Well, there is a segment of the atheist community that oppose the idea of Godhood in it's entirety. That leads to some question on how you would "define" a God of course. But if there is such a thing out there that can change the nature of reality without using the principles of nature, that has an incredible large conciousness and that actually "created" our universe and has rules that define morals in an objective way and/or rewards you for good behavior in some kind of afterlife ... then maybe it comes close to our definition of what we would perceive as God. The issue is just that these people deny that this can excist in it's entirety, and they embrace this believe without having any proof. Therefore it becomes dogmatic. Now, we both know that most atheists are more prone to an agnostic postion, where "we don't know" is an important part of our thinking. And as long as we don't know, and we can't proof that one of our perceptions is real, we just ignore it because it's just not worth dominating our lifes. But when you are part of this small segment of people that embrace the dogmatic idea and pretend they do know without evidence... well, then you come pretty close to what you consider a religious idea.
@Pikachu [quote]Because if that's all one needs in order to be a religion then what separates a religion from a political affiliation?[/quote]
That's the argument. This isn't my argument btw, this is an old one that you can find in several authors that concern themselves about political believe systems. I can point to pretty much all the political -isms out there, people that are devoted to an -ism argue in the same way as religious people. Because these -isms have to embrace a particulair notion, some starting principle that lacks evidence. Political radicals and extremists, have the same structure of thought that you find with devoted people that you would categorise as religions.
The only thing that you can use against that (for as far as I'm aware) is that these devoted -ism people to create a following, have gatherings, readings, youtube-channels, ... that preach the believe the system and classify nay-sayers as heretics by ridiculousing them and placing them in the margin so that their following won't listen to them. There is hardly any discussion or debate, just the doctrine of the -ism that eventually creates it's own orthodoxy and behavioral patterns.
But yeah, if you want examples of this, just look up political extremists groups, read their pamphlets follow their messaging. They don't always do the "worship" thing, unless you perceive the gatherings that I mentioned as a form of religious ritual. The worship is more towards the doctrine then what you can perceive in a temple. [i](same goes for other identitarian groups btw, that have some devoted believe towards their own morality or them being better... you see it in football stadiums every month)[/i]
But to have a better understanding of all of this, you as the instigator of this toppic, should have defined what "religion" means for you. Because this is largely a conversation about semantics [i](and I don't say this in a negative way... it's just important to know what you perceive as a religion)[/i].
@Pikachu Well, if you accept that we are beings that are ignorant about a lot of aspects of our life, and we should discover things to make the ignorance go away... in the mean time, society is still struggling with that lack of knowledge. espescially when it comes to how we organise society.
One of the big discussions here, ever since the beginning of the enlightenment, is the nature of mankind in it's most natural form. You can take a pessismistic approach, like Hobbes who believed that human beings in their natural state are always at war with eachother and therefore Hobbes needs a state to create peace amongst those human beings that fall under the states rule of law. But you can also take the ultimate progressive approach like Rousseau, who believed that man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. Meaning that human beings are free and even virtues if not for society, it's society that corrupts. And in between there are a lot of other thinkers that have more nuances... ussually conservative thinkers have a less optimistic vieuw on the nature of human beings while progressive thinkers ussually have a more positive vieuw on humans. What ever idea you are going to embrace as your foundation on how human beings are as a start of how we "ought" to organise society, is kinda important. And this idea is always dogmatic because we just don't know, it's a philosophical debate. But once it becomes dogmatic, once ideas start flowing from it and it supports your entire political believe system... well, you'll have the beginning of a movement that can be labeled religious if you link religion with unshakeable ideas that people are devoted too. And these ideas will start to shape how people act, how people reason, how people structure their society... if these ideas are at the foundation, they become pretty much totalitarian because they will dictate other aspects of your worldview.
From a perspective most things conclude as being subjective, then transmogrify accordingly; but their roots remain intact. So, if you look in a dictionary for the word religion you find the most common use in the culture you live in. Maybe the etymology is given, which is where you find the root and how that root grew into the common use. An encyclopedia may give you some insight on the perception, and with all of that you can break it down and simplify it.
Religion is a strict adherence to a set of principles/belief and a specific methodology of repetition. Everyone is religious. Every religion i.e. everyone is flawed.
Here is how religion works. A belief, philosophy or subjective fact dependent upon faith is proposed and then propagated to the masses. If those are widely accepted they become useful tools for social and political means. Typically the original teachings of the religion are transmogrified in the process - often for the political means itself - which, through a gradual and insidious process of a cultural, social and traditional influence, becomes the paradigm. You see this in the Emperor Constantine the Great's politicization of Christianity and the Nicaean creed. You see it with the Emperor Wu Ti's promotion of Confucianism and interest in Taoism. Shintoism was named as such due to a need for a distinction between ancient Japanese cultural ritualistic festivals during the planting and harvesting seasons and the newly introduced Buddhism from India. It was then incorporated into the mythological instruction of Japanese youth through the legends of the Nihongi and Kojiki by the Royal family.
@AkioTsukino [quote]Right. I would say that religion wasn't created to control people[/quote] Yeah i'd say that religion probably didn't get it's start that way either.
Religion in the sense of believing in some kind of divine being/creator, no; but if you consider religion just to be a belief system re how the universe works, then the belief in no gods would fit, I guess.
An evidence based method for empirically identifying what is true about the natural world? No i don't think science fits that definition. Science is a way of knowing, not the worship of something unkowable.
There is either disbelief for various reasons or if having belief is so important, actively believe there are no gods. Basically you’re still an atheist.
@Pikachu [quote]Well you're definitely still an atheist. But some people like to contend that, that disbelief constitutes a religion.[/quote]
Belief in what, though? Most of the world's major organized religions are atheistic. Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism, and arguably Hinduism, Scientology and much of Judaism. Most unbelievers in occidental cultures appear, at least from my personal experience, to think of religion in a rather myopic perspective as being exclusively theistic. So, what they really seem to be expressing is a sociopolitical frustration with and opposition to theocracy.
What are your thoughts on Native American religion or spirituality, I’m Native American and I’m practicing the spirituality of my culture so are you against it?
