Quote:"all people are religious to some extent. They just might not realize it. Even Atheists are religious. They believe in something too. They believe in themselves.".
Holding a belief in a proposition in no wise equates with being religious. There are lots of things in which I believe, but for which I have no unassailable evidence.
-I believe that Buddy Rich was the greatest drummer who ever lived. But there could just as easily have been a drummer better than Rich, of whom I am unaware.
-I believe that Australia is a real place, even though I've never been there. It could simply been a mammoth hoax perpetuated for some as-yet-to-be-determined reason.
-I believe that there is life on other planets and that it proceeds via neo-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms. But I could be wrong.
-And so on.
But the point remains that none of these beliefs qualifies as religious in nature, unless we take the broadest possible definition ofv 'religion'. I don't worship Buddy Rich, I don't pray to Australia, and I haven't built an altar to Stephen Jay Gould.
The woman you overheard clearly has rather fuzzy notions regarding the meaning of the words 'belief' and 'religion'.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
