Are Pantheism and Deism religions?

chaosof99

I am an atheist, and as such I'm often confronted with the notion that atheism is just another religion. However, as many atheists are in this forum I'm sure that most members are aware that this assertion is flawed due to the fact that atheism lacks a lot of the attributes and hallmarks that other religions have, such as organized worship, codified beliefs and behaviors etc. And atheism also can not be considered a religion when using most dictionary and even academic definitions of religion. However, in recent discussions it has been brought forward that those definitions also can't grasp pantheism and deism as religions for similar or identical reasons as to why atheism is not a religion.

Many are declaring that those definitions are therefore flawed as pantheism and deism are religions in the peoples eyes. I on the other hand would contend that the definitions are fine and correct in not including pantheism and deism as religions. While they are certainly religion-like beliefs, they fall short of being actual religions due to the lack of organized worship, codified rules, etc. But what do you guys think?


As an aside, I've been recently confronted with Ninian Smart's seven dimensions of religions, among other things as the reason why Conservapedia and other fundamentalists want to define atheism as a religion as also having aspects that can be expressed in those dimensions. However, I think that this is a gross misapplication of Smart's dimensions, as I see them as entirely descriptive, rather than prescriptive. In other words, Smart's dimensions express aspects of religions that can be studied, but not everything that has these aspects is a religion. Otherwise, certain kinds of the human life which are clearly not religions but also have such aspects, e.g. sports or work, would also be declared religions.

Axel

Pantheism and Deism aren't religions, because they aren't specific. Those words can be used as descriptions of religion, or even as just generalized terms for people's beliefs, but believing one of those doesn't automatically assign you to a religion.

Jason

Pantheism and deism are religions by definition, unless, you want to remove the roots "the" and "dei."

panfriedmarmot

My understanding is that there is faith and belief and separate from them is religion, the first two being acceptance of the existence of a supernatural higher power without evidence and the latter a social construct based around such. In and of themselves, pantheism and deism are simply beliefs based on faith and not a religion. Were there to be a social construct attached to them such as a church and rituals, then it would be a religion based on faith and belief in pantheism or deism.

Apreche

All of this kind of discussion is just people getting caught up in semantics. What is the definition of religion? What is the definition of atheism? What category does this person fall into if they believe X? Does it matter what category they are in? Who cares?! It doesn't fucking matter.

There is only one question that really matters, and that is "How do you live your life?" Are your morals dictated by some arbitrary external source, or by your own personal code? Do you make decisions based on faith, or based upon evidence and reason?

There are people who are technically atheists, who do not believe in any god, but live as religious people. They believe in some other non-god related supernatural nonsense, and live their lives by it. They believe in it despite evidence, and it influences their entire lives. Astrology is one example of the kind of belief one of these people could have.

There are also a great many people who profess belief in some religion, god, or gods. Yet, these people make up their own moral codes and actually live their every day lives with science and reason. The only difference is that their mouths say "yes" when asked if they believe in god. But they don't really believe in god. They come up with their own rules, and they change their religion to match it. Even though they give credit to a supernatural being for the rules they follow, the credit actually goes to them, and they don't actually believe what it says in some ancient book, though they may claim to.

TL;DR: It doesn't matter what label you put on yourself and others, all that matters is how you live your life.

Rym

Religion is on a marked and statistically significant decline.



It's partially because young people just don't care about this stuff any more, but also because a large number of older people are actively leaving their churches.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

One of the most important factors in the declining share of Christians and the growth of the “nones” is generational replacement. As the Millennial generation enters adulthood, its members display much lower levels of religious affiliation, including less connection with Christian churches, than older generations. Fully 36% of young Millennials (those between the ages of 18 and 24) are religiously unaffiliated, as are 34% of older Millennials (ages 25-33).

By a wide margin, religious “nones” have experienced larger gains through religious switching than any other group. Nearly one-in-five U.S. adults (18%) were raised in a religious faith and now identify with no religion.

