[blubbity]

How do you define religion? Is Shinto a religion? What about Confucianism? Do you believe that religions need a centralized governing body? Do religions require community? What is an accurate definition of religion that isn’t immediately fraught with counter-examples?

[operatingthetan]

Neither of your examples are even close to being as abstract as 'wokeism.' At least those examples demonstrate something that could go either way, versus something that is clearly defined. E.g. Toyota Tacoma lovers are not a religion, Christianity is. You're pretty close to a 'what do words mean anyway?' type argument which I would struggle to classify as good faith.

It is odd that the only people I've ever encountered who thought secularists were religious were Christians though. A contradiction if you actually believe in definitions.

[stakhanov]

> Second it seems like you are shooting your own religious position in the foot by dismissing your opponent's view 'just religion' as well.

I have a ton of respect for religion, so when I characterize environmentalism, wokeism, and social justice warriordom as sharing characteristics with religion, that's actually not being dismissive at all, but quite the contrary. It implies that the respect I have for religion extends also to those belief systems. -- It strikes me as an internal contradiction that you characterize my position as religious, but also characterize it as a dismissal if I point out that my opponent's position shares characteristics with religion.

It seems, the only thing in what I wrote that could have given offence is that I picked those specific words in the first place. This is similar to how, when you pick the word "terrorist" over "freedom fighter", you've already identified yourself with the political camp that opposes them.

Interestingly, I chose those words precisely because I thought they had greater specificity than alternatives that came to mind (like "liberal" or "left").

I also think it's quite interesting that you seem to think that a concept like "Christian" is specific, while "wokeism" is not. After all the spectrum of different Christian beliefs, number of different social groupings underneath the Christian umbrella, and internal heterogeneity of beliefs within those groups is so great, that, literally, wars have been fought over that.

Another reason I picked those words was because I sincerely don't want to oppose "the left". In fact, the political grouping that historically most closely resembled the beliefs I still hold was the political left in Europe, prior to the financial crisis of 2008. With the tectonic shifts in the political landscape since then, and the likelihood that Americans would misunderstand what I mean by "left", I wanted to avoid that word.

[operatingthetan]

>It strikes me as an internal contradiction that you characterize my position as religious, but also characterize it as a dismissal if I point out that my opponent's position shares characteristics with religion.

Your argument was clearly pro-religion. Are not not religious? If you are, this falls flat. It was a dismissal because you straight called them "young and immature" and suggested a reckoning was coming. Come on... that's not being careful with your words whatsoever. Nor is it "respectful." Truly baffling.

>After all the spectrum of different Christian beliefs, number of different social groupings underneath the Christian umbrella, and internal heterogeneity of beliefs within those groups is so great, that, literally, wars have been fought over that.

You're talking about two different things here. Sets of beliefs versus classifications. I have no doubt if you asked people on the street in the US if Christianity was a religion 9/10 or better would say it was. This is not a serious argument, it's throwing shade only your in-group would understand.

[blubbity]

I apologize for not coming across as being in good faith. I’m just saying that religion takes many varied forms, and it might be within the realm of possibility to use duck typing when thinking about them.

My original point still stands though, not as a matter of combating your viewpoint, but just as an observation, that I bet even the most seemingly iron-clad definition of religion will still have lots of weird and unexpected edge cases.

[operatingthetan]

>that I bet even the most seemingly iron-clad definition of religion will still have lots of weird and unexpected edge cases.

I'm sure there are plenty of edge cases, but this looks like a red herring to me. The OP in question doesn't actually believe people worship wokeism, view it as god, ultimate reality, divinity, or whatever. Their use was purely pejorative and dismissive in nature.

[stakhanov]

> The OP in question doesn't actually believe people worship wokeism, view it as god, ultimate reality, divinity, or whatever. Their use was purely pejorative and dismissive in nature.

Are you referring to me? See sibling comment. It was not pejorative. And I do think wokeism is a form of worship.

The sibling comment from "friend_and_foe" seems to reflect the point I was trying to make:

> What about believing that you must kill a sizeable portion of the human population to save the mother earth? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not? What about the idea that a man can be a woman if he wills it so, and that those who don't agree are ~~blasphemers~~ bigots? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not?

So, to add some meat to the bone here, let's start with Wikipedia's definition of religion:

"Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements"

For example, the way some gender theorists would define "gender" as opposed to "sex" makes it look a lot like "gender" is the abstraction that corresponds to "sex" but on the transcendental plane. It is then connected with a social-cultural system that includes behaviours, practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, [ not sure about sanctified places; can't think of any ] prophecies, ethics, and organizations.

Many environmentalists seem to me to have a quintessentially pessimistic view of man and his role in the universe, reflected in the belief that some of them have that the planet would be better off with fewer humans on it. This reminds me a lot of the chatholic doctrine of "original sin". To escape from original sin, man must exhibit certain behaviours, take part in certain practices, adopt certain morals, beliefs, and worldsviews, be part of certain organizations, etc.

