I'd like to add that defining religion is already a hard thing to do - even leaving atheism out of it, it is hard to tell where something stops being a religion and starts being a philosofy. Especially when we look at many of the asian believes. Some of them are mostly just about how to lead a good and healthy live, but whether some forces described are neyond naturalistic or not depends on how some people interpet it (like qim, for example). Buddhism might even fail to be a religion in the dimensions - as far as I know, it does not describe how the world and the humans were created.
Like I said before, a religion has a component of a belief in a non-natural 'force'. This force may be a god, but also 'energy', or the concept of rebirth - to make sure that certain asian religion would be included as well.
Second: Religion always seems to have rules on 'how to live well'. Like your morality from the bible (that other topic). Atheists also lack formal rules like these - which many theists use as a hook to say that are morals are abitrary.
As for the 'behavior', that which shows on the outside: religion has an organised structure, with teachers who explain the rules and how the religion works to the worshippers. Not all religions have an overarching leader (only few do, in fact), but there is a hierarchy. Religions also have set rituals, which often have to do with 'attuning' to 'the super-natural force'. That means praying to a god to ask for his blessing, or certain meditations and practices which should put the person in a state of super-balance.
I'd also like to note that a few things that I described that belong to asian believes don't HAVE to be part of the belief in a super-natural force. Meditating and other practices to reach the state of super balance are also done by many people not practicing the rest of the religion or believes (think yoga). I'll leave it to apophenia to think of which practices and believes are religion or not, since he knows more of these then I do.
I think that my description goes pretty far to describes what is religion and what is not accurately. Feel free to point out the flaws in it.
Like I said before, a religion has a component of a belief in a non-natural 'force'. This force may be a god, but also 'energy', or the concept of rebirth - to make sure that certain asian religion would be included as well.
Second: Religion always seems to have rules on 'how to live well'. Like your morality from the bible (that other topic). Atheists also lack formal rules like these - which many theists use as a hook to say that are morals are abitrary.
As for the 'behavior', that which shows on the outside: religion has an organised structure, with teachers who explain the rules and how the religion works to the worshippers. Not all religions have an overarching leader (only few do, in fact), but there is a hierarchy. Religions also have set rituals, which often have to do with 'attuning' to 'the super-natural force'. That means praying to a god to ask for his blessing, or certain meditations and practices which should put the person in a state of super-balance.
I'd also like to note that a few things that I described that belong to asian believes don't HAVE to be part of the belief in a super-natural force. Meditating and other practices to reach the state of super balance are also done by many people not practicing the rest of the religion or believes (think yoga). I'll leave it to apophenia to think of which practices and believes are religion or not, since he knows more of these then I do.
I think that my description goes pretty far to describes what is religion and what is not accurately. Feel free to point out the flaws in it.
When I was a Christian, I was annoyed with dogmatic condescending Christians. Now that I'm an atheist, I'm annoyed with dogmatic condescending atheists. Just goes to prove that people are the same, regardless of what they do or don't believe.
