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xssve -> RE: Court Rules: Atheism is a Religion (10/14/2011 7:16:18 AM)
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Naturally, I can't leave that alone, "religious belief" is distinct form "spiritual belief" in that "religious" implies religion, and religion can then be defined by contrast as an "organized system of spiritual beliefs".
In a sense, it's the organization that makes it a religion, rather than it's concerns with spiritual matters per se, including belief in deity or deities. Many of your profile quizzes include the option, "spiritual, not religious", implying you have some spiritual beliefs but do not subscribe to a particular organized religion.
Whether or not there is a god is often the criteria used within religion to distinguish between a cult and a religion, i.e., a cult is typically characterized as organized around a particular individual rather than a particular set of more generalized ideals.
I think elsewhere, Heather said "religion is a cult", or words to that effect, and it is something of a subjective distinction - the cult of personality definition would make Buddhism a cult, although we think of it as a religion, it's an organized set of spiritual beliefs, not necessarily worship of Buddha himself - it's actually more like a classical school of philosophy, like Stoicism, Socratic, Aristotelian, etc. (the religious right, and the right in general tends towards the Aristotelian school).
Ironically, by making a professed belief in Jesus Christ as personal savior the litmus test salvation, American Protestantism essentially turned itself into a cult, which Catholicism sidestepped by making him a demi-god, the earthly representative of god, an avatar of sorts.
Fascinating stuff, it's actually something Caesar brought over from Egypt, the Egyptian Pharaohs were considered earthly gods, an Oriental thing, the Emperor of Japan is considered a child of gods, as were the Chinese emperors I believe (I think it actually begins in Mesopotamian religion, though multiregionalism cannot be discounted), whereas the Roman heads of state were just big swinging dicks.
Caesar had to be a God to compete, and was assassinated for that very reason. His successor Augustus was the first Roman God-King, and the whole thing just spread from there, presumably the Roman Catholic church needed an earthly god to gain credibility, and we get a sort of abstract/earthly deity, an anthropomorphic incarnation of god.
Hence he Trinity, which of course many other Cristian sects denounce as polytheistic, so on and so forth.
It appears to all be an attempt to reconcile everything with the Zoroastrian conceptualization of an abstract, non-anthropomorphic deity, and co-opt competing religions. Ahura Mazda is described as "time itself", and is symbolized by flame in some sects, which is where the misconception about Persian "fire worship" comes from.
Christianity itself borrows heavily from Mitharism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, and incorporates a number of elements of cosmic dualism, the "war between good and evil", etc., which has technically been re-conceptualized as an internal struggle, our struggle with our inner natures, but is still frequently projected and externalized.
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