I think there is useful signal for you that the entire comments section is focused on the definition of a word instead of reconsidering whether specific actions or group memberships might be surprisingly beneficial. This is a property of the post, not the commenters. I suspect the issue is that people already emotionally reacted to the common definition of the word Religion in the title, before you had a chance to redefine it in the body. The redefinition step is not necessary either- the excellent “Exercise is good” and “Nice clothes are good” posts used the common definitions of Exercise and Nice clothes throughout.
I guess, but I do want to make the point that the category of things that includes some traditional religions are good, as I happen to think since I am myself religion and am ordained within a religion. My take, because this is the mistake I made when I was younger, is that people anchor too much on a single religion or group of religions, namely Evangelical Protestant Christianity, and this leads to thinking of religion as too narrow a category of thing.
I don’t like Evangelical Protestant Christianity much: it doesn’t really speak to me and some of the people who it does speak to have treated me badly at times. But because I anchored too hard on that as the central example of religion, I missed out on a thing that is very important to me and helps me live a good life.
I think there is useful signal for you that the entire comments section is focused on the definition of a word instead of reconsidering whether specific actions or group memberships might be surprisingly beneficial. This is a property of the post, not the commenters. I suspect the issue is that people already emotionally reacted to the common definition of the word Religion in the title, before you had a chance to redefine it in the body.
The redefinition step is not necessary either- the excellent “Exercise is good” and “Nice clothes are good” posts used the common definitions of Exercise and Nice clothes throughout.
I guess, but I do want to make the point that the category of things that includes some traditional religions are good, as I happen to think since I am myself religion and am ordained within a religion. My take, because this is the mistake I made when I was younger, is that people anchor too much on a single religion or group of religions, namely Evangelical Protestant Christianity, and this leads to thinking of religion as too narrow a category of thing.
I don’t like Evangelical Protestant Christianity much: it doesn’t really speak to me and some of the people who it does speak to have treated me badly at times. But because I anchored too hard on that as the central example of religion, I missed out on a thing that is very important to me and helps me live a good life.