(January 13, 2010 at 3:52 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Suffice to say that people of all religions believe in a great big Santa Claus in the sky.No they don't. Religion =/= Theism. To be technically accurate, no people of religions believe in a great big Santa Claus in the sky; they believe in some form of a deity who exists non-temporally (whereas Santa is a magical human from the North Pole).
Quote:A large majority take the Bible literally, except for the bits that are metaphorical(how this distinction is arrived at is a mystery).A large majority do not take the Bible literally. Christians make up less than a third of the global population (2.1 billion according to: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html ). Most of these (approx 50%) are Catholic, who take very little of the Bible as literal. Indeed, the Roman Catholic church has been one of the few churches to actively support the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of the Big Bang as the best explanations of how everything came to be.
Quote:And BTW Buddhisam is not a religion as it does not subscribe to the idea of a supreme being.The definition of a religion is not the same as the definition of theism. Religions are collections of beliefs and philosophical ideas that are used to help an adherent find meaning in their life's experiences. This meaning can come from belief in some sort of God, but, like Buddhism, it can also come from some sort of "ultimate truth".
Quote:If buddhism is a religion then the case could be made that Atheism is also a religion.No, since atheism doesn't contain a collection of beliefs that lead an atheist to some sort of meaning, nor does it contain any "ultimate truths". Atheism is a disbelief, a "rejection" of a belief. Disbelieving in X does not mean you automatically believe in ¬X (or Y, or Z, etc).
