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> This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. They happen to use the same words, like "God", "heaven", etc, but the concepts are completely different and incredibly incompatible.

What's more, the definitions of the religions themselves are so slippery, we can barely begin to compare religions. For example, suppose we take the author's advice and try to dereference the term "afterlife" in a comparison of Christianity and Islam.

Our first step would thus be to ask: What happens to an individual's consciousness after death, according to each of the two religions? But here our inquiry goes right to pieces, because we won't be able to agree on how to define the set of beliefs constituting each religion.

Is Christianity defined as the set of beliefs expressed in the Bible? And likewise for Islam and the Koran? But if so, then what about adherents of those religions who are not fundamentalists? Are we to ignore people who call themselves Christians and Muslims, yet believe that only some, or perhaps none, of the scripture is literally true?

But if we define Christianity and Islam so as not to exclude those people--which seems like the intellectually honest choice--how can we possibly agree on a set of beliefs that constitutes each religion?

Perhaps we could administer a scientific poll of self-identified Christians and Muslims, asking them to agree or disagree with various theological propositions. Those propositions which are supported by a majority of self-identified adherents become part of our definitions, and the rest do not.

That may allow us to continue with our project of comparing afterlife beliefs, but it still seems incorrect somehow. Now we've greatly oversimplified the actual beliefs of Christians and Muslims worldwide. By establishing an arbitrary threshold (>50% belief), we've painted over a lot of distinctions that matter to real-world adherents. Equally badly, the arbitrariness of the threshold makes our definitions suspect. Had we chosen a different threshold, we'd probably have arrived at radically different definitions, suggesting that our definition has little authority.

Thus the problem of comparing religions seems intractable.

It isn't intractable but it can be quite complicated. This is true of theology in specific and philosophy in general. It isn't ever going to be an easy top-down hierarchy.

As for "defining Christianity", this is a problem that is actually addressed in most churches, and their answer can range from as restricted to "just their church" to as open as "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism".

As a specific example, I go to an ELCA Lutheran Church, and they are a lot more on the open side of things. http://elca.org/en/Faith/Ecumenical-and-Inter-Religious-Rela...

"anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism"

Heresy! This conflict isn't over yet… True Christians would never believe in your phony, incestuous three-God-in-one theory. :)

/Sarc, sort of, as this was actually a people-were-killed-over-it "big" problem back before Constantine, and probably a bit afterwards, too. It just goes to show that these definitions are harder than they look.

> "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism".

So they exclude Jehovah's Witnesses, then. Not really all-inclusive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Oneness Pentacostals, various others. Being all-inclusive isn't the point, nor should it be.

If you want my personal definition of "Christian", it's this:

1. There is a god.

2. I'm not it, and neither are you.

3. Jesus is.

4. Therefore, Jesus is the boss.

After that, all the rest just sort of flows out of it. It is amazing how many doctrinal issues either instantly disappear or don't even matter anymore. You don't end up with all sorts or absurd "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?" questions to argue about endlessly, with one camp saying 144,000 and another saying 144,000,000. Instead you get real questions, like "what does God want of me?"

It would be like having a major disagreement within a company over if the shoe size of the CEO is 12 or 13. The CEO doesn't care if you know his shoe size, he cares if you do your job or not.

As the article points out, it doesn't get us very far to use loaded, imprecise words like "god." Points 2 through 3 all depend on 1, which in turn depends on the word "god." So, for that definition of Christianity to be workable, we'd need to define "god" more precisely while avoiding equally vague terms, per the article's recommended procedure.

> Therefore, Jesus is the boss.

Meh. My boss can't tell me how to live my life. My boss's authority ends precisely where I'm no longer doing what they're paying me to do.

My point is that, even in your simplified theology, there is still a lot of room for debates. And, in religion, debates turn into bloody warfare, because this is peace and love we're talking about, and peace and love really matter.

Much has been made lately about how HN comment quality is declining, but it seems to me that we're still the civilest, most on-topic bunch around. As exhibit A I submit the fact that this thread has not devolved into a silly Theological pissing contest and is instead still relevant to the OP. Touche, HN, touche.

"And, in religion, debates turn into bloody warfare, ..."

Seriously?

You sure do know how to keep discussion polite.

The Albigensians would like a word with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade

Well, one could call "Christianity" a superset of individual religions that fit within a certain range, and do the comparison off of individual denominations. That has the further advantage of demonstrating how individual denominations within Christianity often themselves have incompatible beliefs.

One would also need to weight the beliefs. Various denominations disagree about topics like predestination, but don't ultimately place a lot of value on those topics. There are often many people in the same denomination who don't necessarily agree with every official bit of low weighted doctrine.

Theology about the nature of Christ has significantly higher weight. Heresy, etc. This is where you see little diversion between denominations and more diversion between, say, Protestants and the LDS Church.

I don't think we should completely abandon high-level words when conflict arises. Instead, we should focus on isolating where our disagreement lies. In this way, we will identify when a particular word is being used differently and can de-reference that. This allows us to continue to get the benefits of high level language, and continues to work when 'medium level' language causes disagreement.

Also, I have found that it is often easier to first describe an idea using high level language, then clarify what you mean. For example, even if we disagree on exactly what 'fair' means, by first describing my idea using the word 'fair', I give you a rough outline of my idea that provides context when I describe it using lower level language.

This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same.

As an atheist, superstitions have no relevance to me. That is to say, as an outsider, I don't care what it's called - and that goes for all religions/superstitions. Because they all are based on belief without evidence, they all look the same to me (ie, irrational).

That being said, I'd appreciate if people didn't use weasel words to try and hide their agenda, eg, "intelligent design" as really just another form of creationism.

Believe me, I have no skin in the game, but that's not exactly true. Creationism, as it is most often used, is the belief that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago according to Genesis. Intelligent Design most often refers to God being the one who guided/created evolution, gravity, etc. which had the purpose of leading to humanity.

As far as Intelligent Design, Yudkowsky has another useful post [1]. It's part of his sequence "The simple math of evolution", and provides some interesting perspective on the subject.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/

I think you should look more into the origins of this "Intelligent Design" movement or whatever you want to call it. But please don't read anything on the website of the OP.

Most atheist I know acknowledge the existence of religions. Based on your comment, I assume that you do not find the topic of religion interesting. However, religion is still a very rich subject with a lot of potential for research. However, in order to do good research, you will likely need a way of classifying and differentiating different religions in the same way we classify different species.

B-Con's comment raises a very interesting question for research. Namely, how is it that so many people think such vastly different belief systems are the same?

Of course, I suppose one's views on religion would be different if one grew up or lives with it being a significant part of one's life. As someone who has grown up with relatively little religion, I am in a position to look at it and be interested in religion as a phenomena.

To use your example, is 'intelligent design' really just another word for 'creationism'. Or, our these two different ideas being supported by different groups of people. If you say that all religion and irrational beliefs are the same, then the answer is a pretty clear yes, they are the same. However, you may find that 'creationism' represents the belief in a Genesis like account of creation, while 'intelligent design' is the remains of the creationism battle, and is founded on the idea that evolution is a non-nonsensical concept and that and that existence is the result of a deliberate conscious action by an intelligent agent. Assuming these are characterizations are true (which they likely aren't), you can then look into how these ideas came about, and look at how influence intelligent design is from creationism. Is it actually being proposed by the same people? Have there beliefs actually changed? Is intelligent design being supported by the children of creationist, because the children can see that biblical creation does not work but still believe that an intelligence is necessary for creation?

On an unrelated note, writing this comment made me curious about the intelligent design/creationism divide. Does anyone here have an insight into what is going on there?

High level language usage requires context and a good amount of history between the communicating parties, and when the uninitiated jump into a conversation without such pretext, it can lead to bad things very quickly, or quite literally misunderstanding.

This is also why people who constantly talk about 'logical fallacies' and are quick to use it and point it out everywhere do not understand that it betrays the entire context of dialogue the conversers have.