[plix]

Originally posted by laiocfar@Apr 24 2006, 03:13 AM
Religions are a little more than a belief system and atheism is a little less than a belief system. (...) Religions are divided in monotheism and politheism. (...) Anyway, today when we talk of religion we are thnking in a monotheism religion, maybe most of people make a bad use of the words but the words means what the people think that them means.

Religion is not exclusively defined as theism. Your (relatively arbitrary) requirement that a religion worship at least one deity would preclude such religions as Buddhism.

The second half of that quote seems to imply that furthermore "religion" is further constrained to mean "monotheistic" which would, in turn, preclude Hinduism (Mimamsa, Smarta, and Mahyana Hinduism at the very least if you choose to be specific). Thus, by your definition, two religions with roughly 1.5 billion followers combined aren't actually religions at all.

There is such a thing as "organized religion," which only represents a subset of religion. It is perfectly well possible to have a religion without an organized belief structure. That said, try looking at it this way: obviously everyone here believes Christianity to be a religion. By your definition, however, being Christian means that you're not a Baptist (as there are no central authorities in the Baptist denomination). Being Christian also means, by your definition, that you must belong to a Church. Why is it not possible to be a Christian yourself and not be a member of a specific church? Furthermore, there do exist Atheistic churches which, also by your definition, validates Atheism (as a whole) as a religion.

Originally posted by laiocfar
Buy a new dictionary and this time no one of 0.99.

Such as Merriam-Webster or the New American Heritage Dictionary? Both have definitions for pagan as being, essentially, "one with no religion." The whole "non-Christian" thing actually makes a lot of sense when you put it in perspective: during that period in history, Christians didn't recognize other religions and thus if you were a non-Chrisitian you were considered (by the Christians) to have no religion.

Originally posted by laiocfar
ALL religions got organization even the nimor ones, this is beacause the religions come from the shamanism of the stone age so at least, in all religions you found at least someone that make the rituals. ALL religions got rituals, beacause the rituals well denveloped by humans before than religions. A ceremorial burial was the first sign of humans with something more than material life. Later we got shamans, a guy who do ceremonies. From this we get religions.

What? That's like saying "cars came from horses, so all cars have legs." It doesn't make much sense that because religion originated with shamanism (which is speculation, anyway) that a religion is thus defined as shamanism. You're talking about the evolution of a practice and drawing stipulations through a strange form of logic which simply doesn't hold.

Originally posted by laiocfar
U are right in that atheism cant be an state religion beacause it isnt a religion but marxism is an atheism political system since Marx descrived religion as "the opium for the people"

Marxism is Atheistic because Marx said "[Religion] is the opium of the people"? I'm sorry, but how are the two related? In the Communist Manifesto, Marx explicitly states that "[Communism] abolishes all religion." That is to say, there is no state religion in Communism. Argument about the religious status of Atheism aside, Communism would more aptly -- though not properly -- be described as Agnostic.