What religion are you?

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We have the thread viewtopic.php?t=219379, but that only gave you six options and had no option for "Other". So I'm asking you, what religion are you?

I'm an atheist. I know, dime a dozen among Aspies.

Wow. 262 views and no one (besides me) has taken the poll. Why am I not getting responses?

Religion is a touchy topic for a lot of people, maybe they're just hesitant to answer on the (likely) chance that this will turn into yet another argument thread.

Non-denominational Protestant, myself.

Atheist here.

Secular Humanist

I'm an atheist, like the others in my family. Religion kinda makes me uncomfortable, because I get a lot of anti-LGBT discrimination from religious people, and kids at school bullied me when I was little because I didn't go to church. :/

Agnostic.
I was Atheist but then I began to look at religion more closely.
Although I see that its impossible for a god to exist exactly as other religions might suggest, its not impossible that a god-like figure could've existed. That could've been as simple as a more technologically advanced group of people, perhaps who had some sort of high-rise buildings (as archaeology has already shown the Romans had flats, and high-rise buildings would tie into the concept of heaven being above us), or it could've been some alien creature. Perhaps, however improbable it was some form of inter-dimensional being, or creature from a higher plane of existence - perhaps even the Flying Spaghetti Monster himself!

I like to split religion up a bit in my head though. I'd say there is three aspects too it.
1st - Its origin, the factual events (whatever they may be) that it came from, for example the many floods across the Middle East, turning into the tale of Noah's Ark, this includes the origins of the god thing that many religions have.
2nd - The code of ethics. What is "right" and "wrong" as fair as religion goes.
3rd - The explanations of how the world works and the natural phenomena of the universe. This is where I do truly admire the people who came up with religion. They created the first theories essentially, and tackled some of the most enormous questions, "How did we come to exist?" and so on.

most of those views are "spiders", bots search engines use for crawling the web indexing pages, and not actual WP members.

anyway, atheist with catholic childhood.

Protestant, denominationally Lutheran

Atheism and agnosticism are not a religions, although I think capitalism should be considered in this list.

Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sexual positon.

feral botanist, Atheism and agnosticism might not be "religions so to speak" but are religious stances (i.e. views on the existence or nonexistence of the god, gods or a god).
Capitalism is a political view, not a religious one so it wouldn't make sense to have it here.
Abstinence is just resisting temptation, so wouldn't fall under the category of sexual position.

As a religious stance is fine with me.

Capitalism has many of the characteristics of a religion, particularly faith in a higher power (markets).

Abstinence is refraining from the act of doing something. I can abstain from a vote, but there is no issue with temptation.

Capitalism doesn't really have many aspects of a religion though. By that logic, maths is more of a religion as lots of it revolves around higher powers. They are however different interpretations/versions of the term higher power.

Capitalism is a form of society or governance whereby goods are distributed by private and separate entities via a form of currency. Socialism is where goods are all owned in one "store" (i.e. the government, country or settlement depending on the scope viewed from) so all people within that scope can obtain the necessary goods without needing to pay. (Technically, they would theoretically pay back with labour input or giving goods back when others need them).

The markets of capitalism are not a higher power (than humanity), as are the interaction between various entities which are made up of people. God (as far as religion goes) is not made up of people. He has control over people and they have no control over him (unlike a government, which although it controls people, is made up of people, thus forth is controlled by people still). Markets are not a god, or higher power.

Additionally, although not a fundamental requirement of a religion/religious stance, most religions or religious stances go into explaining how we came to be, how our earth came to be, or how everything came to be, to some extent. Capitalism does not include that.

Finally, religions and religious stances almost always include some sort of rules as to what is moral and immoral. Capitalism does not do that.

The only sort of exceptions are atheism which does not include a guidebook of morals or explanation of our existence in itself (although, by extension, science does perform that role with various theories, which are generally used by atheists and agnostics to explain existence). Agnosticism is a lack of defining if god exists or doesn't exist. Its the true special case in this.

In conclusion though, you are technically correct in that atheism and agnosticism are not religions, but for the purposes of the question, and nice wording, as well as to avoid any confusion, It'd seem fairly acceptable to include them, even though they are religious stances, as the use of them in such a question is commonplace and the difference between a "religion" and a "religious stance" is very slight. Capitalism however qualifies to neither of these points as it does not qualify.


++ To further extension an alternative proof to show capitalism is not a religion:
You can have a capitalism christian, and theoretically a communist christian, you can also have a capitalism Muslim and a communist Muslim, and you can have a capitalism atheist and a communist atheist, you can also have an agnostic who is a communist, or an agnostic who is a capitalist.
You however cannot have a christian Muslim, or an atheist agnostic, nor can you have an agnostic christian, or an atheist Buddhist. -> From that you can conclude that at any given time it is impossible to have to religions or religious stances, however it is possible to have a political/social stance and a religious stance. (To this rule, it can appear to be broken where one may state that two religions could have correct/semi-correct interpretations of a higher power, however the result is they become a single new religious stance).

