Stephen Prothero Talks About Atheist Fundamentalists

I get so sick of the backlash against the New Atheism.

The new atheists write books, blog, hold debates, attend conferences, and try to promote secular values. That’s it. Show me a single person who has been harmed by anything the New Atheism has done or said. (And being offended is not the same as being harmed.)

And yet the backlash is extraordinary.

The default position in society is that religion is, generally, a good thing that should be uniformly promoted, honored, and respected. That, itself, is a dogma. The New Atheism has made a point of challenging that dogma, asking folks to think twice about it, and to stop—just for a moment—and notice the absurdities of religious belief. It’s sad that this is so taboo.

Well, I think Dawkins (many would call him a fundamentalist) would say he is 99.999999% sure there isn’t a God. That does not mean he is a real fundamentalist (a person who is 100% sure and not open to changing his/her opinion). Atheism is the expression of doubt concerning superstition.

I think that’s unfair to Christian fundamentalists, Hemant. They don’t all try to kill abortion doctors, or even support that. I think the point is true for the word “militant”, which nearly always gets applied to outspoken atheists, but hardly ever to a religious people unless they pick up a gun.

In the same way, fundamentalist is applied to Muslims and Christians who subscribe to irrational dogma, even when it conflicts with a wealth of evidence, they’re anti-intellectual, those that aren’t ignorant are thoroughly dishonest. This dogma means they advocate terribly harmful policy and are abusive towards homosexuals or in some cases nonbelievers.

What does an atheist have to do to deserve this label? Advocate their positions through persuasion, sometimes have an aggressive “tone”, and dare to question belief in belief. That’s what it comes down to with these people. They have a dogmatic belief in believing in nonsense, and if you stray from their path they’ll attack you more disproportionally than any fundamentalist. They’re much more dishonest, they won’t hesitate to misrepresent you.

Prothero has demonstrated he’s a complete idiot in so few words, with the comments about atheism as a religion or atheist fundamentalists, I won’t even waste my time responding to his inane bull.

In a lot of ways, atheism as a movement reminds me of the evolution of the gay rights movement, although it is probably not as literally dangerous to be an atheist. Think about the public schools. In larger cities, you can be a gay teacher. In the small town where I taught, you could not be gay, nor could you be an atheist. I’ve thought that my buddy and I should both come “out” about our atheism, especially now since we’ve left, but it still feels so unsafe. Would they give him a bad reference in the future if they knew he is an atheist? This is a public school where the biology teacher told me that when he teaches evolution, he doesn’t call it by that name because he doesn’t want to suffer a backlash from parents. I admire the idea of coming out of the closet, and generally I am a brave person, but it’s like the atheist kids who told me that they didn’t dare challenge prayer at graduation “because our Christian friends will never talk to us again.” I’m grateful for every book that’s written and every blog post. This helps change the world so that people don’t have to hide who they are.

Fundamentalism isn’t always a bad thing, either. A fundamentalist is one who adheres strictly to a set of principles. I mean, I’m a “fundamentalist” when it comes to rape (in that I believe it’s always wrong to have sexual contact with someone who has not consented to it; I pretty much have no tolerance for gray area on this, and I would be wary of anyone who thought it was OK to “bend” this basic principle).

In a similar sense, most scientists are “fundamentalist” on the question of what science is, and what it is not. “Intelligent Design,” for some very clear reasons, is obviously not science. Can the science educators who fight to keep I.D. out of science classrooms be fairly called “fundamentalists.” Well, when it comes to what science is and what it is not—you’re damn right they’re fundamentalists. And it’s a good thing they are, too.

Clear-thinking people should be able to acknowledge the distinction between fundamentalism in defense of unsupported claims and fundamentalism in defense of principles that are evidence-based, rational, and subject to questioning and revision. It’s possible to be a fundamentalist without being a dogmatist.

This is all so tiresome. You believe in god or you don’t.
It reminds me of the old joke about the difference between alcoholics and drunks.
Alcoholics have to go to meetings.
I’d rather be a drunk.

Meh, I don’t think that atheists can really be fundamentalists just because the word means strict adherence to a *set* of principles, not just one. So to take his analogy, atheists can be fundamentalists only in the way that Yankees fans can be fundamentalists, and no one is accusing them of that. Even political parties don’t really fit the definition of the term, as it’s really religious in nature. And as Richard Dawkins has stated, the difference in religious fundamentalism and “atheist fundamentalism” is that he (like most atheists) would be willing to change his mind in light of new evidence, unlike religious fundamentalism which holds to its tenets (ie, Creationism) despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I don’t see how a lack of denial for scientific evidence is “fundamentalist”, but to each his own.

