Not surprisingly, he also thinks atheism and secular humanism are religions

It depends on what your definition of religion is. If it's a group of people saying my truth is right and yours is wrong then he's not far off. You can worship your own version of truth and make it almost like a religion.

I don't use the word that broadly. But he did call secular humanism a religion, which is just dumb. Secular means non-religious. He basically called something a non-religious religion.

Do you have a link to this specific talk or the name of the preacher? Hard to assess what he said without hearing him first.

EW Jackson on The Awakening, from Thu Aug 4

Skip forward to about the 14-15 minute mark, his comments are somewhere in the second segment

https://afr.net/podcasts/the-awakening-with-bishop-e-w-jackson/2022/august/the-u-s-government-is-using-taxpayer-money-to-promote-atheism/

Interesting. I will take a listen thanks! That title though 🤣

Since you posted the same comment twice i thought it was a glitch so that's also why I didn't upvote but i see that's just a trick of yours to get more upvotes 😉

Ahh, you saw through my deception! :o

It really was a glitch, though. When I posted it, I was in an area with bad reception, so the page had trouble loading so I probably clicked it twice.

suuure, blame it on bad reception. Bad reception is like that lousy party I went to after my half sister's wedding where they didn't even have music or drinks.

no kidding, I was bummed since I drove 4 hours to attend. But she got married in her late 40's so maybe she was just too tired, lol

Bad reception deception, lol

I don't use the word that broadly. But he did call secular humanism a religion, which is just dumb. Secular means non-religious. He basically called something a non-religious religion.

How do you define religion?

No upvote? 😔 lol

The word has a number of different definitions, but I typically define it as an organized set of beliefs involving a higher power and usually an afterlife, and which includes a set of rules or guidelines for how to live one's life

Land sakes you are unforgiving about those upvotes aren't you? I forget occasionally, I'm more concerned about responding.

"An organized set of beliefs involving a higher power and usually an afterlife, and which includes a set of rules or guidelines for how to live one's life"

Could that not also describe an athiest? The dichotomy being those who believe in a higher power and afterlife and those who don't. Your belief system still involves a diety and afterlife. Do you have a set of rules or guidelines that you use in your life or is it a free for all?

oh, you're guilty alright Octavianeezer Scrooge

:)

"Land sakes you are unforgiving about those upvotes aren't you?"

Ruthless :)

"Could that not also describe an athiest?"

Atheism is just a lack of belief in a god. It has nothing to say about an afterlife or rules for living. Kind of like how "non-smoker" tells you that someone doesn't smoke, but it doesn't tell you what their diet or exercise habits are.

"Your belief system still involves a diety and afterlife"

Atheism is just a position on one proposition, it's not a belief system.

"Do you have a set of rules or guidelines that you use in your life"

I do, but they don't come from a god or religion. They largely come from things like empathy and wanting to promote human/societal flourishing.

"I do, but they don't come from a god or religion. They largely come from things like empathy and wanting to promote human/societal flourishing."

so like natural/moral law? where does that come from?

I wouldn't say natural law so much as people in the society generally agreeing to follow certain rules so that society can function and be stable.

If you had a society where everybody was allowed to kill anyone they didn't like, that society would fall apart quickly. If you had a society where people could steal from other people, that society wouldn't do very well.

Obviously not everybody follows all of the rules all of the time, and some societies have some bad rules, but generally speaking, if enough people follow the rules most the time, society can do pretty well.

Can you trace down in history when these agreed upon laws came to be?

Hmm, don't kill, don't steal, sounds oddly like another set of rules.... 10 of them 😉

So true 😂

more like this ;)

Exactly :)