Luke 11:23 - "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters." Some religions are more exclusive than others. If you've been

Luke 11:23 - "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters." Some religions are more exclusive than others. If you've been (or are) a Protestant Christian (depending on the denomination, of course), you may think of religions as exclusive belief systems. It's like political parties - you join one because it's right about everything, then sneer at the others which are just there to mislead the innocents. Then you join a faction in the party, because the rest of the party has fallen from the true path (though presumably not enough to damn them to hell). "Religion" is an abstract word, not a concrete one. It can have different meanings. Some religions are exclusive belief systems (like many political parties); others are more like philosophies with a bit of mysticism thrown in. It's only their ability to retain adherents, and their attempts to explain the mystical that make us call them "religions". I don't think I've ever met a self-identified ex-Catholic, or ex-Buddhist, just non-practicing ones; because they don't seem to think that their lack of faith and practice excludes them from their religion. As an ex-Protestant, I used to ask how they could still say they were part of a religion they obviously didn't practice or believe in. Then I realized that my definition of "religion" was different to theirs, because my religion stated that you had to believe to be part of the faith.