Distinguising Religion from Non-Religion

Since the word belief has secular and religious attachments, I would like to try a different tact concerning atheism. BUT, this is NOT a discussion about atheism. Please don’t go there.I would like to discuss how to distinguish religion from nonreligion using some of the assumptions brought out in an article I read entitled "Approaches to Distinguishing Religion from Non-Religion"; and use the approaches (Form and Function) described below to determine if the following "-isms" are truly religions: (It has been claimed in another thread that they are.)

Materialism
*Determinism
*Humanism
*Scientism

A PRIORI ASSUMPTIONS:
There are sets of beliefs that are "religious"
These beliefs are distinct from secular beliefs and recognizable as "religious"APPROACHES: CONCLUSION:
My opinion is that materialism, determinism, humanism, and scientism are secular beliefs, but are not religions.(The links provide the characteristics of the -isms and word meanings. If you have a different understanding of any word, then please provide support for your understanding)This message has been edited by purpledawn, 08-31-2005 06:18 PM

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Overall, looks good to me. Given the nature of the discussion, Faith and Belief seems the obvious forum.A couple of quick formatting suggestions which may help bring out the focus of your post most easily (I had some trouble identifying it, at least):1. Don't bold your parenthesis; that's a small small point. Especially since your next statement is the THESIS of your post. I'd suggest instead bolding the next statement (the statment of the assumptions). Those are the starting point of the discussion, but I found them to be really hidden in your formatting choices (bold above, quote boxes below).2. I found that, in your second article, because you mention the article FIRST instead of what you want to DO from the article, it was a bit hard to find what you want to discuss. I would suggest reversing the order; state what you'd like to discuss, then state when you got it from.If you want to go with things just the way they are, I'm fine with that too. I just wanted to put the suggestions out, as I thought they might help clarify your OP.Thanks!

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Thanks for the suggestions Ben.I reworked the OP and moved the bit about the meanings to the bottom. There is a reason it is bolded. I really want participants to support their usage of word meanings if they differ from what is provided. Hopefully it keeps us on the same page since the words like "faith" and "belief" are used in many different ways by both sides.Hope this flies.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

These philosophies can, at times, have some of the characteristics of a religion.Lakatos tried to characterize science in terms of research programs. See his report "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Resarch Programmes" in the book "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge" (ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave).The idea is that a science involves an active program of empirical research. The scientific laws or theory are use as methodological principles that guide the research. If ever the research program is discontinued, and the laws become merely a belief system about the world, rather than a system of methodological principles, then they are no longer science and have some of the characteristics of a religion.IMO the reason creationists sometimes say that evolution is a religion, is that they often don't understand how it is used methodological principles for empirical research, and they see it only as if a belief system about the world.

Religion:1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.While evolution is obviously not an organized religion because it doesn't fit 1-3, but it does fit 4, it has a component of religion which is faith.As a historical science (biological evolution, not implying it isn't scientific, just subject to the observer filling in data at points), evolution has certain points that can't be answered and require faith that they happened.The example I always give is according to TOE, when life started and gradually grew more complex, scientists think (based on experiments) that life went from step 1 to 3 like so; but they don't know what step 4 was. The next step that is thought to have happened is step 5.I have personally never refered to TOE as a religion, but I do say it takes alot of faith, arguably more faith that believing in a "higher power", to beleive in TOE.

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein

No, evolution does NOT have faith. It has evidence. If there is ever evidence against it, then it should be dropped.Science is not based on faith. It is based on empirical evidence. The conclusions based on the evidence have to be tested, retest, and attempted to be proven false. That is not faith based at all.

No. You know what? I'm not going to sit here and allow you to say something like that.Is evolution defended with zeal? Yes, absolutely - it's defended with a zeal exactly equal to the zeal with which it is attacked by religionists like yourself.How dare you imply that that makes us like you in any way. If all you creationists went away, you know what? We'd stop talking about evolution. It would cease to be a contentious issue and would drop into the background like every other well-supported theory. Among the vast, vast majority of biologists, it already has, or rather, was never contentious in the first place.Most biologists aren't even aware that there's a controversy. That's how ineffective and impotent you creationists truly are.Is there zeal in the defense of evolution? Of course; it's a defense of the truth against it's detractors. I don't see how that makes it even in the least like religion. Evolution only starts at step 5, so it's not clear why you think step 4 has to be assumed by evolutionists.Evolution is a theory that describes how populations of reproducing organisms with genetics change over time. It doesn't really apply to whatever chemical precursors of life may have existed before that time. If that's what you're interested in, the field is chemistry, not biology.There's no faith necessary in the field of evolution. It doesn't take faith to believe; only a willingness to examine the evidence and the courage to follow it to its conclusion.

quote:

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While evolution is obviously not an organized religion because it doesn't fit 1-3, but it does fit 4, it has a component of religion which is faith.

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Religious faith (2-3) is different than secular faith (1&4-6).Do you feel the TOE qualifies as a religion based on the approaches provided in the OP?

quote:

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evolution has certain points that can't be answered and require faith that they happened.

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Given the assumptions from the OP: Do the points you speak of actually require religious faith?Just because a person has an unquestioning belief in something doesn't mean that faith is a religion.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

quote:

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If ever the research program is discontinued, and the laws become merely a belief system about the world, rather than a system of methodological principles, then they are no longer science and have some of the characteristics of a religion.

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But do shared characteristics make it a religion?This message has been edited by purpledawn, 09-01-2005 09:42 AM

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Hey Crash,
I'm trying to show there is a difference between Religious belief/faith and secular belief/faith.You have a better grasp of the TOE than I do. You can help, if you wish, by making your point using the approaches listed in the OP.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

If you wish to bring in something other than the -isms listed in the OP, then apply the approaches from the OP to distinguish if it is a religion or not.Please don't drag this into a TOE battle.Thank you

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

I commend your OP; to my eye it makes the non-religiousness of TOE self-evident.I'm not sure what more I could add on the subject. The approaches in your OP largely conform to my own views on the nature of religion.

That depends on what is meant by "religion". Sometimes we use it to refer to certain established moral systems. At other times we use the term (usually disparagingly) to describe strongly held beliefs that seem to have no rational basis and appear to be dogma.It is in that second sense that people who do not understand the methodological basis for ToE might see it as religion.

Explain how the the first forms of life evolved into more complex forms. Biological evolution isn't an operations science, it is an historical science and the limitations of historical data provide reasons to be cautious about conclusions. You can't observe it (major BOE), you can't predict anything by it, and you can't falsify it.Faith most certainly plays a huge role in TOE.This message has been edited by Tal, 09-01-2005 11:04 AMThis message has been edited by Tal, 09-01-2005 11:05 AM

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein