I tell you what… I'm pretty tired of being told that I'm a religious person. I'm not even talking about those who think atheism is a religion. I've addressed that already. No, I'm talking about those nimrods who insist that I'm religious because I have made Reason and Science my gods.
Please.
I sincerely wish these people would settle on a concrete definition of "religion." And another one for "worship" is probably called for, too.
Invariably, these folks will use the broadest possible definition of these terms, in order to make it seem as though we non-believers are, in fact, religious. Not long ago, an email correspondent labeled evolution a religion. When I asked him to explain why he believed so, he said: "A religion is a system of beliefs. Evolution is a system of beliefs." Riiiight.
Though I didn't ask him for a definition of "worship," it wouldn't surprise me if he'd say "to respect and honor" or something equally vague.
As I tell my writing students, the English language has more words than any other language on the planet. And because of that, we must take especial care to choose the ones that are the most appropriate to what we mean, not simply use whatever is at hand at the moment.
On the other hand, I don't think for a moment that these people truly believe that any system of beliefs is a religion, or that worship is nothing more than respect and honor. They apply such loose definitions deliberately on non-theists.
Why? Because it serves their purpose. It makes us like them, you see. Their mission, remember, is to assimilate us, in any way they can. Even linguistically.
