I’ve been writing about religion for a while now. It’s an interesting topic. But I find that there’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding religion, both in terms of how laypeople view it, and even in terms of how scientists approach the topic. Just like a lot of people misuse and abuse the word “theory” a lot of people also misuse and abuse the word “religion” and this absurdity has to end.

Talking About Religion From a Scientific Perspective

Many times, one of the most difficult aspects of discussions on religion, from a scientific point of view, is that many people aren’t able, or willing, to differentiate between discussions on claims made in various religions, such as the existence of gods, afterlives, etc, and discussions on the scientific aspects of religion: what religion is, how it functions, its socioeconomic impact, the psychology and anthropology of religion, and so on.

That’s frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, theological discussions can be interesting, but my focus isn’t on the beliefs of any given religion, let alone whether those beliefs are true or not. My focus is on what religion is, how it forms, and how it affects us.

Religion is Not a Belief in a God

I blame western ethnocentrism for this one. So many people view religion in terms of Christian, or at least Abrahamic faiths. People often think that a god belief is a necessary component of religion. But it’s not. There’re actually a number of issues with defining religion this way, not the least of which is that it rests on the already vague concept of “god.” What is a god? Are advanced alien races gods? Is gravity a god? Are the Kami of Shinto gods?

Usually a god is seem as supernatural, but that also is problematic. How do we know what is natural and what isn’t? The Kami of Shinto are believed to be manifestations of a natural unifying force called “musubi” so either it’s not actually natural or the Kami are not gods.

Affect on Research

Sadly, the misconception about what religion is has led to a lot of issues in the research on the topic. Research into changes in religiosity are skewed by relying on self evaluation of religiosity, measuring church attendance, and surveying how many people believe in a god. It’s partially for these reasons that China and Japan are often viewed as highly non-religious countries, when they are really quite religious.

Consider that while China does not have a high level of religious self affiliation, in part because the Chinese government has a very negative attitude towards religion, many individuals engage in ancestor worship, practices that rely on the belief of vital life forces, and that building construction even, at least on occasion, makes sure that dragons have places to fly safely. It’s part of the practice of feng shui. And feng shui is very important to Chinese home buyers, according to inman. Many won’t even work with an agent that doesn’t utilize feng shui!

Japan is often also cited as a non-religious country, because of its high degree of atheism, but the practitioners of Shinto, the major collection of religions in Japan, do not consider the Kami to be gods, and so someone who believes in the Kami would still consider themselves atheists. The majority of people in Japan practice a combination of Shinto and Buddhism, and even have some Christian elements mixed in. Their beliefs are quite varied, but a good portion of the population is religious, even if the current surveys tend to underestimate religiosity, because of the very western view of religion that researchers utilize.

The takeaway from this point is that (1) researchers need to better define what they mean when they’re trying to measure religiosity and (2) be skeptical of all of the claims going around that religion is on the decline or that we can link the degree of religiosity to some other factor. If we’re not even measuring religion correctly, we cannot link it to any other measurement.

Being Interested in Religion

Like Ree Jackson, I’m an atheist, but I’m very interested in religion. Of course, there are plenty of religious atheists, as a religion does not require a god belief, as I already mentioned. Still, it’s annoying that so many self proclaimed atheists are so religiophobic. But unlike Ree, and so many other atheists in the west, I was never religious. I just like to study it, from a scientific point of view. I do find the search for answers to currently unanswerable questions as well, and have plenty of respect for religious people, at least when they’re not dogmatic. But so many people have a hard time accepting that.

An Atheist Who Loves Religion
I’m an atheist. It’s complicated.medium.com

Religion as a Bad Word

A lot of people also use the term as a bad word. If an ideology or practice is bad, or dogmatic, it’s often just labeled “religion.” I’ve had a number of arguments with Skeptical Raptor, over at his blog, for his abuse of the term.

This abuse of the term and the idea that religion is a bad thing has exacerbated the tendency for a lot of religious people to self label as “spiritual but not religious.” I criticized his comments so often that he ended up eventually writing a full response to those criticisms. I could write an entire article rebutting his response, but instead, I want to focus on one major point.

For me, “anti-vaccine religion” was a throwaway line almost tongue-in-cheek, because, from my standpoint, the group acts as if it were a religious cult. In fact, some people I know, who loathe the anti-vaccine zealots, do classify them as a cult. Anyway, of all the things I represent, my obvious pejorative use of religion ranked near the bottom of my “care” list.

So S.R. even admits that he’s just using it as a throwaway line: a senseless and meaningless insult, no different if someone were to offhandedly call someone gay. It is simply not acceptable to turn a word like “religion” into an insult, because there is nothing offensive, at least inherently, about religion.

A Side Story

I also think that, at least some atheists, are more capable of handling “foreign” religious practices than “native” ones. I vaguely remember an interesting situation that occurred in an anthropology of religion course that I was taking.

Throughout the course, we watched a number of videos on religious practices from around the world, including the Yoruba practice of calling forth an orisha (god?) and having it possess them. There was little reaction. But then we watched Jesus Camp. Now I admit that Jesus Camp does indeed depict an extreme form of Christianity. And the documentary was developed as a criticism, but the reactions by the students were quite different. Some laughed. Others looked a bit uncomfortable.

I do think the professor missed out on a great opportunity to allow the class to engage in self evaluation. It shows just how uncomfortable many are with handling “native” religious practices and how something can seem bizarre, but less so if we say “it’s just other people doing it.”