Ban religion. However, does it really exist?

Perhaps, most of you would say, why I'm prompting debate on this topic when Santa is ready to smear all of us with his glimmer. However, I think, this is the right time to do some reality hunting and so do the Guardian and ICM.

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Will a world sans religion make any difference? Apparently, not! Yes, we can live without 'Religion', 82% of Brits thinks so, believing that faith causes 'discord' and 'tension'. The nation with two third 'non-religious' populace has given its verdict and we cannot deny that the phenomenon is spreading fast around the globe too.

According to a Guardian/ICM poll:

1. 82% people in Britain think that religion does no good

2. Only 16% disagree

3. Non-believers outnumber believers by almost two to one

4. Only 33% describe themselves as 'religious' - 37% women, 29% men

5. Older people and women show more faith in God

6. 63%, including half who are Christians, say that they are not religious

Religion defined

It'll be very easy for those who don't know what religion is to give a definition to it and get away, and equally difficult, rather impossible, for those who proclaim to understand its soul. St. Augustine says, 'most of us know perfectly well what religion is - until someone asks us to define it.'

The existing definitions are either too narrow to balance all religious systems, or they are too ambiguous to comprehend and believe.

The only definition that I encountered and was a bit satisfactory is given in 'The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'. It more or less describes all attributes of religion, no doubt, given by man only; however, Austin Cline clothes it in a more acceptable form.

Religion redefined: A farce or a force?

The problems I encountered construing how different philosophers, with serious efforts, have tried to define religion and what message they wanted to convey, have certainly melted all my doubts about what actually religion is, believe me, there is no more dilemma. Here, I'm not trying to give my own definition, rather I would only say that anything with some element of 'force' is religion. You can term any existing phenomenon that has a capacity to turn your mind and body into it, without any qualms, as religion, doesn't matter it's for good or for bad, there must be faith.

Why religion: No need to ban, it doesn't exist

As a representative from the Church of England says that 'impression of secularism in this country is overrated', the notion of existence of religion too is questioned.

Jonathan Z. Smith writes in Imagining Religion:

...while there is a staggering amount of data, phenomena, of human experiences and expressions that might be characterized in one culture or another, by one criterion or another, as religion - there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar's study. It is created for the scholar's analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy.

Elton John recently opposed organized religion and expressed that if given a chance he would ban it completely. I don't have any feelings whatsoever to express with this regard, not because I don't any views on it or I'm handicap, but just because there is not point in pondering over things that no more exist. Religion is dead and I don't believe in digging graves.

Please read: Religion: The Appendix of Modern Society

The metamorphosis of society and non-religious existence

The society has changed dramatically. People do not have time for religion; it simply doesn't fit in here anymore. Faith today is merely a tool misused for agendas or a distasteful habit reserved only for special occasions. I wonder how many of us regularly go to Church. However, the question is not that you are a regular visitor or not or it cannot be a criterion too to define how faithful you're and it does not even set parameters or define the extent of your religious tolerance. Rather the question is, why you associate yourself to a religious institution and even if you are inclined towards it, how far you're able to carry its 'burden of purity', which definitely melts down in the scorching heat of the present society we live in.

The word 'God' too is now a cliche, used only verbally, and that too only by a few who do not attempt to understand why the wind blows or why the strength in his or her sinews dissolve with the passage of time.

I'm sure, after reading this, all my so-called religious friends would pull out their daggers, apparently, in an attempt to again define and press on the existence of a phenomenon which has lost its significance. But, I'm no more anxious, the world is with me and I invite the rest too to join now, my arms are open.

Thanks: Julian Glover, Alexandra Topping, Elton John, Austin Cline

Via: Guardian Unlimited