Moderate and longstanding Christian sects lost the bulk of the members. The only growing sect of Christianity in the US is evangelicals, and even that is only either slowly shrinking or slowly growing: it's too close to the margin of error to tell). Mainline protestants and catholics are dropping the fastest.

Even more fascinating, unaffiliated people increasingly identify as "atheist" or "agnostic" rather than simple "none." The rate of "conversion" from unaffiliated to any religion has also dropped.

Dubyaz

I wonder if some of the "mainline protestants/Catholics" dropping never really believed and instead attended due to societal norms and peer pressure? People starting to identify themselves more openly as agnostic or atheist gives me hope that the words are becoming less stigmatized in peoples minds.

Cremlian

Thank god ^_^

SuperPichu

Rym said:

It's partially because young people just don't care about this stuff any more, but also because a large number of older people are actively leaving their churches.

Speaking as one of the "young people" to whom I assume you are referring (19 as of writing this). I have actually been seeing an increase in hardcore religious people in my demographic within the last year or two.

Cremlian

well you gotta remember that the younger people are just more likely to be non-religious, it doesn't mean they all or or even a majority. Only 36% are non-religious compared to well you understand %'s :-p

Hitman Hart

SuperPichu said:

Rym said:

It's partially because young people just don't care about this stuff any more, but also because a large number of older people are actively leaving their churches.

Speaking as one of the "young people" to whom I assume you are referring (19 as of writing this). I have actually been seeing an increase in hardcore religious people in my demographic within the last year or two.

If I had to guess, you have your hardcore Evangelicals and Catholics are becoming more prominent and folks like me who went to Catholic school and whatnot but aren't heavily invested in religion just aren't making a big deal about it, and probably aren't going to church.

SuperPichu

Hitman Hart said:

SuperPichu said:

Rym said:

It's partially because young people just don't care about this stuff any more, but also because a large number of older people are actively leaving their churches.

Speaking as one of the "young people" to whom I assume you are referring (19 as of writing this). I have actually been seeing an increase in hardcore religious people in my demographic within the last year or two.

If I had to guess, you have your hardcore Evangelicals and Catholics are becoming more prominent and folks like me who went to Catholic school and whatnot but aren't heavily invested in religion just aren't making a big deal about it, and probably aren't going to church.

That was more my point. There is no middle ground in this demo anymore. You are either hard-core or don't care

Dubyaz

Or you've seen the assholes who shout loudly their "christian virtues" and quietly back away.

ThatBlueHatGuy

chaosof99 said:

I am an atheist, and as such I'm often confronted with the notion that atheism is just another religion. However, as many atheists are in this forum I'm sure that most members are aware that this assertion is flawed due to the fact that atheism lacks a lot of the attributes and hallmarks that other religions have, such as organized worship, codified beliefs and behaviors etc. And atheism also can not be considered a religion when using most dictionary and even academic definitions of religion. However, in recent discussions it has been brought forward that those definitions also can't grasp pantheism and deism as religions for similar or identical reasons as to why atheism is not a religion.

Many are declaring that those definitions are therefore flawed as pantheism and deism are religions in the peoples eyes. I on the other hand would contend that the definitions are fine and correct in not including pantheism and deism as religions. While they are certainly religion-like beliefs, they fall short of being actual religions due to the lack of organized worship, codified rules, etc. But what do you guys think?


As an aside, I've been recently confronted with Ninian Smart's seven dimensions of religions, among other things as the reason why Conservapedia and other fundamentalists want to define atheism as a religion as also having aspects that can be expressed in those dimensions. However, I think that this is a gross misapplication of Smart's dimensions, as I see them as entirely descriptive, rather than prescriptive. In other words, Smart's dimensions express aspects of religions that can be studied, but not everything that has these aspects is a religion. Otherwise, certain kinds of the human life which are clearly not religions but also have such aspects, e.g. sports or work, would also be declared religions.

