What makes a religion?

[Mystic]

Another usage of the word "deen" is judgement. For example, "The day of judgement" is "Yawmal (the day of) Deen (judgement). It can be said we follow and obey a judgement in life. So religion (deen) in Arabic is closely related to judgement as well.

[Losty]

That's a linguistic idiom...and isn't going to be suitable as the contents of a logical proposition.  For flavor, here is ours.

Religion - obligation, bond, reverence

Seems meaningless without context eh?  So does "what we follow" in english.

I follow the car in front of me.  Is that my religion..by either little idiom.....?  OFC not.

This is not how language work. Words all of a different context. I said follow, but the word is more closer to "obey". But then you might say obeying my boss is a religion, etc, but it's obviously not referring to that.

The root word just shows it has to do with what we decide to obey and follow in life, and the word "worship" comes from the root to be enslaved to, and the word ilah (god) comes from the word to what diverts us from things towards that. 

So you combine them, and you get over all image. However, the root words, often give an idea, but they are not the meaning of the words themselves.

Nope sorry.

Neither follow nor obey works. And I have no idea what you're going on about. Keep explaining or find a word that makes sense or use a whole sentence to make your point. At this point you've given me: surrender, submit, follow, and obey.

So far my religion by your description seems to be anyone with a weapon or another way of forcing me to surrender, dominant sexual partners, my friend/a lot of cars/a duckling/my kids/cooking instructions, and local state and federal laws and again dominant sexual partners.

This is appearing to be a seriously weird religion.

[Edwardo Piet]

Less weird than the Abrahamic ones though.

[Mystic]

 However, the root words, often give an idea, but they are not the meaning of the words themselves.

[Losty]

The idea I'm getting is that you're arrogant enough to genuinely believe you get to just make crap up about what I believe or what my religion is. Is that the idea you were intending to portray?

[Mystic]

The idea I'm getting is that you're arrogant enough to genuinely believe you get to just make crap up about what I believe or what my religion is. Is that the idea you were intending to portray?

From my perspective, I'm saying we either embrace the falsehood and follow that as the judgement by which we live our lives by, and there is many instances of falsehood and it has many faces, but at the end, it's negation of the truth or we follow the truth and God's pleasure.
You can say you don't believe in a religion, that's fine, I'm saying this is true of outward convention word of religion, but if we look at when you ask people why they follow a religion, it's either it's because that is what they deem is the true way to live, or it's because they feel it gives them peace or they feel they should follow because it's the wise way to live your life.
I'm saying however if this was truth, if this was the reason, we would all be on one outward religion. Obviously people of various religions are choosing falsehood and it's not due to it being the true path or it having the peace and tranquility or it being the wise way to live life.
I'm saying in reality, people's religion is inclination to falsehood over all. Most people incline to a false religion. If worship of God was the intention, we would not be mixing in falsehood in attributing to God. 

So I'm saying while we claim all to an outward path, our intentions, because we follow false religions, are something else. And we always go by what we claim and our tongues testify to, or we can see, what is our hearts really following?

And you will see most people incline to confirm society, to follow their leaders or sect they are born into, and it has little to do with their devotion to God. In fact, God is made as a means towards what they value more in society and in themselves. 

Like the other Atheist (forget his name), he mentioned, number 1 reason people believe has nothing to do with arguments or proofs, but with identity. I'm Christian therefore I believe in this and that. Not I believe in this and that, therefore I'm Christian

Yet all religions claim to follow the truth, to be devoted to it. So there is some disconnect from what we outwardly are claiming, and what we inwardly are doing.

And when it comes to what we inwardly are following, it has to do with various reasons, but mostly as the other person said in the thread (that you guys all gave kudos to), that it has to do with identity. 

This identity to me from my perspective is not our true identity. It's a trick from Satan. Satan tells you are born in this religion, take pride in it, do everything to confirm it, but I believe the true nature of humanity is to seek the truth and not try to conform to society.

I believe at the end, if we can incline to the light within that is devoted to God, then the path becomes easy. But if we follow the unclean inspiration from Satan and cling to the false world it creates within us and in our imagination outwardly, that is our path, that is our religion, that is what we worship.  Satan becomes the world because everything becomes an instance of our devotion to him. We may not see it now, because, that is part of the deception of Iblis, he doesn't want you to awaken to his dark magic on the heart, he doesn't want you to be distressed on the evil, and he wants us all to think we are good and if we die, surely we will return to something better.

I can't explain why God allowed us to be afflicted by this virus. I can't really. But it seems God judgement is if we not going to defeat it and overcome it, we are not really worthy of his protection in the first place. It's a mercy from God that he has warned us and tried to awaken us, and inspired his friends to help us.

But I've come to realize this do or die thing. We either take the leap of faith and see where it leads us, or we perish.  At the words are suppose to convey things to help us understand things or describe things.

I see humanity either is devoted to the Taghut or devoted to God. There religion is either that of falsehood or the truth. You can call instance of the falsehood all sorts of things, but it's falsehood. The intention in all of them is not the result of truthful awakening or truth seeking.

The intention is something more sinister, more dark. And it's the darkness and the light, these are the two religions to me.

You may get upset because you don't like this perspective but my goal is not to make you guys upset.

[Edwardo Piet]

[madog]

So not having a religion is a religion?

Those convinced they don't have a religion, do in fact have one, 

So you have millions of religions then? .... (assumptions) you don't believe in zeus? you don't believe in fairies?, you don't believe in Yetti? you don't believe in (insert other other things you don't believe in here).

[Losty]

I tried to follow your post. It's pretty wordy.

Here's my problem, you asserted that I have a religion. You also asserted that "Yet all religions claim to follow the truth, to be devoted to it."
However, I have never made such a claim. In fact, I do not claim to know what truth is and I do not believe that absolute truth is a real thing.

[Mystic]

Those convinced they don't have a religion, do in fact have one, 

So you have millions of religions then? .... (assumptions) you don't believe in zeus? you don't believe in fairies?, you don't believe in Yetti? you don't believe in (insert other other things you don't believe in here).

From one perspective, one angle, yes. For example, the Islam Atlas and I follow are different religions as they appear outwardly for sure. Isis and Sufis follow different Islam as well. Wahabis have their own concept of God that differs from rest of Muslims. 

So Islam really one religion? So you begin to say yes, but these are sects. So as I say why not Abrahamic religions all one religion but different sects.

I would simplify. There is falsehood, there is the truth. 

False or False or False or False or False or True. That equates to true.

However True and False and False and False. That equates to false. So if Islam includes all sects devoted to it. It's a false religion by definition, even if it has truth in it or if one sect is upon truth.

So I would say all false paths are that, following falsehood. The truth whatever it is, is going to be different and distinct from all those paths, and the way of arriving it and following it will be different.

We can talk about labels of false paths, and which ones come under which label, but at the end, I think simplifying the case, that they are all inwardly following falsehood is true. This doesn't mean there is no truth followed along with that.

But there is something common in that they all at the end are arriving falsehood. I would say there is a wrong intention in all that. 

I would say the truth and those following it, is something distinct from all this.

I would simplify the equation and say there is in reality two religions, light and darkness, the path arriving and being guide to the truth and and the path arriving at and be guided to falsehood.