So you can say “fundamentalism”, but it’s a term that’s not entirely used correctly meant to conjure negative feelings in atheists. I don’t think that shows understanding OR friendliness. Call atheists intolerant of faith, but that’s not the same thing as fundamentalism. People who say otherwise need to read their dictionaries.

We have a creed, and rituals? You folks have been holding out on me.

I think he has his definition of religion screwed up. A religion is a system of beliefs and practices organized around the worship of a specific entity. For example, he mentions Buddhism as a godless religion. But that’s not accurate. The godless form of Buddhism is more of a philosophy. The religious form of Buddhism involves worshiping the Buddha like a god.

The only specific thing he mentions with regard to atheism, as an example of atheist practices, is Darwin Day, which has nothing to do with atheism. A more accurate example would be the National Day of Reason. Or Blasphemy Day. But even those aren’t exactly about atheism. They just happen to be promoting things that most atheists support.

And finally, I don’t think the atheist “bad rap” has anything to do with “angry atheists” being in the fore. Let’s be honest, if you asked a random religious believer to name one prominent atheist, they’d probably draw a blank. It has much more to do with generations of religious leaders teaching their followers that atheists are evil and immoral. And it has to do with a general sense of political entitlement that majority religious groups have grown used to, especially here in the US. So now when we have the ability to challenge them on legal grounds, they blame us for spoiling their fun.

His statement..‘there’s no god so religion is stupid’..is completely wrong! RELIGION is ALWAYS stupid!!! g0d has nothing to do with it. If g0d exits religion is still stupid and if g0d doesn’t exit then religion is REALLY really stupid.
Belief in g0d is FAITH. A bunch of bigots gathered together is religion. Don’t think so? Name one that doesn’t hate some sub group for some dumb-arse reason…and there are some types of Buddhist that believe in a g0d and are bigots.
I’ve listened to the 4Horsemen and the ‘without some of our more “aggressive” voices.’ is BS. They talk very nice and calm, and only get loud when the theostard goes batshit.
He sounds like an xtian and doesn’t like atheist making loud noises that others can hear.

Hmmm… I don’t have a belief about an afterlife.

I have beliefs about life. Do those count as a religion?

They are people who remind you of the annoying missionary who comes and knocks on your door and gives you this script and they’re not listening to you and they’re not really having a conversation with you. They’re just kind of hectoring you. And we’ve all had that experience with fundamentalists or sometimes Evangelicals who have harangued us and we have now all had it with atheists, also.

Except that with the “atheist fundamentalists,” you actually have to go out of your way to hear what they have to say. Seriously, this is nutty.

I think he got one thing right. The name, “atheist” is indeed tainted, so many who otherwise do not believe in any gods or goddesses, avoid it at all costs. However, I don’t believe he could be more wrong about why this is the case.

The negativity about the label atheist far predates even the birth of any of the “New Atheists”. Nearly all religions have doctrines that vilify the non-believer as corrupt and dangerous (i.e. Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good.) I’ve observed that it seems that it is usually easier for believers to forgive those who believe the ‘wrong’ things than those who explicitly proclaim no belief.

It’s not the only black mark against the name, either. Plenty of people still associate atheism with Communism, despite the fact it wasn’t even a true equivalence when Communism was relatively strong (plenty of people of all beliefs supported and opposed it). Somehow, Adolph Hitler has become associated with atheism (via a bungled, or perhaps intentional mistranslation of some of his writings). Nihilism, hedonism, immorality, depression, and devil worship (oddly enough) are all associated with atheism, despite the fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single “New Atheists” publicly endorse any of these (nihilism and hedonism may be exceptions, but even these are rare).

Religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. (wordnet)

The distinguishing factor is that Atheists generally don’t have a belief in the supernatural. It is not enough to ‘have a creed where they articulate beliefs about the supernatural’, to qualify as a religion atheists need to actually have beliefs about the supernatural.

Why is this important? When you liken Atheism to religion you infer that atheism is a positive belief that carries the same burden of proof as any other religion, which is too silly an inference to let slide.

