I do love the idea of simply inventing your own word meanings in debate, but it leaves me no useful response. I could say; "Well yes! That is true if you define 'banana' in the traditional sense! But I define 'banana' as the sound a mouse makes when it farts - then you are clearly wrong!" It is essentially a pretty pointless approach.
I didn't invent my own word meanings. This is what my experience of religion has been—that it is a body of teachings that a group of people share and that those beliefs differ from group to group. It is not monolithic (although, I understand that it's easier to deal with it and dismiss it if you believe that it is). Religion means different things to different groups of people, but the concept of religion as being only the irrational and superficial dogmas and superstitions of an aggregate group called "the religious" is a relatively new "definition."
By pointing out that what I mean when I say "religion" and what you mean may be two different things, I merely suggest, if we are going to converse, we need to agree on a terminology or we're just talking past each other.
I described what those words mean to me and to many people of faith. Because our faith is the subject of discussion, might it not stand to reason that the religious person in the discussion gets to have input into what he or she, in fact, believes? I often encounter anti-theists who insist on imposing definitions onto religious people (as if faith meant the same thing to everyone) rather than taking religious people and their beliefs as they really are. Many dogmatically insist that their definitions (religion=superstition or intolerance or dogma or ritual and faith = blind acceptance of whatever without use of the rational faculty) are the ones we all use.
Short form: You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means—or at least, it means more than you think it means.
I'd argue that it would be more accurate to speak of religious dogmatism if that is what we're addressing and use the broader term religion to mean something closer to the dictionary definitions: 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: (i.e.)the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. 3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices:
The word religion is from a latin root that means simply, "to bind together". Can we, for the sake of discussion define religion as a fundamental set of beliefs that binds together a group of people in common purpose?
If that is unacceptable to you, I'm willing to adapt and use whatever definitions of religion and faith you wish. But then we need to come up with terms for belief systems that are not that. So, for example, if your definition includes the idea that science is the enemy of religion, then by that criteria, my belief system is not, in fact, a religion. If it includes the idea that life here is pointless and we're just waiting for pie in the sky by and by, then again, not a religion—and by extension, the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Krishna, et al are not religion either.
Of course it excludes intellectual analysis, gods are mythological. There is no evidence for the esistence of gods. Moreover the entire concept is fanciful.
No, it doesn't exclude intellectual analysis at all. You believe it does for some reason, but that doesn't make it fact, and that is not the experience of many religious people. In other words, Bunyip, you're conjecturing about something with which you have limited experience. I live here in the intersection between faith and reason. It is my life's experience. Just because some religious people don't think deeply about the beliefs that have been handed down to them, or who have not bothered to test their faith with reason, or discover God for themselves, don't assume they are representative of all or even most religious people or that all religious experience is the same.
There is plenty of evidence for the existence of God, just as there is evidence for the existence of neutrinos or evidence that evolution is the mechanism by which we came to be here now and in this form. The very fact of our having this discussion of abstracts, the fact of the means we are using to convey these purely intellectual concepts is, in itself, an evidence of the existence of God. Another evidence is that endless sequence of Prophets that have been appearing since time immemorial, teaching the same fundamental principles and who insist that they've been sent by a surpassing Intellect to teach us what it means to be human.
I was referring to faith as defined in the bible.
I'd point out that the Bible is only one set of scriptures among many in the world's religious landscape, but fine, let's look at the Biblical definition. Here's one:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For, by it, the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so
that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” —Hebrews 11:1-3
The idea of faith requiring evidence and testimony (experience, authority) is part and parcel of the author's definition of faith. Consider this definition as you read an account of how the existence of neutrinos was discovered. The subatomic particle "hoped for" by Clyde Cowan who theorized its existence yielded fruit in experimentation and the rational exercise of inference by which we know (or have it on good authority) that the behavior of particles which are seen is influenced by something not seen. The idea that things we see are made up of things we can't see is a foundational scientific concept. And given that this verse in Hebrews is over 2000 years old, I have to applaud the author for finding words in his Hebrew or Greek vocabulary to describe such a principle.
"If religious belief and doctrine is at variance with reason, it proceeds from the limited mind of man and not from God; therefore, it is unworthy of belief and not deserving of attention; the heart finds no rest in it, and real faith is impossible. How can man believe that which he knows to be opposed to reason? ... Reason is the first faculty of man, and the religion of God is in harmony with it.” — Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 231
