Well said, George,

If I may add, when blind people touch an elephant, at least they feel some part of its nude body, but when there is a ship that is to carry you across the sea, people might instead consider it to be the corals and sea-weeds which attached themselves to its hull over the long years it has been in the water.

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Dear George, Dear Yuyutsu,

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Various people have various definitions of what constitutes a religion. I should be interested to learn what each of you mean by “religion” – apart from your metaphoric “elephant” (for George) and “corals and seaweeds” (for Yuyutsu).

The courts of justice have had to judge which organisations qualify as religions for tax and other statutory and legal purposes over the years. It is interesting to see what they have to say on the subject.

Religion is widely construed by the courts as follows (cf. Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax [1983] 1 VR 97 (SC) at 136) :

« … the criteria of religion are twofold: first, belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle; and second, the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief, though canons of conduct which offend against the ordinary laws are outside the area of any immunity, privilege or right conferred on the grounds of religion. Those criteria may vary in their comparative importance, and there may be a different intensity of belief or of acceptance of canons of conduct among religions or among the adherents to a religion. The tenets of religion may give primacy to one particular belief or to one particular canon of conduct. Variations in emphasis may distinguish one religion from other religions, but they are irrelevant to the determination of an individual's or a group's freedom to profess and exercise the religion of his, or their, choice. »

Therefore courts will not distinguish between religions (cf. Thornton v Howe (1862) 31 Beav 14, 54 ER 1042 (Ch) at 1044). As Gino Dal Pont and DRC Chalmers explain, the “question of whether or not something is a religion turns on its beliefs, practices and observations, not on the verity or meaning of its writings” (cf. Gino Dal Pont and DRC Chalmers Equity and Trusts in Australia (4th ed, Thomson Reuters, New South Wales, 2007) at 757).

I too am blindly groping George’s “elephant” and struggling against monstrous waves on “Der Fliegende Hollander” :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzC7HFixzfo

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Dear Banjo,

<<I should be interested to learn what each of you mean by “religion”>>

In the broadest sense, religion is any process that leads one closer to God.

In that ultimate sense, everyone and everything, including atheists spiders and rocks, have a religion, because everything that exists is on a path that will eventually bring it back to God.

But in a practical sense, we usually only refer to conscious, systematic or structured methods that help us to accelerate our progress toward God and often therefore to such organisations which teach such methods and support and enable their practice.

One implication is that we should not confuse organisations that claim to help bringing us closer to God with those that actually do so. The same organisation even could have been teaching and supporting religion at some time in history, but not any longer.

The prevailing notion as if religion has to do with belief, is because some religious methods happen to include the belief in certain contents. The importance of those contents is that believing in them is part of a package that helps one to come closer to God. Any correlation (or lack thereof) between that content and the objective world is of no consequence.

Dear Banjo,

You can define a concept - in a way understood and accepted equally by everybody - only on the basis of other concepts
(i) whose definition is known,
and/or on the basis of concepts
(ii) that are basic like, time, mathematics, God, love etc that have been understood and accepted without having a clear-cut definition.

In mathematics it is simple, in “real life” you have books written about such “undefinable” concepts that different people understand differently. Sometimes a metaphor conveys more than attempts at an “objective definition”.

As for religion - allegedly there are about 300 serious "definitions" of it, in addition to scores of unserious ones - my favourite is Cliford Geertz’s anthropological, see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7816#124645.

Also there is a difference between religion and religions, (like there is between water and waters). Your last paragraph refers to a legal definition of the latter.

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Dear Yuyutsu, Dear George,

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Yuyitsu wrote :

« In the broadest sense, religion is any process that leads one closer to God.

In that ultimate sense, everyone and everything, including atheists spiders and rocks, have a religion, because everything that exists is on a path that will eventually bring it back to God »
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In other words, religion = the cycle of nature with its supernatural creator
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George wrote :

« As for religion - allegedly there are about 300 serious "definitions" of it, in addition to scores of unserious ones - my favourite is Cliford Geertz’s anthropological :

[“(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic]
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In other words, religion = the irresistible symbolic conditioning of “men” via the emotions
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I hope I have correctly interpreted your definitions. Both describe religion as a process. They appear to be more complementary than different.

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Dear Banjo,

«In other words, religion = the cycle of nature with its supernatural creator»

Let me use a metaphor: rocks lose weight and men lose weight.

Rocks can only lie there and eventually water will run over them and chip away at their surface until they are lighter, but man in contrast is possibly unique in being able to use deliberate discipline, dieting and exercising in order to lose their excess weight faster.

So while religion is natural, man can deliberately and systematically accelerate its progress. We could discuss the religion of frogs if we wanted, but I suspect it would not be as versatile and interesting as the religions of man, which is the aspect of religion that we most commonly refer to.

Now I haven't mentioned a "creator", that was your own addition. Depicting God as Creator is one of those useful beliefs that I mentioned in my previous post as religious methods. But as we now talk ABOUT religion in general rather than within the framework of a particular religion, there is no sense in referring to that attribute.