What popular religious ideas are not usually considered religious?

[struggle4progress]

Are there widely accepted belief-systems, which we do not typically call religions, but which we should call religions because (say) they share many common features with major religions?

Forty years ago, for example, it was popular in certain Western circles to denounce "orthodox Marxism" as an essentially religious notion, based on the idea that "orthodox Marxism" was faith-based and essentially messianic; this notion was also sometimes promoted by non-orthodox Marxists, who considered "orthodox Marxism" inadequately scientific in outlook.

Of course, rather analogous criticisms could be directed at the "American exceptionalism" that many of us were once taught in public school, according to which the United States is a nation set apart in virtue and destiny, the one true hope of planet earth and the only real source of liberating democracy.

[Ready4Change]

1. Neo Conservatism.

Praise the gospel of Fox News. Blessed are the words of GWB, both before and after they are cleansed by the media.

Blind followership, aggressively rejecting any opposing viewpoints.

[neebob]

2. Two things:

(1) political correctness and (2) the entire body of thought and practice around business. The former operates on reward and punishment. I should add that I try to practice it faithfully - except, I'll admit, when it comes to religion - so I don't think it's a bad thing at all. The latter has a god equivalent. Do I need to say what it is?

I'm tired. Let's see what kind of reaction I get before I elaborate much further. I wouldn't go as far as to say we should call them religious, but they do have features in common.

Edit: Change former to latter in the fourth sentence. See? I'm tired. And now I'm wondering if I misread the OP. Add second sentence to second paragraph.

[baldguy]

10. What cons call "political correctness"

is mostly just being polite.

[neebob]

12. Good point

I agree. However, for someone like me, who was raised by un-PC people, it's a constant effort. I'm always noticing the differences between what I experienced growing up and what I experience now. And because my mom corrected me constantly - not on issues of political correctness, but words and behavior in general - I'm constantly monitoring and comparing what I say and do to what others say and do. My internal governor, or inner Mo-mom, is always on the job, analyzing what I've just said or done and worrying that it might have been inappropriate or offensive.

Every time I type Mo-mom, I consider whether it's going to bother someone. And yes, I do it anyway.

One of the times I remind myself of her the most is when I hear my son saying un-PC things I know he didn't get from me. I think the high school must be a cesspool of racism and bigotry. He'll say something that's shocking to me and I'll sit there and think okay, how to put this so it doesn't feel like what I grew up with, but I'm pretty sure it does anyway. "Can't you think of another word to use in that context?" It happened just last night.

Perhaps I tend to assume that others expend as much emotional energy being culturally sensitive and gender neutral and what have you as I do. Also just yesterday, I heard one work colleague mention "an Indian nation" (meaning Native American tribe), and another say, "I'm not a retard." In the first instance I thought about whether it's OK to use Indian in that context. In the second, I was astonished that this particular person had used that term.

It feels like religion to me.

[neebob]

18. And from the Department of Afterthoughts:

The body of thought and practice around business is like a religion where the theology is constantly evolving. There's always some new altar to worship at, with a new guru. The gurus are like televangelists in a way.

Gosh, I could really go to town on this one, if I really cared about business itself - as opposed to the art and learning disguised as my contribution to the body of thought and practice - and I wasn't exhausted from this week's contribution.

[lvx35]

21. Economics is a religion they say.

and its entirely faith based in a very quantitative way. The value of stocks, hell even the value of paper currency exists only because other people believe in the value of those peices of paper. If 90% of people all the sudden stopped believing in the value of paper currency, it would be devalued to death. In this sense religion is a form of cultural currency.

[neebob]

48. I see what you're saying,

although I wouldn't say it's entirely faith based, and I don't know enough about economics to take it much farther. I didn't know anything, really, about economics until I read Freakonomics, by a prize-winning economist whose name I can't remember. His book left me with the impression that there's a massive lot of science involved, analyzing things affecting other things. I doubt it all hinges on the perception of value, but again, I don't know. You could be right.

[charlie]

3. Free market orthodoxy

Market agents are rational actors. Quest for profit is the optimal impetus for any endeavor, no matter the desired outcome. Market "distortions" arise solely from outside-the-market meddling.

[NAO]

4. Free Market Mysticism; Laissez-faire Anti-Social Gospel; Democracy=Capital

Free Market Mysticism = the belief that there is an "invisible hand" which guides the markets, if only "meddlesome men" (read: progressive reformers) do not "interfere" (read: regulate rapacious, exploitive capitalism).

