I have been looking around some more for definitions of religion. The trouble is that there are hundreds. Not just hundreds of opinion, but even many thesis' that are written on the subject.
Here is a paper, a bit lengthy (takes 15 minutes to read quickly) but informative. http://www.crosscurrents.org/whatisreligion.htm
It deals with the problems of how we define religion in general and how religions are studied and described. The paper does say pretty much what I think (and does note it is a common problem) - that making a classification of what a religion is, is nigh impossible. Some things that we consider religion have very little in common with the 'big three'. Where does religion stop and philosofy begin? Hard to tell. Therefor, I do take a little offense at the way you treat your description as the one true and right description of what is religion or not.
Would I come back to your fish analogy, let's replace it with a better one.
'what is life?'.
In many cases we can think of, it's obvious. In many others, it's not.
Is a robot that can self-replicate alive? If the robot is capable of human-like thought, is it alive? A virus can not multiply by itself, it needs other organisms for that. So is it even alive then?
Defining what life is, considering these things, is hard. Defining what makes a religion might even be harder.
Here is a paper, a bit lengthy (takes 15 minutes to read quickly) but informative. http://www.crosscurrents.org/whatisreligion.htm
It deals with the problems of how we define religion in general and how religions are studied and described. The paper does say pretty much what I think (and does note it is a common problem) - that making a classification of what a religion is, is nigh impossible. Some things that we consider religion have very little in common with the 'big three'. Where does religion stop and philosofy begin? Hard to tell. Therefor, I do take a little offense at the way you treat your description as the one true and right description of what is religion or not.
Would I come back to your fish analogy, let's replace it with a better one.
'what is life?'.
In many cases we can think of, it's obvious. In many others, it's not.
Is a robot that can self-replicate alive? If the robot is capable of human-like thought, is it alive? A virus can not multiply by itself, it needs other organisms for that. So is it even alive then?
Defining what life is, considering these things, is hard. Defining what makes a religion might even be harder.
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.