Do you really want to discuss this or do you just want to be right?

You cannot serve two masters.

Judging from the fact that you are a tufted titmouse, and you wrote a page to disagree with me; I make it about an even guess that you have multiple accounts on WP and that I have tried to discuss things with you before.


Capitalism requires belief in the markets. When people lose faith it can cause them to collapse.

It has a very specific set of behaviors, to be a good capitalist, you must continue to buy and pay.

The "free hand of the market", is a vengeful and capricious god. As the believers watch the markets rise and fall, they constantly do things to influence those markets. They pray and beseech the priest hood for help. The temples (banks) are everywhere and there are certain segments of the population so totally devoted to the markets that it becomes their entire life (traders).

Capitalists are constantly proselytizing and will attack and/or invade any country that resists.

I have no other WP accounts. Additionally I would still believe I am right currently, henceforth why I continue to discuss. Furthermore, I give a long response to try to give you thorough answers. I'm predicting the points you would bring up if I didn't explain each point.

You are falling much into the traps of English I would suggest. You would have to believe that markets are better than a lack of markets, yes, however believing you will not spill a glass of water walking up the stairs doesn't suddenly make that a religion. A belief, and a religion are two even more different things.
Additionally, I do not believe the market can qualify as a god. To reference a definition

and you could argue it that while it is maintained it does have power (to some extent) over human fortunes (and the enviroment), however it is an entity comprised of human. It is more human than superhuman (i.e. an entity superior to humans). In reality it would be better to consider it below humans, as if the majority of the humans within the scope of the market refused to do something the market would have them do, they would prevail. Additionally for the market to exist, humans must maintain and believe in it, whereas with gods, theoretically speaking if religions are correct, then even without belief in them, the god would exist and still have power over humans. This causes the god to be superior to humans. To further extent, no "god" of which I know of can rise and fall (with the exception of religions with many gods, of which they are sometimes defeated by other gods or devils/demons) so the human overruling of markets further distances capitalism from a religion.

Any group will attack an opposing group as a rule of thumb. There are exceptions to this, and humanity is moving towards not attack as much, however that is the rule of thumb. NT's attack (even if not necessarily realising it) neurodiverse communities fairly often. This does not make being NT or neurodiverse a religion. Countries invade and attack other countries, the country is not a religion. Bullies attack victims, the bully is not a religion. Attacking an opposing view or force or entity does not qualify you as a religion.

To point out the flaw of markets being superior to humans when they are comprised of humans, this video is a slight tangent but shows essentially the same problem: Is the EU a country? (Video) - Partway through, they talk about governments ruling over the country, but the EU's government consists of the countries, thus they rule over it.

Now, to conclude those points in a simple set of requirements:
To qualify as a "god" you must:
1) Be an entity superior to the human race
2) You must be able to overpower the human race (reinforcing point 1)
3) Really, you should be able to exist without belief in you, and it operate the other way around, where people believe in you because you exist. (Technicalities in wording, but has a huge difference).
Markets are able to be overthrown by the human race (so although it is superior to individual people, it is inferior to the human race). It requires belief in it to exist. (Which came first, the idea or markets or the markets. Which came first, god or people. For the former question, the idea of markets. The latter, religion would say in all examples I can think of god came first).

A religion can fall as is a human construct, however is not the god itself. A religion must however have a view on the existence or non-existence of a god (with agnosticism being the example of refusing to take either of the former options, thus covering the only other possibility).
Capitalism does not perform this requirement.

Now, for that conclusion I do understand, I'm using a quickly constructed set of rules to qualify and you can easy argue me as not a reasonable source, however I'm presenting you that conclusion to hope you will see sense in those points in a condensed format too. Capitalism fits better as a social/political stance (which are two harder to separate categories). It is a view of how a countries economic/resource-based aspects of society should be operated. Communism/Socialism being the inverse view to it.

Now, I do request you don't attempt a jibe in your next response to me (as it seemed very strongly like you did intend to jibe in your previous response). I would also request you don't rely on the faults of the English language to construct your argument (i.e. because one word can be used to explain/describe two things, does not mean those two things are the same -> for example, a tall object and tall server/computer architecture, the former is something with great physical height, the latter is a concentrating of resources and processing on a single machine).

If we are going to lower ourselves to how many politicians and NTs would argue such things, I shall throw your question back at you. "Do you really want to discuss this or do you just want to be right?" (although I do believe you could and would always be serving 'both masters' in an argument, or you would not be arguing).

So so far I'm the only Unitarian here. Cummon guys, speak up!!