Social Darwinism / the Laissez-faire Anti-Social Gospel = the belief that rich people are rich because they "deserve" it and poor people are poor because they "deserve" it and that to "interfere" (read: help people and keep them from going under) would disturb both the natural order and the inherent "justice" of God's own system of government.

The "Democracy = Free Market Capitalism" AND conversely "Socialism = dictatorship" = the conflation of the ideas of a democratic form of government and a free market economy. In the newspeak of this politico-religious superstition, there is no such thing as a "social democracy". If you have socialism, you are not democratic, and vice versa.

[izzie]

6. I think your right on the first two but

The "Democracy = Free Market Capitalism" AND conversely "Socialism = dictatorship" = the conflation of the ideas of a democratic form of government and a free market economy. In the newspeak of this politico-religious superstition, there is no such thing as a "social democracy". If you have socialism, you are not democratic, and vice versa.------ I think Socialism is more a control of capitalism by the voters for their good. In other words I feel I must have some say in how businesses are run for my own good. I feel free to market my ideas and make a profit but not if it is going to hurt you or others. To try and move this into a religious thing is going on so one can feel free and right in doing what may hurt others. Well I guess you are right. That is what they do so guess they are all fitting into that religious thing.

[lvx35]

22. Yeah that last one has caused some conflicts with reality....

...namely the election of Hamas to power.

[Psephos]

5. "A man hears what he wants hear, and disregards the rest..."

I see plenty of nontraditional religious thinking all around us. There's no way to educate those whose belief systems are closed. They judge new information based on whether it agrees with what they already believe. Anything that fits the template is absorbed; anything that doesn't is rejected, usually with anger or derision.

Frustrated people form the pool from which true believers are drawn. Amplifying the negative feelings of frustrated people, a religious system of beliefs turns its adherents into intolerant fanatics. This is the true strength of a religious movement - it feeds on powerful emotions of true believers like a grassfire feeds on dry grass.

Both ends of the political spectrum grade smoothly into absolute belief systems that are, to my view, indistinguishable from religion.

I notice that most of the posts in this thread note this effect clearly on the right, but not so clearly on the left. Ironic, isn't it? The posts are themselves an example of the effect.

See Arthur Koestler's seminal essay "The Yogi and the Commissar" for further food for thought. And of course, Eric Hoffer's The True Believer, the first book anyone who wishes to understand the religion of politics should own.

Peace.

[struggle4progress]

30. Hoffer's True Believer is excellent

[skids]

7. The religion of "common sense."

People don't have good sense these days. Whether they ever did I leave to conjecture. The idea of "if it was worth doing someone would be doing it already" has become an item sustained against all evidence by some sort of misplaced faith in collective intelligence.

I mean look around yourselves people. Collective intellegence has been shitting the bed for at least a decade.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Astrology (it does derive from Babylonian religion)

though many who believe in it seem perfectly comfortable with simultaneously believing in another religion than doesn't allow "dual believership".

Since astrology claims that people's lives are influenced by a higher power that manifests itself in the patterns of stars, and the movements of planets, and that you can determine good times to do things, or what decisions you should take, it qualifies as a religion.

Exteme nationalism can edge into religion: Juche, in North Korea, is often called a religion. When they start building monuments to it, it becomes a country's 'official ideology', and the long dead founder is still called the "Eternal President" of North Korea, I think that may be correct.

[patrice]

9. "Law'n Order" in Cupcake Land.

The priests of this religion: Homeowners' associations. It's sacraments: ChemLawn applications, Razor straight edges, altar-boys on mowers perform sacrifices to the righteous grass God. Sack up all of those evil leaves and have them hauled to the landfill. Retired folks seek out and kill every dandelion terrorist. Liturgy: the screech of edge trimmers, roar of mowers, and whine of leaf blowers. Blessing us all with the safety of perfect grass.

[ms liberty]

11. Good one! You forgot this part though...

The lawn mowers themselves. As the seat of worship, the lawn mower must have lots of horsepower, zero radius turning, all possible attachments, and don't forget the cupholder!

[patrice]

13. Oh yeah, the Holy Mower.

Mounted by the Holy Knights of John Deer.

[beam me up scottie]

25. POTD !!!

Brilliant !!!
:applause:
So much so, it deserves its own thread!

[Finder]

14. Patriotism. n/t

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. Anne Coulter has some

interesting ideas on this. I read her book. I swear I was in the library!

She actually makes a point now and then inbetween the snark and snarl.

I did go home and shower, though.

