What is religion? | Should IRS/government or scholars decide it? | Theory of religion

What is religion and who gets to define what is religion and what is not? Also how do we decide who is considered a religious person and who is not? After all, in modern scholarship there are hundreds of different definitions of religion but whose definition is ultimately right or superior? For example, how tax services or government should make a decision whom to register as a religious entity and who has the right to receive a tax exempt status? And, finally, how apostasy can help to determine what is religion?
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Durkheim on Religion: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4faeWN5YteteJI
What is secularism? - kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5XZXpKMZdKHeqc
Positive Atheism in the USSR under Brezhnev. The Institute of Scientific Atheism. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnLZq6aNrZeGbMk
#Theories_of_religion #what_is_religion #religion #theory_religion #religious_studies #religiolog
Bibliography/Recommendation:
An Invitation to the Sociology of Religion: Important Questions Answered by Scholars in the Field. Landon Schnabel et. al. The American Sociologist. May, 2023. ((Landon Schnabel · Katherine Ally Zaslavsky · Brian Haggard · Ashton Pihl · Amara Chiedu · Aisha Conte · Andy Han · Madelyn Leon · Isabelle Potash · Eman Abdelhadi · Joseph Baker · Roger Finke · Titus Hjelm · Ilana Horwitz · Michael Hout · Jelani Ince · Nicolette Manglos‑Weber · Salma Mousa · Richard Pitt · John Schmalzbauer · Melissa Wilde · Phil Zuckerman))
Dubuisson, Daniel. 2007. The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tomoko Masuzawa. 2015. The Invention of World Religions.
Daniel L. Pals. 2006. Eight Theories of Religion. Oxford University Press.
Arweck Elisabeth, William Keenan. ed. 2006. Materializing Religion. Expression, Performance and Ritual. Routledge.
Balagangadhara, S. N. (2010) "Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and the 'Construction' of Religion"
What Is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion by Aaron W. Hughes (Editor), Russell T. McCutcheon (Editor), 2021.
Consuming Religion by Kathryn Lofton, 2017.

[@religiologEng]

Thank you for you Likes, comments, and support! Check out my other videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aaa9opyhe76WZtU Please, support Religiolog through a one-time donation: www.paypal.com/paypalme/religiolog Or become my Patron: www.patreon.com/4religiolog

[@Sergio1Rodrigues]

In Brazil we had an interesting case sometime ago: a judge ruled that Umbanda and Candomblé weren't a religion because they didn't have sacred scriptures. Of course, it was overruled

[@religiologEng]

wow! Thanks for sharing. very interesting

[@Dabordi]

This is one of those questions I never really thought to ask - the closest you get is people who insist "atheism is a religion", usually as an attempt to blanket undermine an argument via semantics of "well you just have faith too so what you say is pointless" - it's never something I had any reason to seriously contemplate. I suppose for my beliefs it's easier, since I don't think there's any reason TO decide what a religion is. Organizations should all be treated fairly based on what they do - if they're trying to provide a community service they should need to be transparent but it's reasonable enough to be given breaks to do something in the interest of the public good (even if I might disagree as to exactly how good that is). I suppose I'm against tax breaks for religions not in the sense that I don't think any of those institutions should qualify for tax breaks, just that I don't think the basis for it should be "does this match our definition of religion" regardless of what that definition is. That said, the thoughts about a western-centric definition of religion is quite interesting - I never really thought twice about considering various eastern belief systems to be distinct religions in a similar sense to the Abrahamic ones. A lot of the stuff on your channel that's interesting to me looks into the context behind various things that influence people's thoughts in and on religion, and that's always fascinating and thought provoking.

[@religiologEng]

Thank you Dabor, for sharing these thoughts!

[@victoriamathis4227]

Religion changes throughout time. That's consistently proved throughout time.

[@religiologEng]

thanks for the comment!

[@robertfreid2879]

What do you think of Michael Burleigh's 'Political Religion theory'? if you know about it or have an opinion on it? I mention this because I am someone who has studied and focuses on religious policy, persecution and persistence under various totalitarian regimes (like France during the radical phase of the French Revolution, Germany under the Nazi regime, and the more familiar to you Communist States). Having read his 2006 academic work: "Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror" in the summer of 2016, one could come to the understanding that the rise of "Political Religions" (like Nazism and Communism in the "Short 20th Century", spanning 1914-1991) took the place of traditional religions in that time-period. And those movements had so much of the same fervor and fanaticism that motivated many adherents of religion (s).

[@religiologEng]

Hi, thank you for the question. unfortunately I am not familiar with this work and cannot comment. On my KZbin channel in Russian 3 years ago I published a video on "Totalitarianism as religion". Maybe one day I will translate it for this channel. it is based on Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Here is bibliography I used: Laurence Rees «Hitler’s Charisma Leading Millions into the Abyss» Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965 Kershaw, Ian; Lewin, Moshe (1997). Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Cambridge University Press Griffin, Roger Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion Maier, Hans, ed. (2004) Totalitarianism and political religions Waldemar Gurian "Totalitarianism as Political Religion", Totalitarianism, New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1964.

[@starsINSPACE]

I don't think any group should get exemptions from explaining what they do with their money. We need to fund the IRS properly to hold people accountable but powerful people will never let that happen. 😢 I bet you lots of churches are like LDS behind the scenes. If the mormon church can just lie about how they are using their congregation's money and the government barely does a thing about it, pretending proven bad actors can self-monitor themselves?! Well then it is obvious to me that anyone and everyone has no accountability. No religion has to prove they are using their money for religious or charity purposes so nothing keeps them from using it to enrich themselves. Like the LDS owning businesses like a alcohol business...and just letting an ungodly amount of money sit in a pile doing nothing good for the world while begging their poor congregation to give them 10 percent all the time no matter what. smh.

[@religiologEng]

It seems as you might have had some close relation to that religious group in the past. Or are you using them simply as a general example?