The thread. The whole damn thread is bad religion.
While the initial question is a valid enough one to ask, the responses to it are...ill-informed at best. They vary from "they only believe in spirits, so it's clearly not a religion," to "they had multiple faiths, so they were clearly non-religious" to "Communists banned religion, therefore the society is non-religious" to "it wasn't centralised so it doesn't count" to "it's non-Abrahamic, so it doesn't count," to "they didn't convert people, so it doesn't count." And so on. You get the idea.
While I agree that the definition of religion is hardly an agreed upon thing, there are a few things that are agreed upon. First, a religion doesn't have to go out and convert people to be a religion. Hinduism isn't known for converting people. Judaism really isn't known for its missionary activities. The fact that these are religions associated with a particular group and only that particular group doesn't make it less of a religion. It just means it's associated with that particular region or group.
Equally, a religion doesn't need vast trappings or institutions or even a clergy to be a religion. Baha'i doesn't technically have a clergy, but there isn't a question of whether or not it's a religion. It's has the Universal House of Justice, but that's as far as centralisation and structure goes, and even then, the UHJ doesn't offer proclamations so much as suggestions that can then be followed or ignored, depending on how people feel about it. To say that Confucianism or Taoism aren't religions because they lack that centralisation or structure is absurd - these are still spiritual belief systems, and therefore religions.
There's also the question of whether or not a state adopting or banning a religion counts as the society as a whole adopting or leaving a religion. I very firmly come down on the side that that's nonsense. Governments can do whatever the hell they like, but as I think multiple religious wars and the persecutions of Protestants/Catholics in Britain demonstrates, what the government says the religion is doesn't equal what the society believes. If we're looking for a society without religion, a Communist one isn't going to be it.
But the overall problem with the thread is with that idea that all religions look like Christianity or Islam, and it's because of that that I'm writing this post at all. Things like the examples I quoted all betray an idea that Christianity is the true religion, and the standard that all other religions have to meet to be considered religions. It ignores that some religions are non-conversionary. It ignores that some religions get along fabulously with other and blend into a multi-faith society, much like religion in Japan or China. It ignores that religions can absorb each other, like traditional faiths in Africa. And it ignores that not everything needs a hierarchy and priesthood. What this thread demonstrates more than anything is that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what religion is and what it actually does for people. It doesn't have to be Christianity or Islam. Religion is much more complex than that.
Basically, the thread is shite and I'm mad at it.
ここには何もないようです