What is a religion?

[Propianotuner]

Let me be clear to start with: I am in no way about to suggest that atheism is itself a religion. Atheism is one among a handful of stances on a particular philosophical question, and being an atheist doesn't preclude any one person from subscribing to a whole range of stances on other philosophical questions.

I'd like to propose a few criteria for recognizing something as a religion, criteria which I've selected specifically for their explanatory power, i.e. their ability to effectively explain things we observe in the world, namely how people come together to share in particular worldviews, how they identify with the group, and how it has a societal impact. It can be countered, for example, that one could identify as a Christian or Muslim but not participate in religious activities with others, but it remains that the religion is there in the first place for one to identify with because of the sociological vehicle.

Given that, a religion is a social phenomenon in which:

-There are multiple adherents who gather together for the express purpose of sharing in the religion.
-There are standard, accepted texts, which define the beliefs which adherents subscribe to. Within a religion there may not be unanimity on how to understand the texts, and what all are the accepted and possibly rejected texts, but this is enough of a universal phenomenon to warrant inclusion as a criterion.
-The beliefs associated with a religion must encompass enough general philosophical questions, mostly of the metaphysical and especially the ethical variety, to constitute an overall worldview.
-It must be sufficiently organized and answer enough worldview related questions in order for the adherents themselves to deem it appropriate to identify with the religion, calling themselves 'Christians', 'Hindus', 'Punjabs', or whatever else.

What are the implications here? I'm more than a little certain this kind of definition for religion implies that those of us who are enculturated to think of the issue from a westernized perspective need to broaden our horizons in order to grasp all of what's going on. English speaking discussions in which atheism is considered to preclude religion are virtually omnipresent and thinking that way really isn't helpful for anyone who might like to establish a deeper familiarity with, for example, Buddhism.

You see, Buddhism was, from its outset, an atheistic religion. Siddhartha Gautama, aka The Buddha, lived in an environment in which he was exposed to Hindu thinking, reading and hearing about the Puranas (secondary philosophical dialogues which defined sects of Hinduism, some in favor of monism and even monotheism, others in favor of polytheism, and yet others actually in favor of atheism and materialism, see Carvaka Hinduism) and Upanishads (the primary religious texts which the Puranas drew upon as source material, written in the form of poetry, the telling of religious epics, and instructions for carrying out rituals), and spending time learning from Indian ascetics who were the protozoic nucleus that would later develop into a religion we now recognize as Jainism. Unlike the ancient religious environment further west, the idea of atheism wasn't nearly as unfamiliar, so Gautama formed a religion in which there was indeed a principle aspect behind existence, but he redefined Brahman in a purely atheistic sense and didn't deify himself or other Buddhas.

This is really the tip of the iceberg on the subject. I brought up Buddhism in particular because further discussion on its history and development could serve as good source material for talks about people throughout history engaging in religious behavior without theistic beliefs, how Buddhism has been synthesized with some theistic religions in East Asia and in some cases has either adopted theistic thought or redefined local deities and superstitions as Boddhisattvas. A Boddhisattva is a particular kind of Buddha/sagely-person who is capable of escaping the reincarnation cycle but makes the self sacrifical choice not to enter Nirvana in order to return periodically and help guide others to Nirvana.

 

[Streetwise]

to me religion is death a lot of deeds but !!!!!!!!!!the believer !!!!!!is !!!!not !!!!death !!!!!!!.
im a follower of yeshua(jesus) in case you ask me so I don't have to post again

 

[Propianotuner]

to me religion is death a lot of deeds but !!!!!!!!!!the believer !!!!!!is !!!!not !!!!death !!!!!!!.
im a follower of yeshua(jesus) in case you ask me so I don't have to post again

??? I'm severely confused and wondering if you read the OP.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Given that, a religion is a social phenomenon in which

How does a belief begin? (A superstition perhaps)
A way of thinking, that there is a rain God, good to look after the crops.
One year the crops fail.
Starvation.
Some people curse the god in charge of the crops
People are frightened.
What if the crops fail again?
We have to please the god of crops,next year the crops will not fail.

Next year there is a good harvest.
So the praying to the god of crops has to continue or there may be famine.
Essentially it's a superstitious level of thought,using logic to generate the belief and tradition.

Add lots of years and events...

Add in information from your other post about rulers.
Ie power.
I always wondered why the emperor Constantine chose Christianity.

