What is the difference between supporting a belief, and being religious?
Is religion a belief in supernatural objects, or is it a habit of mind?
If you think that religion is a habit, beyond religion, how could you tell if you are being scientific, and not religious in supporting your own point of view?
2011-09-13T10:27:09Z
Josh, Can you go beyond Rand's soft atheism and see that ideology is built one idea at a time?
Ray, I see your answer as saying the arts are purely ideological, and can never be scientific, and arts are thus on the same level as religious beliefs.
B Allan, Thanks for your example of what a belief is.
Himanshu, You are stating what they want you to believe, as the first 13 words you found in the dictionary. Have a look around, then answer, "What is religion?"
Michealla2011-09-14T04:40:44Z
Favorite Answer
Religion supports and feeds my Spiritual Self .. where as science tells me the glass is half full because i just saw Judy spill half of it ! Science is the study of facts and results from those facts.
But nothing can challenge, that my belief in religion does not if i want it to ...' see the glass as FULL '.
Indeed belief can be anything that you wish to have belief in.
I think you are conflating religion with blind faith. There is a big overlap.
Religion is about the spiritual life, morality and supernatural realms of existence. Science is a method of gaining knowledge about the manifest world.
In religion it is accepted for people to simply hold unsubstantiated belief. That's kind of the whole point. Faith.
But in science, just a belief is called a hypothesis. It is the first step to testing the belief rigorously and turning it into theory or rejecting it. That's when you are doing science: When you skeptically challenge your own inkling and simnply ask the laws of the universe to show you if you were right or wrong.
When you support a belief, your mind logically researches on that belief and arrives at the conclusion that it is true. While in being religious, you accept beliefs as they are, and not going into logic. Religion itself is never supernatural it is just a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.
Science uses evidence to support theories, Religion and the arts uses justification to support beliefs. You cannot use imperical methods to gage ideology. Kinda like using volume to measure distance.
Supporting a belief is justifying what you have chosen to believe. Being religious is being guided by a religious doctrine in your thoughts, feelings and actions.