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Comment by philh | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean by 'religion', and why does it matter whether sports is a religion under this meaning?

Here are some differences: sports fans don't think that their team is capable of supernatural feats. I don't think I've ever seen a fan of one team try to convince a fan of another to change allegiance, or proselytizing on a street corner. Sports fans know that the teams of the other fans exist, while religious people usually deny that other gods exist. Similarly, religious people don't have to worry about whether Yahweh could beat up Vishnu, but sports fans get to actually see what happens when their teams compete.

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> Here are some differences: sports fans don't think that their team is capable of supernatural feats. I don't think I've ever seen a fan of one team try to convince a fan of another to change allegiance, or proselytizing on a street corner.

thinking that something is capable of supernatural feats is not required for something to become a religion.

Quite on the contrary I present you exhibit A: "forum atheists", non-believers that believe so strongly in the non-existence of anything they haven't personally seen that they will hijack any thread that is remotely near using any religious word.

To be fair, IMO a whole lot of atheists are great people. A few of them though seems to be more religious and more proselyting about it than almost any other religious group. Which is so ironic it would be quite funny if it wasn't so annoying.

Edit: removed dumb Meh

> thinking that something is capable of supernatural feats is not required for something to become a religion.

I basically agree, but I think the concept of "religion" invokes a lot of correlated things, and belief in the supernatural is one of the main ones. I expect most religions to differ from the 'prototypical' religion in a few ways, but I think sports differs in lots of ways.

(edit: or perhaps better, "beliefs about the supernatural". Religions say something specific. Atheists believe something specific. Sports teams make no claims one way or the other.)

> non-believers that believe so strongly in the non-existence of anything they haven't personally seen that they will hijack any thread that is remotely near using any religious word.

This seems like another example. I've seen that behavior from atheists and from religious people. I haven't seen it from sports fans.

People who dislike sports, on the other hand...

OK, well argued. Have my upvote :-)

Then what is a religion for you? Is it simply fervor in believing something?

> Quite on the contrary I present you exhibit A: "forum atheists", non-believers that believe so strongly in the non-existence of anything they haven't personally seen that they will hijack any thread that is remotely near using any religious word.

--- What does this have to do with the supernatural? Secondly what does this have to do with religion. If religion was 'people who feel strongly about something' then the definition of the word would no longer represent what it does.

That would be a bad definition, yes.

But I will still argue that whenever I see people proselyting atheism because "big bang, stupid" and it is clear they haven't studied to much of neither physics or biology, then we have:

* proselytizing

* stronger belief than many Christians and Muslims

and I will argue that they qualify as religious even if they don't have a deity.

I mean that it is a shared obsession that can intensify our better and worse natures, but the worse outweighs the better.

FWIW a couple of the absolute worst periods has been under decidedly atheist regimes (Communist Russia etc + French revolution).

Then again I think atheism is a religion too.

Is communist Russia objectively worse than the crusades or the Catholic inquisition or ISIS? Let's just be honest here and say that human being are capable of pretty cruel things, regardless of being spurned by religion or not.

And why is atheism a religion. Isn't its definition a lack of religion?

> Is communist Russia objectively worse than the crusades or the Catholic inquisition or ISIS?

In numbers, yes.

> Isn't its definition a lack of religion?

I thought it was defined by the lack of belief in deities / supernatural powers. I might be wrong.

Even if true, you can't compare the death toll of post industrial WWII and the crusades on numbers alone.

Precisely. A lack of belief.

If you want to argue that, also take a good look at the French Revolution.

> A lack of belief.

In deities and supernatural powers.

In other aspects I find many forum atheists to believe strongly in theories that are way above their heads.

Atheism isn't a religion any more than Gentile is a religion.

The atrocities committed during these periods were not made in the name of atheism, which is the main difference with ISIS or inquisition. Whatever they did, it was not consequence of their atheistic beliefs.

In that case, I think I could make a compelling argument that gangster rap is more of a religion than the Amish faith.

Religion is about in-group / out-group distinction through shared beliefs and costly, exclusionary displays of membership.

It's a social and organizational concept, not theological or philosophical, relating to gods or otherwise. For example, environmentalism is a type of religion.

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