Hi there...I am just curious as to why you left off one of the world's major religions, 'Islam', from the list of religions you have mentioned above.
Or, she felt she had enough examples?
Thank you. :yes:
loverOfTruth, if I tried to list all of the religions of which I am aware, we all would have forgotten what the topic was by the time I get to the end. I was just giving a few examples.
That's closer to being a religion than "magic." Also "Non-theism" also gets a Concepts subforum and a DIR.
Why does it matter?
"Non-theistic beliefs" is a category for the DIRs within it (Atheism, Agnosticism, Humanism), so it's there as a descriptor, not a religion.
I haven't looked in the "Magic" DIR but if it's referring to Ceremonial Magick, that actually has shared beliefs and rituals and even organizational structure. (I used to practice Ceremonial Magick; for my temperament, I liked it better than Wicca or Neo-Paganism.) So I would argue that "Magic" can be considered a religion. (Obviously, if it's referring to illusion tricks, then no.)
As for why it matters *to me*, as I wrote before, I like for categorizations to make sense, and to be as parsimonious as possible. Since religion is messy it's not always going to be easy to decide where something goes, but *to me* deism is quite obviously not a religion, but rather a theological concept. It's on the same level as panentheism (which we share in addition to our UUism) and panentheism is not a DIR.
Oh, and to answer your earlier question, there is precedence for me critiquing RF categorizations. (I didn't just wake up and decide to "pick on" deism.) It may have been before your time here but UUism used to be listed under something like "New Religions" (It was a long time ago so I'm not sure of the exact name), along with Scientology and (I think) Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. I objected to that and, along with other RFs, pushed for it to be to listed under a newly created "Syncretic religions" category.
