The Dueling Definitions of Religion
Most of us have at least one militantly atheistic friend that spends a lot of time on Facebook. If that’s you, a name probably just popped in your head, and maybe even a few memes too.
The majority of those memes are all pretty much the same. They differ only in the types of attacks they wield against theists, of which there are only two, and neither one is any good. It’s a bit like an ice cream shop that only serves soybean and scrambled egg flavors. Of course, nobody buys any of it. The theists find the flavors tasteless and unsatisfying, and the atheists were already sold on a better product.
Even though nobody buys any of it, we still recognize a proselytizer when we see one, and we know what proselytizers peddle. It’s blatantly obvious to any theist that they’re pushing a religion. When confronted, they simply deny that’s what it is, much like the Ponzi schemers that push their pyramids. Often times, they even deny it using the same methods of simple assertions and misclassifications. Oh those familiar faux-rebuttals, “It’s not religion, it’s science! If religion was a hairstyle, then atheism would be bald!”
What is a Religion?
I must point out that none of this adds up to a religion. Not the content of the memes, no matter how much hubris & disdain drips from them. Not even the fact that the meme pushers are actively proselytizing for other belief systems. It is possible to sell something and not believe in it, and it is equally possible to attack a religion and believe in nothing.
So what is a religion, then? Let’s take a quick stop at the dictionary to get their take on things. From Merriam-Webster:
the state of a religious // a nun in her 20th year of religion
the service and worship of God or the supernatural
commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
According to that, nearly everything that resembles a belief is a religion. Major scientific & economic theories, murderous rebellions, and political orientations can be grouped in with Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. This is another classic example of the consequences of trying to be all-encompassing. By trying to satisfy all, the dictionaries have satisfied few. This leads to people coming up with their own definitions. Which is exactly what happened. Theists and atheists both have come up with their own definitions. Although as we will see, the theists are largely in-line with this.
The Theistic View
Most theists tend to view religions according to the effects that system of beliefs has in the believers’ lives. More specifically, what makes any set of beliefs a religion is when those beliefs foster the formation and adaptation of a foundational worldview which is utilized to formulate interpretations and decisions. This goes hand-in-hand with the concept of being religious, which is treated as a measure instead of a state.
This definition has three major implications. First, both theists and atheists don’t necessarily have a religion, which is especially true of the early contemplators that haven’t ventured much deeper than the initial beliefs of there is or is not a god. Second, most people will indeed adopt a worldview that qualifies as a religion, even if they don’t realize or accept it. This is because of the natural progression of this line of thinking. It does not matter which path is taken. The newly committed theist commits to a worldview centered around the god or gods of the religion he or she chooses to believe. The newly committed atheist adopts a worldview that explains how the world we observe came to be the way it is. Once people cross these thresholds and start using those worldviews, they’ve adopted a religion. Third, people can adopt a religion, and not be religious. People who act counter to or irrespective of their religion’s teachings and beliefs fall into this category.
The Atheistic View
Most atheists have a different definition of religion, and it is really simple: Religion is any system of beliefs that incorporates the supernatural. If it believes in a god, soul, spirit, angels, demons, or sometimes even free thought & free will, then it is a religion. Some make the necessary concessions for the people that worship physical objects like nature or the sun, others just say those people are crazy. The opposite concessions are made for the scientists’ philosophically based stories of creation, explanations of how the world came to be as it is, and the purpose & meaning of life.
This definition has a few implications as well. First, there is no objective morality. It is all determined subjectively by each person. More often than not, atheistic morality is borrowed from the religions through the culture, and then adopted and changed to suit their desires. Second, parallel beliefs can be religious and non-religious depending on the source and content. For example, the belief that the universe sprang into existence from nothing. If a book says God did it, that’s a religious belief. If a book written by a scientist asserts it just happened and then tries to back up that claim by citing hypothetical effects from hypothetical elements of theoretical quantum cosmology, despite scientific laws and the obvious logic that argues against it, it’s still science. Third, since atheists cast themselves as outside of the confines of religion, they can rain disdain and derision from a perceived position of superiority.
The Predictable Duel
These dueling definitions are precisely why both sides cannot agree on the existence of atheistic religions. Most theists hold the belief that once atheists commit to a belief system like secular humanism, materialism, or naturalism, they have adopted a religion. This is because those atheists have faith in random, unguided processes to produce the world as we know it from absolutely nothing. A task that is filled with many seemingly unsolvable paradoxes and established scientific principles that argue against it.
Conversely, atheists hold their definition, which has favorable terms in which nearly all required philosophical stories needed to explain a naturalistic origin are not religious simply because they do not reference the supernatural. It doesn’t matter how speculative or unscientific a story may be. It is all science. Redefining this way allows them to compartmentalize. Compartmentalized thinking is the easiest way to freely dismiss ideas without engaging with them. The compartment of religion becomes a trash can, the compartment of science is elevated to a superior level.
What’s ironic is that atheists regularly hurl this accusation at theists. There are undoubtedly some in the theist camp that compartmentalize as well, but the majority of us that reject atheism do so on scientific grounds. And we are not the only ones. There are prominent scientists, some of them atheists, that have the same objections. Numerous objections that span the entirety of the materialistic & naturalistic stories. We are rejecting a series of dependent theories based on the fundamental flaws of those theories. That is not the same as rejecting an entire category of knowledge.
Ultimately, the dueling definitions will continue for the foreseeable future. There is little we can do about from the theists’ side. We are in agreement with the dictionary & logic, and our view flows freely with the other concepts. Theirs rejects the dictionary & logic, and is being pushed to simplify compartmentalization and serve as a basis for a false feeling of superiority. While it may not end for a while, it’s fun to pick on them for it.
