4 ms·
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James had to define religion. So he defined it as "the sense that there is an unseen order to things, and tha
by ocschwar 9y ago
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James had to define religion.
So he defined it as "the sense that there is an unseen order to things, and that one must conform to it harmoniously."
Bolshevism obviously qualifies.
- defgeneric 9y agoSorry, this is just to easy. Bolshevism was not a religion. Not at all. It was a political party modeled on the German SPD, modified to fit the political conditions of Tsarist Russia. No serious scholar or historian would treat Bolshevism as a religion. It was always about politics.
- a-nikolaev 9y ago"Patriotism", "Racism", "Functional programming", and many other things will qualify too then, at least for a non-negligible number of people. We tend to get unreasonably attached and put our faith into stuff like that.
- ocschwar 9y agoPatriotism: plenty of ethno-specific religions out there. I was born into one. Racism: "race is our religion" - an explicit slogan for more than one neonazi movement. Functional programming: when an advocate moves past "one must" to "you must", the allusions to religion and holy wars get pretty justified.
- drb91 9y agoJust a note that patriotism is typically defined around nation states, not ethnicities, although many times they may align. But the largest nations are often ethnic melting pots!