By way of illustration of the complexities of the issue, I mention that Sam Harris, the well-known atheist author, is a practitioner of meditation<\/a>. It seems to me that one reason many atheists declare themselves opposed to \u201cany and all religion\u201d is that it sounds good, like \u201cbelieving the whole Bible\u201d \u2013 far more interesting and impressive-sounding than \u201cI am opposed to the concept of God in classical theism\u201d. But a second reason is the understanding of \u201creligion\u201d exclusively in terms of \u201cWestern traditions\u201d. I wonder whether, if the breadth of the concept of religion were more widely known, such generalizations would continue to be made.<\/p>\n For some discussions and examples of the problem of defining religion<\/em>, try visiting here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those who are not scholars of religion are often unaware of just how hard it is to define religion as a word\/concept. While many people would immediately begin by talking about \u201cGod\u201d in some sense, such a definition would leave Buddhism excluded, since although many forms of Buddhism do acknowledge the existence of deities, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-2991805192626356071?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")