One god reduces a lot of keys to power (your other thread)
One God enables a greater concentration of power to the powerful .

So religion is a social phenomenon utilised by the powerful as a useful way to organise society.
(Henry VIII is interesting here as he destroyed churches essentially making himself responsible for the tax base is churches used to collect taxes)
Reducing keys to power again.

Useful for the powerful that the people believe all this stuff .

Now Buddhism.

You see, Buddhism was, from its outset, an atheistic religion

Buddhism you're doing it yourself. it was sort of anti-power.

Difficult to be used by rulers as a method to gather people or use them.

Perhaps that idea of individual enlightenment (pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,your own actions generate a fair reward ,karma)
is more demonstrative of the attraction of the idea to individuals.
Buddhism doesn't seem like it could be utilised by rulers to instill fear,control etc. I don't know if it has been.

An interesting thought to study the growth of an idea that survived on merits of being 'good' rather than an idea more easily utilised by the powerful within a social structure.

 

[pjcnet]

A religion is simply a combined set of beliefs that is usually related to our existence and/or ourselves. This doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with God and few religions are even compatible with each other because the belief system doesn't cross paths.

As you mention Buddhism, this is about teaching people the techniques to gain knowledge themselves which includes meditation, it does not tell you to believe anything related to God or Gods, although there are some ideals in the teachings as well, for instance teaching people not to get attached to possessions. Buddhism won't tell you not to be part of other religions, this is entirely your choice.

Another much more controversial example of a religion that has nothing to do with God or Gods is Scientology which despite it's criticisms is still defined as a religion, this is entirely based on the teachings of the late L.Ron Hubbard. They teach numerous techniques that allegedly improve your life by understanding how our minds work and there's also a type of "counselling" called auditing that attempts to remove past harmful memories (engrams) by reliving them and facing them, they say that these adversely affect you in your current life, this is just touching on their many teachings. In my opinion Scientology and the associated practices that are called Dianetics do have a lot of good teachings, but not all and much worse the "church" is sadly controlled by very powerful people who are only truly interested in gaining more power and money, they also use conditioning techniques to manipulate people into joining and to stay in the religion while they often take over their lives, this can often become very negative when they even control people's money and sometimes even where they live while attempting to cut them off from friends and family who may stand against the religion by labelling them as suppressive people which is also part of their early indoctrination, so please be warned if you are stopped on the street and asked to do a free personality test which is often their first line of recruitment, they often choose people who they see as potentially vulnerable. The results of the test will be particularly convincing as they point out all the things that are hurting you in your life and can be improved upon as long as you listen to them and take that one very important step and do their first course which is allegedly positively life changing in a huge way and it's relatively very cheap at first (the price dramatically increases the longer you stay and soon you can be literally charged $Thousands once you are fully indoctrinated and they will even if necessary offer you credit and other ways to help you pay, like moving in a shared house with other Scientologists to help save you money and even if you have no money, they sometimes get you to work for them for pittance except you get some courses paid for). In my opinion however many religions even mainstream ones use a certain level of conditioning and brainwashing, especially when they start indoctrinating young children, it's just that Scientology is less recognised and is often in many ways more blatant.

You could even say that psychiatry is a type of religion, the techniques they use are not accepted and believed by all, in fact many people are against psychiatry even though it might be formally recognised in many countries. In my opinion a lot of psychiatry is harmful, especially the use of harmful mind altering drugs. A lot of psychiatry has actually originated from the Nazis. Scientology are very much against psychiatry and the drugs they often use, in this case I do agree with them.

Many religions thrive because we have a primitive instinct to be part of a tribe, the problem is often we see people outside our tribe as outsiders and worse sometimes rivals or enemies. People also join many religions because of their fear of mortality, they are often most vulnerable at times of grief or other bad times.

Edit: typo.

 

[Tom]

I think of religion as a set of supernatural beliefs. Everything else is philosophy or lack thereof.

 

[kay]

Some people turn a sport into their religion, others Star Wars.

Religion is weird, really. All these people getting together, that's the worst part of most religions. The constant need for gathering. The reason I merely lean toward Quakerism and haven't seriously pursued it. I mostly agree with it in a secular pantheistic sorta way, but I have no interest in attaching myself to a group in a religious way.

