http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator

As for other groups, there’s the Science and Theology Cafes, also at The Gate: see http://www.thegate.org.uk/category/cafe/?orderby=title&order=ASC, as well as Cardiff Skeptics in the Pub.

Being religious not only involves a set of abstract beliefs about the world and strange entities that have existed for all time who have an excessive interest in human beings, it also consists in strongly held convictions that these beliefs are true.

Religious conviction is evident in mainstream world events. Would there be such a virulent and egegious campaign to stop the teaching of evolution in schools if people did not have religious beliefs? Would there still be anger and violent deaths because some people burnt the Koran if people did not have religious beliefs? How often do we hear of the Agnostic suicide bomber?

I think the most useful definition of the phenomena we call “religion” is the strange set of beliefs that such people have and the conviction that such beliefs are held. This way of demarcating people according to beliefs is older Francessca suggest viz the reformation – it goes back to 5th century BCE where it is found in the meaning of the ancient Greek adjective “atheos”.

There are exceptions to this account, where some religions like Buddhism (or better some versions of Buddhism) which lack a belief in gods, but these are the exception, rather like the Octopus is the exception that is included in rules regarding animal cruelty despite lacking a veterbrate. In this sense Buddhism may be seen as the honoury religion like the Octopus is seen as the honoury veterbrate.

2: Does religion give added value to life that non-religious people lack?

The religious convictions that typically accompany religious belief result in religious believers viewing the world in a different way e.g., seeing certain aspects of the world like the sorts of relationships other people enter into or their sexual orientation as being really important, or, seeing the spread of religious belief and religious education as being a matter of priority.

Religious/moral convictions can result in a change in consciousness – highlighting some areas as significant or even sacred. However this process is the same for someone who believes that the way that people speak to each reveals and reinforces the values and power structures in society e.g. the tendency of teacher to call their whole mixed gendered class “guys” then such speech will be significant for them. Their consciousness will be different from someone unaware of the value laden nature of their speech. Hence the term “consciousness raising” by political campaigners.

It is not being religious that generates a different conscious state with regards to what is of value but a more general process of focusing our attention on what we deem important. Hence non-religious lives need not be lacking in any additional value they simply view different aspects of the world as more important than religious people.

In fact if you don’t define religious practices by reference to religious beliefs then there is no ground for making the claim that religious practices give extra value to life since all we are left talking about are moral practices.

‘a key element of religiosity should be seen as a sensitivity to the world’. Wouldn’t this include most people other than psychopaths and the depressed? Or are we talking about a particular sensitivity that is beyond many people? Is ‘religiosity’ about finding a halfway house between those who believe in God and those that take a rigidly scientific perspective that we are biological specimens whose sole purpose is to reproduce our DNA? To me the way to give purpose to this seemingly meanignless existence is through the imagination. Is believing in a human soul or some sense of spirituality a display of religiosity? Perhaps that is how some would define it but surely the concept of religion nowadays is too off-putting for too much of the population for them to embrace the term religiosity.

A more cynical suggestion would be that to point to widespread religosity amongst the population is a way to defend an otherwise inexplicable established church that has little regular following. If the Church’s defining characteristic is not a belief in God but a commitment to ‘good work’ this might be an argument to preserve its status. But then you would have to ask what does it believe in other than trying to remain an adjunct to the political system.

More generally to look at a concept of religiosity that goes beyond which text/which God people believe could make the religious realise that they have more in common with each other than they think. An analogy on our table was that being religious was like climbing a mountain and that people may take different routes to get to the top. I’m not sure I buy this. Ultimately relgious people will always have disagreements; they can’t all believe the same thing. The best that can be hoped for is tolerance and ideally a secular political system.

Francesca’s research is primarily on interviews with evangelical Christians, and the tradition of sociology she draws on deals primarily with the Abrahamic religions only (so Christianity, Judaism, Islam). Would be interesting to know more about how Buddhism relates to her analysis, and whether her idea that it’s the sense of sacredness which gives religiosity its “added value” is relevant to “being Buddhist”?

Certainly, she seemed to suggest that this particular sensitivity was more essential to religiosity or spirituality than, say, belief in a personal god (which as you say, Buddhism doesn’t require). Does this chime with your experience?