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Comment by seele | Hacker News Reader

"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." E.Durkheim [1][2]

In this sense, liberal democracy, with its rituals (eg. PC) and non-provable beliefs ("we are all equal"), etc. can be seen as religion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim

[2] http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/forms.html

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It's kind of thought provoking to apply the definitions of religion in a logical manner to movements like string theory, or LGBT movements, or even programming cultures in addition to traditional religions like Christianity. Essentially if there are beliefs and practices which are beyond questioning at the risk of violating taboos and social ostracization then you get a form de facto religion. Not that this necessarily makes these things wrong, but it does carry consequences and should be realistically scrutinized by the public. At least if I become religious I prefer to knowingly choose it or be aware of it -- e.g. I'm Christian and chose to be so including accepting certain intellectual dissonances. Personally most of those intellectual dissonances have provided more areas for me to grow in deeper understanding of the world (vis-a-vis my world views). In physics I keep an eye on similar dissonance like the current non-compatability of quantum mechanics and relativity at mixed scales. Or that new EmDrive which could prove valuable insight into physics... However, since social beliefs also follow physical laws and result in consequences (I consider it as a multivariate game theory problem where different religious beliefs and axioms will produce different optimal outcomes -- though we rarely live up to the optimal solutions). Look forward to reading Durham and see if the views offer more clarification.

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