Christian Relaunch

Religion

Many folk use the word "religion", but few know what they mean by it.

If you ask them, they often start by saying that it means "believing in God", but if you tell them that Buddhism (in its pure original form) was explicitly agnostic about such questions, and ask whether Buddhism is a religion, they are stumped, because they are convinced that Buddhism is a religion but too stubborn to admit that their use of the word "religion" is confused.

Whether the public counts something as a religion is a historical accident with no rhyme or reason. Last time I checked, Wikipedia offered a list of typical features of a religion, but the problem is that some so-called religions have some of these features and others have others, and the only reason for using the word is prejudice.

So before you brand our creed as religion and move on, beware of prejudice and shallow thinking.

Just because people call themselves atheists, don't imagine they have no sense of the transcendent. Their reverence may be misdirected, but the recognition that its object must be in some sense beyond is universal. This recognition, traditionally expressed in words like "sacred", is these days more often expressed in other ways, but it is still there. If you want to know what folk revere, listen for the hushed silences. The most "irreverent" folk have them. Even among the most cynical it is never true that "nothing is sacred".