Interesting that you mention atheism. I was in an atheist Meetup for about three years and found that the members would gravitate towards "doctrines". There were approved blogs and books. Certain "sects" seemed to form and tried to enforce their version of atheism. Eventually one guy announced the need to "clean house". Well, that sent an exodus from that group and a new atheist group formed (I never really got involved in that one). That group, about three years
later, is now "cleaning house" so to speak. Atheism can get awfully religious sometimes.

I will say I like the food that religious groups tend to offer. Donuts and casseroles. I was at my husband's church (UU) recently and offered all sorts of food left over from their Friday night dinner group.

Interesting info and thoughts on Buddhism. I have had a bit of interest in knowing more about it, not interested in being a Buddhist, but still have wanted to know more. But there are so many versions. The tiny city I live in recently gained a Buddhist temple but I feel like I would be rude and intrusive to go check it out since I am merely curious.

 

[Aspie_With_Attitude]

Religion means to me, a form of faith or cult that are organised and have mass followings.

Religious fanatics whether it's Christians or Muslims would see non followers as outsiders. I can't stand fanatics from the monotheistic religious backgrounds since they're often narrow minded into their one God.

I'm more into spirituality and polytheism, because I like to interpret the color of reality rather than being part of something that has too many rules and be restricted from doing stuff that turns out to be harmless in the end.

There's no harm in eating fried bacon. The Islam and Jewish religion claims there is harm in cooking and eating fried bacon. All that is restricted rules on what you can or can't eat to be attuned to this religion. All they are just spiritual boundaries to make religious followings work.

You can be religious, sceptical or spiritual, we are all still human.

 

[kay]

Religion means to me, a form of faith or cult that are organised and have mass followings.

Religious fanatics whether it's Christians or Muslims would see non followers as outsiders. I can't stand fanatics from the monotheistic religious backgrounds since they're often narrow minded into their one God.

I'm more into spirituality and polytheism, because I like to interpret the color of reality rather than being part of something that has too many rules and be restricted from doing stuff that turns out to be harmless in the end.

There's no harm in eating fried bacon. The Islam and Jewish religion claims there is harm in cooking and eating fried bacon. All that is restricted rules on what you can or can't eat to be attuned to this religion. All they are just spiritual boundaries to make religious followings work.

You can be religious, sceptical or spiritual, we are all still human.

Stomach cancer. Bacon will give you stomach cancer.
Just had to tease about bacon, but I understand what you were trying say and pretty much agree. Except the bacon part. I'm not religious and still won't eat bacon.

 

[Mary Anne]

Let me be clear to start with: I am in no way about to suggest that atheism is itself a religion. Atheism is one among a handful of stances on a particular philosophical question, and being an atheist doesn't preclude any one person from subscribing to a whole range of stances on other philosophical questions.

I'd like to propose a few criteria for recognizing something as a religion, criteria which I've selected specifically for their explanatory power, i.e. their ability to effectively explain things we observe in the world, namely how people come together to share in particular worldviews, how they identify with the group, and how it has a societal impact. It can be countered, for example, that one could identify as a Christian or Muslim but not participate in religious activities with others, but it remains that the religion is there in the first place for one to identify with because of the sociological vehicle.

Given that, a religion is a social phenomenon in which:

-There are multiple adherents who gather together for the express purpose of sharing in the religion.
-There are standard, accepted texts, which define the beliefs which adherents subscribe to. Within a religion there may not be unanimity on how to understand the texts, and what all are the accepted and possibly rejected texts, but this is enough of a universal phenomenon to warrant inclusion as a criterion.
-The beliefs associated with a religion must encompass enough general philosophical questions, mostly of the metaphysical and especially the ethical variety, to constitute an overall worldview.
-It must be sufficiently organized and answer enough worldview related questions in order for the adherents themselves to deem it appropriate to identify with the religion, calling themselves 'Christians', 'Hindus', 'Punjabs', or whatever else.

What are the implications here? I'm more than a little certain this kind of definition for religion implies that those of us who are enculturated to think of the issue from a westernized perspective need to broaden our horizons in order to grasp all of what's going on. English speaking discussions in which atheism is considered to preclude religion are virtually omnipresent and thinking that way really isn't helpful for anyone who might like to establish a deeper familiarity with, for example, Buddhism.