I disagree with most commenters here as I think that Atheists can go out and seek converts without being religious. This is because ‘seeking converts’ is not an element of the definition of religion, it is just a behaviour associated with some major religions.

“Prothero: Right, but I think he also wants to say an equally important point, that atheists… qua atheists are equally as ethical. So I think that some atheists are religious and some atheists are irreligious. It just kinda depends how hard core they are about their ‘faith’ or their religion or whatever you want to call it.”

So is he calling moral atheists religious because they are moral and not actually atheists?
Being moral does not mean you are religious and being religious does not mean you are moral. This has been shown time and time again.

This is particularly interesting to me because one of my parents was a fundamentalist atheist. He was automatically dismissive of any religion. His attitude was that all religion warranted ridicule, that no person worthy of respect was religious.

I got into a bit of trouble by parroting his thoughtless views as a child, assuming that people I got along with could not possibly be religious, because who could possibly take religion seriously? I offended people I did not intend to hurt. Eventually I had to take a hard look at my assumptions, and attempt a more complete understanding of religion.

I had to recover from his fundamentalist mindset and question what I had been taught. Sound familiar?

My father’s attitude is just as dismissive, demeaning, and self-centered as any theist who says their belief system is the only valid one.

I still do not believe in God – but I also do not believe that theists are stupid, deluded, or incapable of crtical thinking. Belief in a god takes many forms and serves many purposes, both positive and negative.

Narrow-mindedness is a bane to both sides of the equation. No one has absolute license to the truth, and a little humility can do a lot of good.

Still, Mana, I bet you didn’t lie awake at night as a child fearing you’d die in your sleep and go to hell. Or worse, that your parents might.

Consider your upbringing lucky.

I mean, there’s being nice to others, which I’m always officially in favor of. But you hardly had it as bad as many people here.

Short version: Prothero says “I comfort myself by believing that atheists too must have ‘religion,’ even if I have to fabricate a definition for the term to make it work.”

The dictionary definition of religion is the “service or worship of god or the supernatural.” If you take the supernatural out of it, then pretty much any identifiable belief, or lack thereof, qualifies as a religion. I’ve seen no coherent definition of religion that admits atheism, while excluding politics, sport teams, chemistry, and all the other examples given above.

So first, Prothero, define “religion.” Then we’ll talk.

One thing that bothers me about these discussions, almost as much as the “atheism is a religion” thing is this:

atheists get annoyed when people like me talk about atheism as a religion, because, of course, atheists reject god

Christians often use the words “reject” and “deny” to describe how they think atheists feel about the being whose existence they take for granted. As if atheists recognize a choice here, and we’ve chosen to “reject” as opposed to “accept.” For me these are action verbs without an object – I can’t accept god any more than I can accept the tooth fairy; neither is a real thing.
Maybe it’s a silly semantic concern, but to me this is evidence of a fundamental misunderstanding of how atheists think. And I find insulting the insinuation that I recognize “god” but have decided “reject” him – because for the religious person making this statement, accepting is good and rejecting is bad. They think that I’ve deliberately taken an action against their god.

Incidentally that leads me to a question. Is there a religious study professor or theologian that has actually sensibly correctly described atheism? I’d love to read an intellectually interesting assessment from a believer actually, specifically one that can sensibly describe most atheist self-definition and not the variety of theist’s definition of what atheism means.

Even a sociological study would be neat. I know there was a study recently but unfortunately that one was biased (Templeton funded no less).

@jgr4,

I agree with you. The concept of “rejecting God” doesn’t apply to me. I never made a conscious choice to reject God. I just never believed. The language of “rejecting God” kind-of implies that someone believes in God but is so pissed off at Him that they reject Him out of anger or spite. Although there are some people that fit this category, it definitely doesn’t apply to all (or even most) atheists. Saying atheists “reject God” is commonplace among the religious because they can better understand that definition of atheism.

I embrace the term Atheist. I am not always fond of labels, but I am proud of my journey, proud of where I ended up in regards to what I once believed. Granted, I am still ‘new’, but I cannot believe you guys are still holding out on all of our rituals, creeds, prayers and baby recipes. 😉

I don’t consider myself militant, fundie or friendly. I just am. It really sounds like this guy didn’t do much actual research into Atheists. You can’t group us all in together. Just like you can’t group all Theists together. Beliefs, creeds, rituals and culture differ between Theists, and Atheists. (Not all Theists wear magic underwear.)