[operatingthetan]

>For example, the way some gender theorists would define "gender" as opposed to "sex" makes it look a lot like "gender" is the abstraction that corresponds to "sex" but on the transcendental plane.

That's not their view, and the way you are modifying definitions here means participating in any discussions of philosophy makes you religious, which is absurd.

Please note it's and not or.

>supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements"

>This reminds me a lot of the chatholic doctrine of "original sin". To escape from original sin, man must exhibit certain behaviours, take part in certain practices, adopt certain morals, beliefs, and worldsviews, be part of certain organizations, etc.

Seems a bit too much magical thinking. If I have a dirty house, does cleaning it not solve the problem? Nobody actually believes that they need to be righteous or do rituals to clean up the planet. Again you have a tendency to mischaracterize.

[stakhanov]

Notice how these categories are all negative categories. They define themselves by what they're not: Supernatural means "related to the universe, but not merely the natural aspects of it", transcendental means "related to language or categories, but not merely referring to something material nor pure abstraction", spiritual means "related to what goes on inside of man, but not merely cognition or psychology".

They also imply that the speaker thinks of them positively, similar to how when you say "freedom fighter" you mean the same thing as someone else might mean when saying "terrorist", but you're saying that you think of them positively.

A materialist atheist thinks of all the things that might fall under the categories of the supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual as dumb superstition, while a religious person views them as useful planes of meaning-making and useful ways of motivating behaviour.

So, having thus defined "religion", maybe this is the way you would define "philosophy", and if you tell me how you would define "philosophy", maybe I might respond by saying "hey, that too kind of sounds like religion to me". This kind of debate would be neither original, nor surprising within the history of intellectual discourse, nor useful in any way.

The more fruitful debate is to be had around this: Why is this even such a hot-button issue? It seems to me like there are a lot of overtly religious people out there who are associated with the established religions, who are just unbelievably bad at it. They use these religious planes of meaning-making and religious ways of motivating behaviour to the effect of adopting insanely stupid beliefs and engaging in insanely counterproductive behaviours. As a result "religious" has become an insult.

If you go to a small town poetry slam, you're likely to hear some very bad poetry. But if you think this is what defines poetry, you would be mistaken. And if you never sought out poetry again in your life after coming across a particularly bad poet, you would miss out big time.

Finally, to close the loop to my other comment about how the rise and fall of religion is kind of cyclical in human experience: You can't ever get rid of the religious element in yourself, so the most productive thing you can do is get good at it. You can't ever get rid of the religious element in society, so the most productive thing you can do is get society to be good at it. -- The more you try to outright deny the religious in society (or yourself), the more it will re-emerge in transformed and hard-to-recognize ways and lead to regression where society is (or you are) just as religious as it was before, but it became less capable of doing religion well.

[paulmd]

> [ not sure about sanctified places; can't think of any ]

Margaret Thatcher’s grave is anointed daily

[blubbity]

I think I understand your reasoning better now. I didn’t interpret OP as being purely dismissive or pejorative, but I see how you did. From your viewpoint it makes total sense that it’s wrong to compare “wokeism” to religion because “wokeism” clearly isn’t a religion! Seems obvious when stated that way.

I was originally thinking the OP meant something like, “hey I’ve heard this quacking noise somewhere before… what could this be…?”

[operatingthetan]

Yeah I mean we're talking about definition 1 versus definition 2 (or whatever) in the dictionary. They are using them interchangeably and then suggesting they aren't.

[friend_and_foe]

The author of the article that you're discussing in this thread is a counterexample to the only people you've encountered who think secularists were religious (as am I). The man is one of the top 3 candidates for the quintessential secularist.

Toyota Tacoma lovers aren't a religion, we agree on that. What about believing that you must kill a sizeable portion of the human population to save the mother earth? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not? What about the idea that a man can be a woman if he wills it so, and that those who don't agree are ~~blasphemers~~ bigots? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not?

In addition, what do these two statements have to do with secularism?

100%, in good faith I'm asking you these questions and hoping for a clear and honest answer. You have a genuine opportunity to change my mind on this topic.

[operatingthetan]

> ~~blasphemers~~ bigots?

>100%, in good faith I'm asking you these questions and hoping for a clear and honest answer.

This does not appear to be the case. Why not make your own argument instead of asking leading questions?

[friend_and_foe]

I was trying to draw a comparison in my question so that you could see the similarity, from my point of view.

[operatingthetan]

Since you chose not to make an argument I'll leave you with this: having beliefs doesn't mean you have religion. I have an extreme belief that I have a lovely cat. It's not my religion.

[friend_and_foe]

I addressed your cat when I addressed Toyota lovers. I'm in agreement, your belief that your cat is awesome is not a religious belief. What about the belief that you have to kill or sterilize the majority of humans to save Gaia the earth mother? Or that a man can will himself into being a woman? Are these beliefs that have the characterizations of a religion? Why or why not? Or the behavior demonstrated that if someone doesn't agree with them they are an evil person worthy of prison time or ostracization? Is ostracization not a core characteristic of cults and religions?