Response to "Defining Religion"

Alex Fairchild's recent blog "Defining Religion" is very insightful, and poses an interesting question: "can a person live an entirely non-religious life?" His motivation for this question comes from analyzing the definition of religion, as displayed on Dictionary.com. However, I think this question is based on the fact that Dictionary.com gives multiple definitions of religion. The Argument I would like to make is that according to some of the definitions given by the website, yes, someone can live an entirely non-religious life. One cannot assume that all the definitions for religion can be applied simultaneously. In fact, there are most likely some that are contradictory.

With what I have come to accept as my own personal definition of religion, I would argue that a person cannot live an entirely non-relgious life. My idea of religion is more aligned with dfn #6 from dictionary.com, where religion is something governed by the individual. The others, however, imply that there must be a group of people, or a mutual acceptance of an idea.

To truly analize whether a person can live an entirely non-religious life based on the definitions in a dictionary, one must pick a single definition and stick to it.

I don't think Alex really did that, but I just thought it was an important distinction to make.