What are "Religious People?"

[LuisDantas]

My point was that having faith or adhering to one's own interpretation of God's will, using a skeptical mind, good will, and honest inquisitiveness is something different than being "religious". That's all.

That is true... by some understandings of what the word "religious" should mean.

Not by the ones that I favor. I suspect that not by Quintessence's either. But what can a person do? The understandings are anything but well agreed on.

 

[outhouse]

The understandings are anything but well agreed on

Yep.

I suspect that not by Quintessence's either

No one wants to be told they believe in something that does not exist, but many [not OP] fail to realize that no matter what they worship the majority of the rest of the world does not believe what they do as existing.

If people believed in only the ALL "natural" I think we would call it knowledge, and many of the worlds problems would be over.

 

[Mister Silver]

On occasion there have been folks on RF referencing some group called "religious people" in their posts. Often it is in the context of making a generalizing statement, but I can't wrap my head around what is being generalized about. I don't know what that is... this "religious people" that is talked about. What are you folks talking about when you use that phrase? What makes someone "religious people" instead of just "people?" How are those different, if they are different? Am I part of the "religious people" you speak of? Are you part of the "religious people" you speak of? Why or why not?

When I refer to "religious people", I am referring to people who adhere to religious beliefs.

 

[Quintessence]

When I refer to "religious people", I am referring to people who adhere to religious beliefs.

Lol... this thread is old. I wish I could say the curiosity was no longer relevant, but stupid over-generalizations about groups of people are persistent little buggers.

An answer like this isn't particularly enlightening compared to the vague "religious people," because the only thing that makes a belief "religious" is some human labeling any given belief as "religious." As such, any and all beliefs can be religious, thus "religious people" ends up referring to everybody unless the person specifies what kind of "religious beliefs" they are talking about. Presuming the kind is specified, we still have the problem of fixating over much on ideological aspects of religion ignoring the other key components of religions like community, practices, and way-of-life type things.

More likely than not, I created this thread a couple of years ago to prompt folks to check their assumptions; to maybe think a little and knock it off with inevitably erroneous generalizations about "religious people."