You see, Buddhism was, from its outset, an atheistic religion. Siddhartha Gautama, aka The Buddha, lived in an environment in which he was exposed to Hindu thinking, reading and hearing about the Puranas (secondary philosophical dialogues which defined sects of Hinduism, some in favor of monism and even monotheism, others in favor of polytheism, and yet others actually in favor of atheism and materialism, see Carvaka Hinduism) and Upanishads (the primary religious texts which the Puranas drew upon as source material, written in the form of poetry, the telling of religious epics, and instructions for carrying out rituals), and spending time learning from Indian ascetics who were the protozoic nucleus that would later develop into a religion we now recognize as Jainism. Unlike the ancient religious environment further west, the idea of atheism wasn't nearly as unfamiliar, so Gautama formed a religion in which there was indeed a principle aspect behind existence, but he redefined Brahman in a purely atheistic sense and didn't deify himself or other Buddhas.

This is really the tip of the iceberg on the subject. I brought up Buddhism in particular because further discussion on its history and development could serve as good source material for talks about people throughout history engaging in religious behavior without theistic beliefs, how Buddhism has been synthesized with some theistic religions in East Asia and in some cases has either adopted theistic thought or redefined local deities and superstitions as Boddhisattvas. A Boddhisattva is a particular kind of Buddha/sagely-person who is capable of escaping the reincarnation cycle but makes the self sacrifical choice not to enter Nirvana in order to return periodically and help guide others to Nirvana.

I am glad you touched upon ascetics and Jainism. I always was most fascinated with both of these!

Do you think that humans have some sort of genetic dna “spiritual” need that makes a majority of them need to follow someone/ something/ some honey power/ other being and follow rules? Why can’t we all live responsibly and sensibly w/o imposing some sort of doctrines, or or worshipping deities?

 

[Propianotuner]

We've got some meaty material on our hands, so I think I'll revive an old custom and put on a brain teaser as I read and write in this thread:

I'd like to start by probing with some more questions while we're at it: what is a definition? What makes a definition good? What does it mean for a definition to be "wrong" or "right"? What kinds of definitions can there be? I'll tackle them in order and leave them up to any other interested parties to answer.

-A definition is a way of agreeing upon which connotations for a word are acceptable/useful in a given dialogue. There are different kinds of definitions, and in stark contrast to one popular belief it is not at all useful to be slavish to dictionary definitions and they are not the "right" definitions.

-A definition becomes good when it is useful. It is terribly context dependent, because language is this confusing quagmire and in all different situations where people communicate a variety of goals and expectations will come into play. E.g. a dictionary definition is important to understand because it facilitates understanding in conversations between people who aren't specifically working towards something with a common understanding in mind, "go get the spatula" is of course supposed to be very straightforward. However, that gets turned on its head when a situation comes up where two academics are sharpening themselves on one another with dialogue like "query: must all objects have properties"; dictionary definitions are not only a source of confusion but detrimental there.

-There is no hard rule for what is the wrong or right definition for something. A word is merely a sound and we supply the meaning, the same sound in another language can communicate entirely different ideas.

-When you break it down, the possible kinds of definitions are really diverse and quite fascinating.

*A real definition is the kind of definition that attempts to describe some concrete thing for what it is. These kinds of definitions can be quite elusive and often an exercise in futility (a real definition isn't useful in the case of this thread) because there are so many subjects that can't be broken down into concrete and tangible terms, e.g. "what is virtue".

By contrast where they really are put to good use is when everyone in a discussion is agreeing that "yes, that is a bar of gold".

*A dictionary definition is concerned with one or more primary ways in which a word is used in the common vernacular. Slang terms don't often end up in a dictionary because they simply aren't prevalent enough to have a reasonable possibility of being present in conversation virtually everywhere a language is in use.

*A stipulative definition is the most context dependent kind of definition as it is a hypothetical meaning being given for a word in order to illustrate something only within that particular discussion. Such a definition is often offered along these lines: "let's assume for the sake of discussion that all dogs are red, now if all dogs were red..."

*A descriptive definition is what it sounds like. It is any definition which is chiefly concerned with giving an adequate description of something.

Let's say we needed a definition for George Washington. A definition such as "George Washington was an American president" would be quite unfit for a discussion in which one participant was asking who George Washington was. There have been numerous American presidents over the span of several lifetimes.

What a perfectly descriptive definition needs is to be both extensional and intensional. For it to be extensional means that there must be no actual counterexamples, and for it to be intensional means that there must be no possible counterexamples either. Only certain things are capable of possessing a perfectly descriptive definition because having an intensional definition can turn out to be an astringent requirement.

