right up the alley of a horse trainer. Putting myself at risk and such. I do understand the behavior, to the point where I can master an animal ten times my size and that's the risk. But that wouldn't give me any sort of adreneline; dodging away from the hooves of a 1,500lb rearing equine, knowing it's just me and him, he could crack my skull like summersquash, and I must recollect the animal so it doesn't cause havoc to the point where work can't continue. The show must go on. I generally try to treat the horses like I would myself, does that classify me as a furry? I mean, I don't pin on fake tails, but still, we are one in the same...

We all have different needs for adrenaline release, and it varies widely what triggers our adrenaline release. Sure working with horses can be dangerous, a lot of things can be dangerous...living is sort of dangerous when you think about it. If you focus on it, it is very dangerous to drive a car, too. Lots of people are disabled or killed in traffic. A collision can easily make minced meat of your body. As a pedestrian, getting hit by a car or even a motorbike can crack your skill, tear off your limbs, make you paralysed, kill you etc in a second. It's a question of what we choose focus on. You are obviously thrilled by horses and get adrenaline rushes whn you focus on the possible danger of the situation. Personally I am quite bored with horses, riding is nice sometimes but not more than nice to me, and working with horses have never attracted me. As a kid I had a friend who was a race horse jockey. She trained and kept her horses in the same stable as some of the internationally most successful Swedish trottlers. She was not at all an adrenline junkie - perhaps she ought to have been because later she died in an accident when she was training a young horse to get used to the starting box.

I would absolutely not say your profession as an equestrian and your interest and knowledge about horses makes you a "furry" in any way. "Furries" is a term that denotes a specific fandom and fan-fiction based subculture. Are the camel men in the Sahara or the horsemen in Central Asia Furries? Of course not. They are just people who live closer to, and socialise and work with, certain other species than other people do. It would be such an overinclusive use of the term Furries so it would be meaningless if we apply a fandom culture like furries in this context. If you call yourself a Furry, fine, it's not a problem to me how you define yourself, but the lexiographic use of the term does not imply that everybody who has a relationship to other species is a Furry. More about that later when I reply to Hill and our new poster Inter.

[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.

[Lestat]

Interesting discussion, but moderating the tone and holding back on the condescension I see sometimes dripping from my screen, risking to damage my keyboard might improve it ... a lot.

[Hill-Shatar]

Originally Posted by fable

Hill-Shatar: You still owe me a response. When you get the time.

Sorry, this is my first and only time on today. I'll get to the damn topic when I get the chance.

[C Elegans]

Now I have made a Google search for "Furry" and "religion". I didn't find many pages mentioning this, most of the hits contained the phrase "Furry is not a religion" but instead a lifestyle or fandom. I found three pages who mentioned that Furries could have totem animals "like Native North American cultures" but there was no description that supported these totem animals meant the same as in native North American cultures, or are surrounded by the same spiritual contex. On the contrary, one site said that you can choose a totem animal depending on if you like the animal and/or find it cute and on another site, a person described how he found his totem animals by "just feeling" they were right for him. Nothing about religion. The third site was the same as Hill linked to.

Regarding history, most pages I found gave a history back to web fan cultures in the 1980's, some to the 1960's. I found one page who gave a history back to ancient Egypt:
http://www.perrirhoades.furtopia.org/Furry.html#5

The arguments presented for this was however the similar to what Hill have already posted. I quote from the webpage:

"Furries go back to mythological times. Many gods of early civilizations were anthropomorphic characters. Furries figure prominently in ancient Egyptian art, Native American art, and the art of many other ancient cultures.

Furries also figure prominently in folklore and fairytales, going back hundreds of years. Actually, if you want to get technical about it, there are Furries in The Bible.

Historically, Furries have just always been around.

This is a clear example of overinclusive use of a term, as I described in my post above. The author of this webpage takes a general human behaviour (anthropomorphisism) and single it out as a marker for a contemporary fandom subculture (Furry) and claims ancient Egypt art was Furry. This effectively makes any discussion meaningless, since any term in language can mean anything then. If this is the level of the present discussion, we ought to discuss semantics instead.

Since I didn't find anything substantial when I searched for "Furry" and "religion", I also did a search for only "Furry", but then I got so much cartoon porn pictures of thong-clad cats with human breasts stroking their nipples, so I frankly did not have the patience to wade through all that. Instead, I hope Hill and/or Inter will provide more information that support the claim there is a Furry religion that fulfils the criteria for religion.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Hill-Shatar

Sorry, this is my first and only time on today. I'll get to the damn topic when I get the chance.

Actually, your quote of me is not quite accurate. I didn't write:

Hill-Shatar: You still owe me a response. When you get the time.

but...
Hill-Shatar: You still owe me a response. When you get the time.

...changing the mood to a lighter one. Which, judging by your own response, may be something you need to consider.

To speak frankly, had you told us before starting this topic how much you'd emotionally invested in the issue at hand--along the lines of "I"m a big fan of anthropomorphism. What do you think about it?" -I would have not said some of the things I subsequently did, and couched the rest differently. But by stating it in such a neutral, "What do you think of..." fashion, it came across as someone on the outside who was curious, so you got a different perspective in replies. When you seemed to be trying to engage me in further reading of furry fiction, or activities on furry MUDs, I perceived you as misreading my opinions, so I stated them more strongly. In retrospect, you were perhaps unwilling to admit your strong enthusiasm by then, seeing the negativity the subject had raised, and were trying to use this method of securing agreement.

In the field of history, such misundestandings between nations are the course of tragedy. On the artistic stage, the result is farce.

In real life, it is usually an intermingling of the two. And I am not inclined to cause any friends personal grief by interfering with their strongly held enthusiasms.

Seeing how you feel about it now, I am disinclined to discuss any of this further save the claims that anthropomorphism 1) is a religion, and 2) that in its non-religious form it dates back beyond the formation of a modern community with a commonality of interests. I think clarifying these points, especially the first, can be of great interest. I had never heard that anybody believed there was a furry religion, much less claimed to be a worshipper, and I want to see if this proposed religion of furry fans actually meets sufficient criteria to justify such a claim. As of yet, I have seen no such evidence. Nor have I found any in the modern pagan community, who are notoriously heterogeneous in their willingness to embrace non-accepted belief systems.

On the second matter, I have already made my opinions clear. Broadening a definition to find ancient roots in some apparent justification of anything is an all-too-human failing that itself is ancient. In late Renaissance times, numerous forgeries were published claiming to be the "Gnostic teachings" of Plato, Aristotle, etc, and the true Gnostic reprints of works going back to the 3rd and 4th centuries ACE were considered to date back to 2000 and 3000 BCE. The older, the closer to the truth. But if we broaden definitions such as what comprises furry literature to include anything with talking animals, we lose any definition of what sets apart modern furries, and modern furry literature, from anything else. These vacuous definitions are useless, wherever they are applied.