Now, I'm not wanting an argument on metaphyics with you,
but surely every point you've made is subjective semantics, nothing more.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 13:01,
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I don't know how a point about the meaning of words could be anything else.
Although actually I find it very hard to define religion. Superstition seems far easier to put my finger on, but the problem with religion is that it doesn't form a coherent class of things. I don't know why Buddhism should be a religion, and communism not one. There's no god in Buddhism, it's more like a sort of folk psychology.
I think it's made more difficult by the fact that superstition and religion aren't mutually exclusive. You can be both. In fact they seem to exist in a sort of cycle, religions can turn into superstitions once people forget what they are about but carry on going through the motions. (Is Christmas a superstition?) While superstitions can become religions if they get rationalised and worked into a metaphysical framework. Certain religious ideas, for instance, Karma, seem quite superstitious. See Just World Hypothesis.
Maybe an example would help. I think if you believe there is a god who can answer your prayers, that's religions. If you believe in "the power of prayer", as if praying had power in itself without divine intervention, that's superstitious. It's not just "believing in things you can't see". It's believing that the things you can see somehow react in spookily (in)convenient ways (which is often confirmed by experience because of confirmation bias).
Another example. I've never heard of anyone say that homeopathy worked because of gods, it's because "water has memory" somehow; they rationalise it pseudoscientifically.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 13:21,
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