I've neglected to mention the two other primary kinds of definitions because they are used in much more rarefied contexts.

A religion is simply a combined set of beliefs that is usually related to our existence and/or ourselves.

You've cast out a terribly wide net here, my friend. Let's see what we catch in the net:

Another much more controversial example of a religion that has nothing to do with God or Gods is Scientology which despite it's criticisms is still defined as a religion, this is entirely based on the teachings of the late L.Ron Hubbard.

One of the classically provided examples nowadays. It really is a fitting example because many don't recognize it, and even governments don't recognize it, but so far as I can tell any truly sober minded and profitable (in the sense of seeing and acknowledging what happens in the world) definition of religion doubtlessly should include Scientology. "But he was a fraud, wasn't he?" Hmmm... don't people allege that about most religions?

You could even say that psychiatry is a type of religion, the techniques they use are not accepted and believed by all, in fact many people are against psychiatry even though it might be formally recognised in many countries.

You could say that but then this is where the profitability of the definition you've supplied here starts to wane. What does your definition of religion highlight for us? What does it explain? Simply because, as in this kind of example, you can find groups (or in this case a profession) that share beliefs doesn't establish enough of a noteworthy basis for comparison, it doesn't provide us with a category of things with which we can benefit greatly in our understanding from observing.

Here you've given a demonstrative example, I believe, of why religion as "combined set of beliefs related to ourselves" isn't as telling as "a social phenomenon in which people organize around a particular worldview".

There are many combined sets of beliefs, but if you cast a net that wide you ultimately can't find much more in common between the fish you catch other than that they are merely the fish that fit in your net. Looking at religion from a sociological perspective lets us examine the similarities on a deeper level; we can, for example, compare the development of any of the "primary" religions to a state religion. Just look at the religions you can associate with each other and the possibility for edification should be clear: Islam and Hinduism, as opposed to the Roman Imperial Cult and the practices of 20th century totalitarian regimes.

Here with your definition we're left grasping for any meaningful comparison between what is simply a branch of science and a profession, and something like Christianity. Sure, the science can find itself going in "religious" type directions but there's not all that much more meat on that bone.

Many religions thrive because we have a primitive instinct to be part of a tribe, the problem is often we see people outside our tribe as outsiders and worse sometimes rivals or enemies. People also join many religions because of their fear of mortality, they are often most vulnerable at times of grief or other bad times.

I tend to agree and furthermore have often thought that in the absence of religion as we know it, e.g. let's say we lived in a world with maybe some large groups organizing around worldviews but nothing theological, I'm still quite confident from what knowledge I've gleaned in anthropology that people would most definitely still be behaving just as irrationally, and engaging in horrific, large scale conflicts.

There are differences between people because as a species we are so geographically spread out; naturally that's going to result in some morphology differences and other genetically different characteristics, as well as many variegated ways of thinking. Where there are differences and where there are limited resources, it also follows that many troubling situations occur, situations which people often are in the habit of associating more with religion than the human nature itself.

 

[Propianotuner]

Do you think that humans have some sort of genetic dna “spiritual” need that makes a majority of them need to follow someone/ something/ some honey power/ other being and follow rules?

I tend to think that it's really unhelpful that there has been any talk of a "God gene" or set of "God genes" in the first place because in reality that's not what they're looking for. A biologist, even one specializing in anthropology, isn't even remotely about to come to that far reaching of a conclusion about the issue because of these reasons among others:

-The few scientists who do study the development and nature of religions (and I'm not talking about scientists who randomly opine about it, e.g. Dawkins, who don't even study something like cultural anthropology or socio-psychology) are in such a preliminary stage of the process that it's clear they are hardly in a position to begin making connections between neurology and such complex social behavior and abstract thinking.

Physics, an apt object for comparison, has been around practically forever. On the other hand, cross discipline studies into both genes and neurology- as well as applying neurology to the humanities oriented sciences such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology- are decidedly in their infancy, with scanty literary examples and a pretty short time period thus far with open interaction.

So far as I can tell it's going to take an interminably long time to progress with those multidisciplinary questions at this point, because those fields have quite a history of being inimical to one another. In the past acrid disagreements abounded between people who studied the mind on a biological level and people who studied the mind through observing human behavior and rationalizing about thought processes. There remains a seemingly abyssal divide in their respective understandings of the Scientific Method.

-While people have been doing a spectacular job of advancing our understanding of the human genome, we are still at the stage of trying to basically observe and comprehend the mechanics of life.