He failed. We are not a religion. I attend a UU church, but am by no means a religious person. I just like to gather with others, I like coffee and I like my children playing with other children of liberal parents. I sometimes call myself a Secular Humanist, but when it all boils down, I am Atheist.

I know what it means to be religious, to be a part of a religion, because that is how I spent the first 28 years of my life. I am grateful for the angry Atheists and the friendly Atheists. I pulled information from them that helped me end up where I am now, in regards to my beliefs. Sometimes the angry Atheists don’t paint all Atheists in a bad light, sometimes they help new Atheists like me get a backbone.

I disagree with much of what Mr. Prothero is saying here. He claims that atheism is becoming like a religion, yet while some of us may celebrate Darwin day and the like, we don’t have any dogma like religion, and really Darwin day is more like other secular holidays like the Fourth of July. Meanwhile, he goes on to do as other atheist accomodationists do, and accuses some of the so-called “New Atheists” of being atheist fundamentalists, an oxymoron.

I don’t think this guy knows as much about the atheist community (which is not as much of a unified community as he claims) as he says he does.

Also, I get sick of people calling some of the more vocal and angry atheists “militant atheists” or “atheist fundamentalists”. Militant Christians bomb abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors. Militant Muslims blow themselves up in crowded city streets and fly planes into buildings. Militant atheists write books about religion and atheism or try to get unconstitutional laws that endorse religion changed through lawsuits and such. “Militant atheist” is a ridiculous label.

Okay, so apparently Prothero is a Christian (according to Wikipedia), and I was just assuming he was another atheist accomodationist. Oops! Then again, this better explains why he seems to not understand that atheism is to religion like bald is to hair color.

I’ve been pondering lately on pretty much the same thing as Prothero, albeit reaching a different conclusion.

I agree ‘atheism’ is a bad brand. And it is a bad brand because theists continually reinforce the negative stereotypes of that brand, including the statements made by Prothero.

I don’t however, think its feasible for non-believers to ditch the term as it is as much an externally applied one as those stereotypes. Were we to deny the term, it will still be used by the theists to describe us. Furthermore, we will be unable to subvert the inaccuracies they will include in the word’s meaning, as they’ve done in the past and keep doing, making it back into the true boogeyman it used to be.
We may call ourselves anything e.g. “agapeists” (from agape=love), and expound agapeism’s love of one another, science, rationality and human values, the pulpits will still repeat “There are atheists out there, they are angry and hate god and eat babies, and some of them are trying to trick good people by calling themselves “agapeists” but don’t be fooled, ask them if they love in god!”

We are “atheists”, whether we like the label or not.

If Jesus was a real historical person and his corpse was found, it could be spun that his soul went to heaven – leaving his body behind. And the stories in the gospels about the empty cave were metaphorical

Of course it would be extremely difficult to find or prove some remains were that of Jesus. I don’t think we have his dental records on file anywhere. Also, any prankster in the 1st century could have inscribed “Here lies the Son of God” on a tomb. Just like a prankster could write that a tomb was empty.

Muslim fundamentalists fly planes into buildings.

Christian fundamentalists kill abortion doctors.

Atheist fundamentalists write books.

Respectfully disagree with Hannibal Lecter’s words: “No, that is incidental”. Muslim fundamentalists strictly follow fundamentals articulated in Quran and reinforced by mullahs (of course, some “religion of peace” types argue that those are the wrong fundamentals — oh, well, I’ll leave it to them). Similarly, Christian fundamentalists follow fundamentals stated in Bible (and again, moderates point out how that’s not what it’s all about). Atheists have no such set of fundamentals, there is only one criterion — absence of a belief in gods. To me personally the phrase “fundamentalist atheist” is simply nonsensical, as there are no fundamentals to follow. Hardcore, narrow-minded, arrogant, bigoted — sure, sadly, that fits many of us, but not fundamentalist.

So, the fact that Muslim and Christian fundamentalists kill people is not descriptive of their fundamentalism: indeed, not all fundies are extremists. And theoretically, an atheist can kill somebody because of religious faith; in fact, there is nothing about atheism that prevents it from happening, so I’d say, it’s only a matter of time before it happens. Sure, they would have to be seriously psychologically disturbed to do that, but isn’t it also true of people like Scott Roeder? I think in such incidents mental disturbance comes before faith; in many, if not most cases, the latter is merely an excuse.