[struggle4progress]

31. I guess it's always possible to find gold while pumping out the cesspool

.. but if I ever found any, I'd assume it originally came from somewhere else ...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

34. It was a worthwhile read because it did make me t hink

like you said, you can find a lot by digging in the latrine. People drop things in there all the time!

[charlie]

37. Yech

Not remotely on-topic, but you've got me thinking of a "drunks will do anything" video I saw last week. Urinals in fairgrounds and stadiums are often nothing more than a long concrete trough, and some idiot decided it would be funny to belly-surf one. He takes a running start, leaps in, and then there's tumult as guys scramble, bumping into walls, to get out of the spray as he rockets past. He flops out at the far end, soaked and laughing, clearly pleased with the awesomeness of his prank. Ewww. Every time I think I can no longer be surprised at how crazy people can get, the internet disabuses me of the notion.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

39. There really are no words.

[Odin2005]

16. Neo-Liberalism = Free Market Fundimentalism, AKA Market Fetishism

The Marxist theory of history: secularized Judeo-Christian end-time-ism

Nationalism: collective self-worship, treating the Nation-State as God.

American Exceptionalism: this had some truth to it untill World War I, when the US became geopolitically intergrated with the rest of Western Civilization; and as other countries besides the US, UK, and France became liberal democracies. It's now used as nationalistic propaganda ("We're the most free country on Earth, blah, blah, blah...").

[struggle4progress]

33. The Vatican actually condemned "Americanism" as a heresy in 1899

[Ron Green]

17. The Wisdom of the American Voter.

Politicians invoke this one all the time. It's obviously false.

[Odin2005]

20. AKA Argumentum ad Populorum, the Populist Fallacy.

"The People are always right." Many classical and Enlightenment intellectuals (including most of our founding fathers) were rightly fearful of populism (thier use of the term "Democracy" was not the way we use it, to them it was a synonym for populism), populism usually leads to Tyranny by Majority or to a dictatorship by a charismatic demogogue.

[Zebedeo]

19. Belief in the existence of little green men from outer space

"The Truth is Out There"

[beam me up scottie]

29. David Icke has his own religion?

Well, if L. Ron can do it...

[struggle4progress]

32. "... Leave blue green footprints that glow in the dark: I hope ..

.. they get home all right ... "

[lvx35]

23. Strong Atheism.

To believe in the idea of a being of power and intelligence vastly beyond your own is an unprovable believe, therefore to activly deny it is just as faith based as to assert that it exists...Weak atheists and agnostics don't fit this description of course.

[Odin2005]

24. BS!

[lvx35]

26. An insightful refutation.

[Odin2005]

27. There has been enough refutation of that in the Religion forum that...

There is nothing to refute.

[lvx35]

28. Ah yes, I forgot.

The strong Atheist's belief in the non-existence of God is beyond refute, it is simply to be accepted on faith. My apologies, father Odin.

[Random_Australian]

35. Before we go further.... popular? religious? Not commonly thought of

as religious?

Suprise me - I would like to know how strong atheism fits into those!

And yes, I would argue that it takes a smidge of faith, but religion implies a lot more and is completely out of order, IMO.

Wanna argue about it?

[trotsky]

36. "a being of power and intelligence vastly beyond your own"

That can describe many things that are NOT gods. Sufficiently advanced aliens would qualify. Do strong atheists deny "a being of power and intelligence vastly beyond (their) own"?

[neebob]

38. No, it's not just as unprovable

as the being of power and intelligence vastly beyond our own. There's a freaking mountain of evidence against that being's existence - enough to satisfy the common legal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," if only the majority of potential jurors didn't insist on clinging to their belief in it.

IT TAKES NO FAITH to look at (a) this being's dissimilarity to anything else in world it's said to have created, (b) the lack of logic and contradictions in its reported behavior and the rules it's said to have made, (c) its failure to show itself in anything but human stories, (d) the variety of similar stories, and (e) the scientific explanations for everything but what existed before the known universe began and ASSERT THAT THIS BEING DOES NOT EXIST.

It does, however, take faith to assert that people who look at the evidence and make that assertion are wrong, to justify your own failure/refusal to consider the evidence in the same way that's so widely accepted for considering other evidence. It takes faith to assert that atheism is faith - faith that some strong atheist won't call your bluff. Faith that others who similarly fail and refuse to consider the evidence will back you up. Faith that a lot of them won't change their minds and leave you alone in your assertion.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like religion.