Genes are considered predictive, yes, but still the bulk of the studies that have been done which actually come up with tangible and concrete conclusions from the data gathered, are more concerned with the replication process and how the DNA strands are constantly being separated and rebuilt in order to send instructions back and forth between the nucleus and the other regions of the cell. It is a whale of a task just trying to observe this going on and draw conclusions about cell mechanics, e.g. how a cell maintains its membrane or how it metabolizes ATP.

Predicting what genes do in the sense of "why is her hair red" down to this much harder question of "are people naturally prone to practice religion, and are some more prone than others" has a pretty shaky relationship with the Scientific Method so far. They can't actually observe the whole process so they have to draw correlations by comparing genome sequences after collecting DNA specimens specifically for a survey.

E.g. let's imagine you have a box at work labelled "people with red hair" and you're looking at innumerable genes, trying to compare them all. There are only so many of those genes that we even understand on a mechanical level, as in: "well, we know this gene causes more of a certain kind of protein to be produced in skin cells which if present in large enough amounts can change skin pigmentation". They more often than not can only say things like "I've observed that in all of these DNA specimens there is enough of a tendency towards these particular genome sequences appearing that we can at least say it's statistically significant", without offering anything approaching a strict, step by step chain of cause and effect.

It just so happens that I ran into an article on the omnigenic model earlier today.

Why can’t we all live responsibly and sensibly w/o imposing some sort of doctrines, or or worshipping deities?

To be frank, I'm skeptical about whether people as a collective can be responsible and sensible, given pretty much any scenario, because it isn't in their nature. The questions of the human experience, i.e. existential concerns, are profound and we want answers but the waters couldn't be murkier.

People all over the world live with existential dread, confusion, and anxiety. Is religion an opiate or a tool for the controlling interests in the world to shape our behavior into what they deem to be responsible and sensible? While I can't say that's not a possibility, when people relegate religion to that role they fail to recognize that religious or not, the people around them will have developed different degrees of responsibility and sensibility.

Responsibility and sensibility may be influenced by religions, for better or worse, but there are certainly other influences and it ultimately comes down to personal development. Obviously there are abundant counterexamples we can provide for both religious and non-religious people to debunk the tropes we want to hang on the necks of either group.

 

[BK201]

To be frank, I'm skeptical about whether people as a collective can be responsible and sensible, given pretty much any scenario, because it isn't in their nature.

Wouldn't society itself cease to function if that were so?

 

[Propianotuner]

Wouldn't society itself cease to function if that were so?

I'd like to counter that question with one of my own: does society have to be responsible and sensible to function? Do all of these tremendous groups of people really take seriously their responsibility for habitually exploiting and even precipitating the deaths of others?

Society as we know it has nearly collapsed on multiple occasions throughout history. That it has managed to perpetuate itself up to this point is no guarantee in my mind that it necessarily must or will, and the mere fact that societies are still around doesn't convince me that they are operated responsibly and sensibly.

 

[BK201]

I disagree. You said that collectives can't be responsible or sensible given pretty much any context, but there are lots of contexts in which collectives of people do behave responsibly and sensibly, you house mouse. Take any company or public institution in a developed country, for instance.

 

[unreality]

Not to be silly, but religion can be just about anything. It's not so well defined. Even the Wikipedia article starts with "Religion may be defined as ..." I was just reading about an AI religion where they worship future ASI as they become ready for the coming of their Lords. There's a Matrix religion. I wouldn't be surprised if someone started an atheist religion even though that's kind of a contradiction.

 

[sidd851]

Stomach cancer. Bacon will give you stomach cancer.
Just had to tease about bacon, but I understand what you were trying say and pretty much agree. Except the bacon part. I'm not religious and still won't eat bacon.

Just want to take a moment to go on record here, as having said... :
"Bacon is Meat Candy!"

 

[tree]

Home - United Church of Bacon

 

[kay]

Just want to take a moment to go on record here, as having said... :
"Bacon is Meat Candy!"

Maple-Bacon Crunch Ice Cream

 

[kay]

Not to be silly, but religion can be just about anything. It's not so well defined. Even the Wikipedia article starts with "Religion may be defined as ..." I was just reading about an AI religion where they worship future ASI as they become ready for the coming of their Lords. There's a Matrix religion. I wouldn't be surprised if someone started an atheist religion even though that's kind of a contradiction.