No, Pantheism and Deism are not religions, there are categorize of religions . The same way has Action & Romance are not any particulate movie but they are types of movies. Does that help at all.

SuperPichu

Posting this here too for relevance.

I got a message from my younger sister today about one of her friends, let's call her Jen. Jen has been openly lesbian for about a year and apparently one of the christian girls at school saw fit to invite Jen to an anti-homosexuality sermon at her church. Jen, obviously, said no. So at that point Jen receives an audio recording of the thing, which understandably upsets her.

I understand that words can't hurt you, but this is just sick. This thing is the most brain-washing, intolerant, bigoted thing I have ever heard and deserves to live in infamy.

Greg

I don't see how that's relevant to this thread.

SuperPichu

Greg said:

I don't see how that's relevant to this thread.

Am I wrong in my assumption that this kind of became the general purpose religion thread?

Greg

I guess it could be. We don't really have a general religion thread -- which is simultaneously expected because this place is mostly atheist and unexpected because this place mostly hates Christians. My bad.

lackofcheese

You're right, we totally hate Christians. Boo, Christians!

lackofcheese

I can't speak for everyone here, but I reserve my hate for Christianity itself and those who use it to exploit others. The Christians themselves, by and large, I merely pity.

Greg

That's the same logic used by sexuality re-education camps. They hate homosexuality, not homosexuals. That being said, you're also significantly more tolerant than other unnamed Forumites I can think of.

lackofcheese

The logic isn't the issue here. The logic itself is valid; the issue is that with respect to sexuality re-education it is not sound because many of the premises are entirely false.

Greg

Many would argue that your statement rests on similar premises.

Rym

I just don't believe in ghosts or mythological figures.

Josh Bytes

Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...

Greg

Rym said:

I just don't believe in ghosts or mythological figures.

You also have a history of making jokes about feeding Christians to lions.

lackofcheese

Greg said:

Many would argue that your statement rests on similar premises.

Let's make it clearer then, shall we?

The underlying point is that people are vulnerable to believing things without good reason, which can then cause them to act in harmful ways (to varying degrees). The core issues that therefore need to be resolved are thus twofold---people being irrational, and other people acting to exploit this irrationality.

In the case of Christianity, people clearly believe things without evidence to back it up, and does indeed result in various harms to society. In the U.S., the harm comes through most significantly in the kinds of laws that are passed as a result, most notably at the state level.

Where's the flawed premise there?


On the other hand, if we're talking about sexuality "re-education", there are several premises that it rests on which are plainly false, or at the very least entirely unfounded.

Most notably, it rests on the idea that being gay is merely a belief or psychological trait, without deeper biological roots, and that it can be "cured". This is simply false.

Now, if it were the case that homosexuality is genuinely harmful, this might also be sufficient reason for some kind of "re-education", but the actual claims of harm lack any real justification. In the end, it either comes back to unsubstantiated claims about deities, or unsubstantiated claims that somehow homosexuality is harmful to society.

Greg

I'm really not interested in trying to convince any of you that Christianity is helpful, because I don't give a damn for the same old played out scenes. I just want you to admit that you're intolerant of people of faith. You have just demonstrated that very very well, and I feel no need to add commentary.

I'm fond of you all. I'm not looking to convert you to anything but the Church of Bruce Springsteen. I'm not even trying to get you guys to be tolerant of my beliefs. I just want you to own up to what you're saying.

Starfox

Greg said:

I just want you to admit that you're intolerant of people of faith.

I suspect a lot of the crowd here would admit to it, on the grounds that it's not bad. Most people are intolerant of klansmen, too.

Greg

That's what I would expect, but across my five year tenure I've seen certain people dodge the accusation time and time again, Cheese being a prime example right now.

ninjarabbi

I mean I know I am at times, but generally its in the same way ScRym has said shit about fat people. Not literally all fat people, just "that guy" fat people.