Religion and Belief

First, let me say that this will be the last post for a week. First Congregational Church, Salt Lake City, which I now serve as minister, holds a week long, overnight camp for 4th - 9th graders in the mountains above SLC. AND, I function as the camp pastor for the week. So, I will be out of touch for a few days. I am taking Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher to read, but I will not have any intellectual stimulus from the Internet, which may not be a bad thing.

Second, I am thrilled by the 3 comments made concerning my last post. I think this is set up for you, good reader, to read them.

Salon.com published an interview with James Carse, author of The Religious Case Against Belief, on July 21, which was written by Steve Paulson. The very first question and response should be enough to get you thinking for the next week.

Q: I think the vast majority of people would say belief is at the very core of religion. How can you say religion does not involve belief?
It's an odd thing. Scholars of religion are perfectly aware that belief and religion don't perfectly overlap. It's not that they're completely indifferent to each other, but you can be religious without being a believer. And you can be a believer who's not religious. Let's say you want to know what it means to be Jewish. So you draw up a list of beliefs that you think Jews hold. You go down that list and say, "I think I believe all of these." But does that make you a Jew? Obviously not. Being Jewish is far more and far richer than agreeing to a certain list of beliefs. Now, it is the case that Christians in particular are interested in proper belief and what they call orthodoxy. However, there's a very uneven track of orthodoxy when you look at the history of Christianity. It's not at all clear what exactly one should believe.

This seemed to me to be connected to the religion and doubt comments I made on July 20. You might want to read that posting if you have not.

How much do you think belief and religion overlap? How do you respond to those who disagree with you?