[Boojatta]

41. "its failure to show itself in anything but human stories"

Would you say that the same kind of failure is in history (as opposed to archaeology) about most dates for which historical information exists?

For example, how many court case records from 1600 contain information that we can verify? Case law consists of human stories, right?

[neebob]

42. No, I probably wouldn't say that

but I can't be sure, because I'm not sure what you're asking. I can't make sense of your first question and don't know enough about court records from 1600 to answer the second one.

It sounds like you might be suggesting that human stories are evidence of the vastly more powerful and intelligent being's existence. If so, then yes, I suppose they are. I see them more as evidence that humans tend to make up the same kinds of stories.

[Boojatta]

43. I could try to get at the issue raised by the first question

from another angle. It might be an interesting topic in itself and not just a tool to support some position in a debate about religion.

The new question is: what kinds of historical records can be trusted and to what extent can they be trusted?

Sometimes we have nothing but secondary sources. For example, we might have copies of somewhat older copies of much older copies of ... etc, etc, etc ... some book by some author, but other books by the same author are known only by reference.

A reference may consist of various things such as one or more of the following:
1. an interpretation or misinterpretation of something that was stated in the book;
2. exact excerpts;
3. the title, name of the author, other information to identify the author, and number of pages.

[neebob]

44. And the issue is ...

what?

[Boojatta]

45. What kinds of historical records can be trusted and to what extent can

they be trusted?

For example, is our alphabet a descendant of an alphabet that was invented between 1700 BC and 1500 BC (which seems to be the accepted story) or ...

is it a descendant of an alphabet that was invented between 9000 BC and 8000 BC or ...

is it a descendant of an alphabet that was invented between 800 AD and 1000 AD (so that all records in alphabetical form from before 800 AD are either transliterated versions of nonalphabetic writing or are fraudulent)?

[neebob]

46. How about if I just try and answer your new first question

What kinds of historical records can be trusted? I would say records that can be cross-referenced with other records or evidence (e.g., archaeological evidence) and are judged reliable by recognized experts.

I must say you have a way of talking around an issue. Why are you asking these questions? What are you trying to get at?

[Boojatta]

47. What happens when experts disagree with each other?

For how much of the historical record is there archaeological confirmation?

One story I have been told is that meteorites in museums were at some times and places thrown away on the grounds that rocks couldn't fall from the sky.

Imagine that you are living in an age with no telescopes or just primitive telescopes. How would you decide whether or not rocks occasionally fall from the sky? Would you be undecided? Would you say that you have never seen a rock fall from the sky and that you have enough evidence to conclude that eyewitnesses of such events are either confused or lying?

[neebob]

49. I'm not answering any more of your questions

until you answer mine. Either tell me what your issue is, or go find someone else to engage in an endless Q&A.

[Boojatta]

50. My issue is trying to understand exactly what you meant by this:

"IT TAKES NO FAITH to look at ... (c) its failure to show itself in anything but human stories,"

For example, what exactly is a "human story"? Do you demand more than human stories as evidence to support claims in general or do you just demand it in some subject areas?

Also, what human stories interest you? It seems that you're not interested in old case law, the origin of the alphabet we are using right now, or the history of beliefs about meteorites.

What's a historical topic (other than religion) that interests you enough for you to do whatever you would need to do to prepare yourself to either form an opinion you are willing to express or say that you are undecided and likely to remain undecided?

[neebob]

52. I attempted to explain that in #42

where I said I see the stories more as evidence that humans tend to make up the same kinds of stories. I was referring to Bible stories, and religious books and stories in general. What I meant by the statement you refer to above is, if you regard the stories as evidence against the being's existence (as I do), it takes no faith to look at them and the other things I listed and assert that the being does not exist.

And yes I do demand more than human stories as evidence to support claims of the being's existence. Not in general, but what I just said.

Lots of human stories interest me. I'm not willing to write an essay enumerating them, expecting you'll bombard me with more questions.

As for your last paragraph, I form lots of opinions, which I frequently express in this forum and elsewhere. And that's as many of your questions as I'm going to answer.

[Boojatta]

51. Could you elaborate on this one?

"(e) the scientific explanations for everything but what existed before the known universe began and ASSERT THAT THIS BEING DOES NOT EXIST."

For example, if the being is alleged to be a perpetual motion machine then the scientific explanations assert that the being doesn't exist. However, who says that the being is a perpetual motion machine?

[neebob]

53. Nope, sorry. nt

[hvn_nbr_2]

40. I've been told that in Oklahoma, football is a religion. n/t