At the same time, for instance, there are people who believe in things like Sasquatches, ghosts, lucky charms, and that Taco Bell uses genuine beef. These superstitions which people will admit to and have a faith-like acceptance in can't really be called religions, or even an aspect of one. It's not significant enough in people's lives to warrant it. But communism, or even capitalism, have inherent values which people can hold as strongly as those inspired by any canonical text of any religion. From Anglicans to Zoroastrians.
So you are admitting that the nature of a belief is just as important as the value given to it ^_^
As a rule, I admit nothing.
Nothing!.
Though, some beliefs do lack sufficient complexity to form an ideology or religion. The belief that religion is confined to supernatural mysticism is in practical terms, if not etymological, a fallacy. Is essentially my argument.
@Nikkoru Therefore, whether a set of beliefs deserves to be called "a religion" depends of it's nature. In the very least, no naturalistic beliefs should qualify. And it should also say something about what happens after someone dies.
Hmmm... religions are all ideologies - ideas in themselves don't qualify without a wider paradigm. Evolution isn't a religion, naturalistic fallacies such as social darwinism which uses evolution at its base can become a religion, in significance and practice if not directly. When people refer to "evolution" or something similar as a religion what they're employing is a complex metonymy - a specific important concept within the ideology (in this case, rationalism, though others can apply) which is attributed to it is being used tacticly to describe the ideology as a whole. Whether they're aware of this or not may not be clear to them, any further inquiry will reveal the wider scope of their premise.
The belief in the existence of an afterlife isn't significant, I know the dictionary states it, but religion as a term is highly influenced by the Western tradition. Some religions declare no specific knowledge of what happens after death - certain schools of Buddhism for instance. It's significant to some theologies, though far less so in others. I believe when I die, my consciousness will vanish and I'll decompose into my base chemicals, this is informed by my worldview as much as anything else.