Something like that. I hope you forgive me for trivializing some extremely complicated issues.

“So I think that some atheists are religious and some atheists are irreligious.”

*facepalm*

Prothero says that the angry, hectoring atheists are responsible for atheism being a “bad brand.” I disagree. I think that wherever atheism is a “bad brand,” it’s because of the misconceptions and negative stereotypes about atheists that religious people spread. Prothero is only contributing to the problem that he’s complaining about. The irony!

In order for atheists to overcome negative stereotypes, we need to be more visible and more vocal. And the “angry” atheists are helping to make this happen by getting everyday atheists fired up, and more concerned about getting involved.

@Patrick:

Plus, has any human being in the history of the world ever experienced an atheist knocking on their door seeking converts?

Yup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dW-bt_1LzY

The Socrates point is spot on. Really the danger is not atheism, the danger is outspoken criticism. Giordano Bruno was no atheist, he just dared to openly promote something different than canonical catholicism.

But with religious diversity there is this new “at least you believe in god” going on, which does single out atheists are the ones who “criticize god” and noone talks about the difference in conceptions of god anymore. It’s odd because if you compare values you’ll find that atheists are often closer to their societal values than values between certain religions. But it’s not about sensible perceptions, it’s really about unverified assumptions about the other.

That’s why there are “good” atheists. It’s the ones who do not criticize or challenge. Socrates was the main proponent of challenging poorly founded assumptions. Getting the young to think critically surely does tear at the fabric of society.

And yes contemporaries joked about Socrates, perhaps rightfully so. Sure seems like he could be a pain in the neck. Good on him!

Atheism is no more a religion that theism. A belief or lack of belief in a deity isn’t having a religion. Adhering to the practices and tenets of a religion is having a religion. Atheism lacks these things just as theism does and so neither are religions.

Also ‘there’s no god so religion is stupid’ is a perfectly reasonable position to take. So what if Buddhists don’t have gods, they retain a belief system, religious practices and central tenets of faith that mark them out as religious even if they replace the person of God with a spiritual philosophy. Atheism has nothing like that.

I never realized I was so religious. I don’t believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Energerizer Bunny, Fairies, Unicorns, etc. Good thing I don’t have to go to different churches for all the things I don’t believe in.
I was raised Catholic, I tried to believe. I didn’t reject any gods, I just never found any.

I actually really disliked this article. It seemed not only was he using stereotypes of women (that we are weaker and more submissive to the beliefs of the fundies or people who are staunchly religious) but it also gave an unfair shake to the New Atheists. Christians visually assault us with their iconography- what’s wrong with trying to make the nation into someplace that’s separate from religions?
I feel that the New Atheists also put a large focus on not brain-washing children, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you’re going to practice religion, let it be because it’s something you personally believe in as an adult able to make logical deductions, not because your parents sent you to a Catholic elementary school. I think Prothero has a picture in his head of what an atheist should be, and since these don’t jive with his ideology, he doesn’t like them.

What are the fundamentals of atheism? Is there anything besides not qualifying as a theist? As there is only one fundamental of atheism either all atheists are fundamentalists or non-of them are. Or maybe we are both?

By comparison what are the fundamentals of christianity or islam? There are a lot to chose from. But it seems to be the beliefs and practices that conflict most directly with civility, morality, reason and empirical evidence that earn the classification of “fundamentalist.” With only one belief (or more precisely: lack of belief) and no orthodoxy, scripture or doctrine from which to infer practices, the “fundamentalist” label is not a good fit.

A proponent of atheism may be uncivil, immoral, irrational and/or subjective. They may even develop their own atheistic ideology. But staunchly and verbosely opposing unqualified belief does not a fundamentalist make. Nor does expressing frustration over continually having to dismember the same hollow litanies.

Labeling an atheist as “fundamentalist” is merely an attempt to discredit the messenger. It’s basically an ad hominem or tu quoque fallacious attack. These labels do have some benefit. When someone is identified (or self-identifies) as representing a recognizable perspective, it is easier to anticipate the nature of their message. It also helps to identify the “labeler.” If David tells us that Dan is an atheist fundamentalist then we generate expectations for Dan’s speech and behavior. But we also learn that David thinks this is a significant and valid label. What does that tell us about David?

In the end it is the message that matters. Our heroes can be wrong. Our detractors and opponents can be right. Atheist fundamentalism may be possible but I’ve yet to encounter someone who fits the description.

