Who Let the Dogma Out?

Now that we (sorta) know what a god is, what qualifies as religion? If almost anything can be a god... can anything be a religion?!

In this episode, we discuss what religion is. Does there need to be a God to worship? Well, it’s a tricky thing to explain. There are many religions like Buddhism and Confucianism that, while they have one founder, aren’t directly worshiped like we see in the Abrahamic religions.

The foundation of the word religion (ligaments) means to be connected to something. We go over a couple of accepted definitions for religion, break them down into their parts and identify their flaws.

Is it a unified system of belief? Often there are differences within the same group. Or is religion a metaphysical moral vision?

With groups looking for tax-exempt status from the CRA and the IRS, we discuss how important it is for people to be aware of what actually counts as a religion.

And finally, is Katie actually religious? With these definitions, you might be surprised!

A good sequel to this episode is #16 Abide with Me, where we talk about parody religions.

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Katie Dooley 00:11

Welcome back to the latest and greatest episode of The Holy watermelon Podcast. I'm Katie.

Preston Meyer 00:16

And I'm Preston.

Katie Dooley 00:17

And today we are having another big roundabout episode on what is religion? Do

Preston Meyer 00:24

you have an answer for that question? I don't you want to make a stab at it?

Katie Dooley 00:30

Yes, it is a belief system, a commonly shared belief system by a group of people that worship of God, please see episode two, what is a God to know how good that definition was?

Preston Meyer 00:52

Does it have to have a God? It could have multiple gods but a minimum of one.

Katie Dooley 00:57

I would say yes. But again, we know how big a god is. So we can have the church of mom and dad.

Preston Meyer 01:03

What about Buddhism?

Katie Dooley 01:06

Do they not worship the Buddha?

Preston Meyer 01:08

So that's the trick is, though Tallis Buddhism, specifically believe in a pretty cool cosmology. But there's multiple statements from Dalai Lama and whoever else that any theological study is a distraction and a waste of time, because there is no god for Buddhism

Katie Dooley 01:34

and philosophies of the person, right.

Preston Meyer 01:36

And the Buddha, of course, is a figure who is revered but not a Judeo Christian defined God, even though according to some of the definitions we came up with last time, it's not unfair to call him a god.

Katie Dooley 01:55

So we're off to a great start. Right?

Preston Meyer 01:57

All right, yeah. Not only is God tricky, but religion is tricky. And we're gonna dive into that a little bit, I

Katie Dooley 02:05

think we're gonna have another round about a PSA that will hopefully clarify more than confused.

Preston Meyer 02:13

If nothing else, you'll have something to discuss with your friends. And that's all we want at the end of this, isn't it? So there are competing schools of thoughts, of course, like in literally any other subject worth discussing. So question is, how do you define religion? I want to read to you a couple of definitions that I've got here from some well respected scholars. First is Emile Durkheim. So he defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices, relative to sacred things, which is super broad, but also closes things in reasonably well, I think I

Katie Dooley 02:56

feel like the word sacred is actually a problematic word in that sentence, because then we get into what does sacred mean, the definition of sacred, just like we had the definition of worship and definition of a god. I think everyone probably hold something different, sacred. I also don't like the word sacred. And maybe this is a tangent. But I think is now's a good time to dive into that. I don't like the word sacred, in general, because it means it can't be questioned. I think that's why religion today has so many problems is because you can't talk or ques...