"No religion" is a clear statement of fact.
Religion implies belief in some supernatural being which many people do not.
I can accept that this question could be perceived as necessary to allow for societal needs to be forecast, but why is so much attention being paid to something which should be private and personal, not subject to governance.
Maybe those who believe in some kind of deity would not object to being asked what sporting teams they support, or who are their favourite musicians.
It's about as important.

Dear George,

Sadly, dictionaries are written by people who are not into religion themselves, or perhaps only superficially so, so they only observe and report some superficial side-effects of religion rather than religion itself. It's like a pet mouse defining "human" as "something that drops food", then one day when a fruit falls off a tree, the mouse considers that tree to be human as well.

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Dear Ponder,

I agree that such questions should not be asked.

I disagree that "Religion implies belief in some supernatural being": belief is just one religious technique among many and is not strictly necessary.

"No religion" is not a clear statement of fact, but rather a clear statement of the responder's ignorance. People can be quite religious without knowing it, so if that question is asked and responded to at all, then people who think that they have no religion should humbly respond: "I am not aware of having any religion".

Some additional thoughts, George.

If the third definition you listed were considered to be as formal or non-slang as the first two definitions, then all that would mean is that, in order to avoid confusion, we would need to find a different word for what people generally understand to be a religion when they are not trying to belittle the beliefs/interests/pursuits of others.

How, for example, would one otherwise clearly convey what it was that they were referring to when using the word ‘religion’, without continuously having to follow it up with a caveat? Language should be more clear and effective than that.

That being said, I think Suseonline was right to object to JardineKJardine’s emotive and derogatory application of the word ‘religion’.

Now that I think about it, ‘Derogatory’ could be another possible sense to describe the third definition that you mentioned.

Finally, (and I may be starting to split hairs here) I would just add that the OED doesn’t list the three definitions as completely separate definitions in their own right. The second two are considered subcategories of the first. This is how it’s actually presented, they are not labelled 1, 2, 3:

1 The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods:
(ideas about the relationship between science and religion)

[Indent] 1.1 A particular system of faith and worship: (the world’s great religions)

[Indent] 1.2 A pursuit or interest followed with great devotion: (consumerism is the new religion)

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/religion
http://tinyurl.com/zkbfmwt (Google ‘Define’ search)

Yuyutsu - you're being driven, like many posters into splitting hairs over this entire topic, trying to micro-define an inherent generality, and being unclear what religion actually is.

I also am unclear - to me it's akin to trying to define love; religion is the same kind of emotive intangible.
But I disagree when you say "No religion" is not a clear statement of fact, but rather a clear statement of the responder's ignorance.

No!

The term "Religion" is an attempt to brand the inexpressible, to put it in some kind of category.
People either follow some kind of religion, or they don't. That's the importance of a "No religion" census option.

Religion tends be group conformism, overlooking that each person has total individual responsibility for their morals and ethics, thus their relationship with others.
Nobody is morally or ethically responsible for their actions to anybody except themselves.

Perhaps the census option should include "Me" as a 'religion'.

Dear Ponder,

Yes, love is a great analogy.

Neither love nor God can be defined, but the strategies that different people take in order to achieve them can often be listed.

If asked, "what is your strategy for having more love in your life", some people's answers could be:
* I'm dating.
* I'm saving money for a good bride.
* I use a deodorant.
* I undergo cosmetic surgery to look beautiful.
* I mix in social circles.
* I attend church to have more friends.
* I diet to be fit and healthy.
* I work on anger-management.
* I take care of my old parents in order to cultivate my emotion of loving.

Etc., Etc.

Now is there someone who doesn't want more love in their life?
- hardly believable!
But are there people who are unaware that they want more love in their life? And among those who are aware, are there not some without a clear strategy on how they expect to get there?
- Yes, won't you agree that both types exist?

Similarly with religion:

Everything that is, comes from God and will eventually return to God. The question "what is your religion" is equivalent to asking "what is your strategy for returning to God sooner?".

Some may answer, "I stick with and conform to the teachings and principles of this-or-that denomination" while others may answer, "I just try to be the best person I can". Obviously there are thousands and millions of different answers to this question which no questionnaire can exhaust.

I can naturally accept that some people are unaware of their innate yearning to return to God - to be conscious of their own eternal, true and blissful original nature.
I can naturally accept that some people have never consciously decided on any particular path/strategy on how they may get there.

- but to say that one doesn't want to return to God, is equivalent to saying that one doesn't want to have more love in their life. Yes, people say both, but only as an expression of their ignorance.

"I can naturally accept that some people are unaware of their innate yearning to return to God - to be conscious of their own eternal, true and blissful original nature."

Oh, how magninimous of you Yuyutsu!

You might sympathize with the Australian school Chaplain who told an anorexic girl she was only hungering for the word of the Lord.

The arrogance and perfect stupidity of evangelists who claim to know the unknowable, and that everyone else is somehow blind to it, is precisely the reason many people will be marking 'No religion'.

There is no discussing this issue rationally with you. Rather than presenting evidence you simply make the blind assertion that you know, and others don't.

Please continue to feel sorry and generous towards those who feel an obligation to accord their beliefs to post-enlightenment notions of evidence and reason.

It's an attitude filled with the pretense of kindness and humility, but one that is actually devoid of either.