“Atheist fundamentalists write books.”

There’s another difference. Those people would abandon atheism is there were evidence that there is a god. They have proved they can change their minds about things, because most of them are scientists and science is always changing. So I don’t see fundamentalism anywhere near here.

Atheism is not a religion. Vocal atheists are not fundamentalists, they’re vocal. The whole idea of religion and atheism being the same thing is simply not correct. There are too many “yes, but…” in his words. Just give in, sir.

Certainly religion is a social construct. But that does not mean that all social constructs are religious. This is the fallacy. Some aspects of religion, the way people form social groups etc is generalized to mean religion, when it is only part of religion.

It’s incidentally the same fallacy used to claim that Stalinism is an atheist ideology. While Marx did promote atheism he also promoted other values, in fact the core ideology of marxism, that the proletariat rise up against the ruling class, is not atheistic. One could argue that that line of thinking can in fact be found in Marin Luther.

We actually tend to agree with religious people quite a bit, on moral issues (don’t kill, steal for example). But that doesn’t make us agree on religious terms.

Simply this is a conflation of issues. The definition of religion is quite clear. There are other social constructs we can reject or disagree with. For example one may or may not want to be member of the NRA and have shared or diverging ideological reasons to want to be part of the group.

Sociology is complex, but the definition of religion is really much less so. I think there is very little confusion if you ask someone if he belongs to a religion or if she is religious. People are even rather good at articulating their fuzziness about the context (e.g. “spiritual but not religious”). We can discuss religion in terms of its institutions, rituals, organising principles, dogmas, history, reach (personal versus unversal) etc. It’s not that difficult.

Fundamentalist? What are the fundamentals of atheism? Doesn’t make sense. The word militant also doesn’t make sense the way they apply it to atheists.

I don’t have a problem with saying “Atheist Fundamentalists (or Militants) write books.” because that is intended to show the absurdity of the adjectives when applied to atheist.

The reason many non-believers don’t choose to call themselves atheists is because there is deep bigotry against us. It’s not a bad brand because of angry atheists. It’s not even a brand. It’s a stereotype that’s the problem. The stereotype that atheists are evil, and it’s one that is directly taught by the religious leaders.

Speak of the devil, Stephen Prothero showed up on The Colbert Report last night promoting his new book.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/312500/june-14-2010/stephen-prothero

Seriously, Prothero just needs to stop mentioning atheists if he’s going to keep saying inane things like this:

I wrote the book because religions are horribly misunderstood. They’re very, very important in the world, but we have these atheists who are saying “Oh, all religions are the same and bad” and these multiculturalists who are saying “Oh, all religions are the same and good.”

Honestly, what atheist thinks all religions are the same? They’re not the same, not even remotely. As for being bad, sure, some atheists might think all of them are bad, but not all of us are anti-theists, and not even the strongest anti-theist could legitimately claim that all religions are harmful to the same degree.

Hitch

The definition of religion is quite clear.

…

Sociology is complex, but the definition of religion is really much less so.

You’re deluding yourself if you think religion is easy to define. It’s not. Hundreds of different definitions have been offered by social scientists and there has yet to be any form of consensus as to what religion is. Some have offered functionalist definitions, others have presented essentialist ones, while some have altogether rejected the idea that religion is in fact anything due to the difficulty in defining it. And one of my lecturers in a Religious Studies course I took at university last year, in trying to describe what religion is said that all he could come up with was ‘overlapping’. And if you read the literature from religious scholars, which Prothero is, you will see that there is just as much confusion, and these people have studied it and know the subject better than anyone else.

Drawing inspiration from the remark on quantum physics: “If you think you know what religion is, then clearly you don’t.”

Sorry I forgot to give the serious answer too.

All categories are hard to define if you want to have crisp categories. Gender, class, race? All hard to define if one applies standards that experimental social scientists don’t apply.

No, religion is an easy category exactly because it is easy to do studies.

People will understand when you ask: “Are you religious?”. Census forms contain information about religion. This is about as good a category as one gets in social science that is not biologically grounded. It is much better a category than those that have to do with less culturally ingrained dimensions of identity.

That doesn’t stop religious studies folks to be horribly confused about “what religion really is?”. You are not trying to define religion as a social category but as a concept. That’s a completely different thing.

But yes, much confusion ensues among those who don’t know the difference.