naive Wrote:I think we may have differences in our definitions of what a religion is.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

I am using this definition:

4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Examples:
    Many people turn to religion for comfort in a time of crisis.

Ignoring the definition for now, the first example is not false, but it doesn't really describe what religion is.

   

naive Wrote:There are many religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

Yeah.
   

naive Wrote:Shinto is a religion that is unique to Japan.

Yeah.
   

naive Wrote:Hockey is a religion in Canada.

I think that "religion" is used as a figure of speech in that example. It's true that religion is associated with strong beliefs and ritual. Obviously hockey would have a fairly significant impact on their lives, and many Canadians would attribute great importance to it, but the rituals which people have in regards to hockey are not required. For example, watching hockey every weekend could be described as a ritual, but it's not necessary for them to do; it's not required by hockey players/officials for fans to watch hockey every weekend in order to be fans of hockey. All they need to qualify as a fan, is to enjoy hockey. Moreover, there is no fundamentally supernatural aspect of hockey.
   

naive Wrote:Politics are a religion to him.

It may be of great importance to him, and it may influence his world view, but there is no supernatural aspect, nor any required ritual or obligatory acknowledgement (e.g. Technically, to be classified as a Pentecostal Christian, a person must acknowledge that Jesus Christ genuinely sacrificed himself to remove their sins, and that God is real. Apparently, to be classified as Buddhist, a person must take the Three Refuges [whatever that means]).
 

naive Wrote:Where I live, high school football is religion.

Pretty much the same answer as with Canadians and hockey.

naive Wrote:According to the merriam webster definition, pretty much *anything* can be classified as a religion. How would you define religion?

First off, the Merriam Webster dictionary gives genuine examples of religion along with figurative examples. To use an analogy, it's like saying that Romeo loving Juliet (an actual example of what would be romantic love), is the same situation as a monkey who "loves" bananas, or an Italian person who "loves" pizzas. They aren't romantically in love with those foods, they just really enjoy eating them. In their case "love" isn't taken to literally mean romantically in love, but is taken as a figure of speech to mean that they "really like eating" those foods.

But to answer your question, I think that an accurate definition of religion requires words such as supernatural and ritual. For example: To be be religious is to have a strong ritualized belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. Do you disagree with that?

naive Wrote:"To me I guess it's less of a question of what factors scientific or religious beliefs are founded on, but rather the human and biological factors which allow them both to happen. I suppose I may even have to make a distinction between the scientific process and scientific claims. " -Me

What I am trying to say is that I view faith as a biological mechanism of the human mind. To be able to deny solipsism (or accept), one requires this mechanism. This same mechanism would have to be present in essentially all assertions as it is essentially a building block of human thinking. To be able to claim that solipsism, Christianity, or science contain any truths, one must heavily rely on this mechanism. If one were to remove this mechanism, all of these systems would fall apart equally.

Of course there is a certain proportion of faith in virtually all beliefs. But a person does not need the same type of faith to believe in the truth of scientific claims as opposed to the truth of many religious claims. 

naive Wrote:By distinguishing between the scientific process, and its claims. The process itself of performing an experiment I think wouldn't exactly classify as a belief system, but the results and information that these experiments yield (and perhaps the belief of the system itself working) perhaps could.

Naive, either you can agree that there is a distinction between the type of faith necessary to believe in the truth of scientific claims as opposed to the type of faith required to believe in the truth of most religious claims,
or you are forced to conclude that nothing can be known and that every imaginable thing is equally probable.

Canister Wrote:Silly there's millions of examples. Light speed was thought to be the speed limit of the universe without solid proof. It was believed for decades until we recently pondered that wasn't the case. The claim didn't have any solid proof and to challenge it was laughable.

Well, I'm not very knowledgeable about most things relating to physics, but I do know that the scientific method has improved itself quite a lot within the last century. Nonetheless, Most of what I could say would only be presumptions. I do suspect that there was (now rejected) mathematical evidence that nothing could go faster than the speed of light. But that's not strictly scientific. If those scientists really did have a blasphemous tone about their theory being exploded, then by definition, they were being unscientific. Because science is founded on the principle that theories can be improved or rejected on the basis of available evidence.

Do you have any examples which are relevant to biology or psychology?

Canister Wrote:

PaSS Wrote:i belive science is a religion

I wouldn't say that. Science wasn't created as a religion but it could be seen as one. In any case though anything can be seen as a religion... even this website.

I think, that to view things like this website as religion, a person would have to be using an inaccurate and unconventional definition of religion.

naive Wrote:They are saying that the speed of light is no longer the limit because information can travel faster than the speed of light. Entanglement theory experiments shows that it's possible for you to do something to a particle, and have its twin particle on the other side of the world react in less time than it would take for the speed of light to reach it. If information can be transferred faster than the speed of light, then we can break the speed of light without even leaving our own planet. 

Cool, sounds interesting  ;D