That is in part my point. But belief in something without any evidence, could be honest belief or superstition. The point of my definition, is that what makes religion different from those two, is fake evidence or claims to justfy it by appeal to fake authority.

@Fernapple My simple definition covers all that. Fake evidence & fake authority ≠ independently-verifiable evidence.

@Flyingsaucesir It does indeed.

Yes true, Julie808 below made much the same point. But I think that misses my point a bit, which was that there is a difference between unfounded belief, which you could sometimes call, honest belief, and religion. In that honest belief, admits that it is unfounded which is what makes it honest. As in, I may say that I believe that it is our duty to care for the environment, while someone else could say f##k the environment lets have a good time and be the last generation on earth, and we could both agree that we could not prove our belief and agree to differ. ( Actually I could prove mine. ) But what makes it religion, and not honest belief, is the attempt to support that unfounded belief with fake authority, whether it be the authority of a divine god, the supernatural wisdom of prophets, tradition, ritual or exagerated respect for writen text over other sources.

@Fernapple So, you're saying it's a case of "I believe this because my religious text tells me so" which defers any need to prove the idea because that proof rests within that outside source, not one's own reasoning skills or imagination. Is that correct?

The case is made even more air tight if the religious text is dogmatic, calling it blasphemy to question its validity.

For me, a religion isn't worth much if it can't be questioned and seen as valuable whether its true or not. Like the adage that says a religion should be taken in a literary sense, not in a literal sense.

One can adopt a believing attitude, to go along with the program, without truly believing, but then religion is just a shell. One can have respect for a believing person, even though we don't agree with those beliefs too, but there is a fuzzy line between true respect and just civility, courtesy and manners.

I'm not much one for sports metaphors, but it's like a coach telling the players what role they each will have in a particular play. The players follow the coach's direction, even if they don't know the whole play, because they have to have faith in their coach, giving up their personal authority to just act on their own. In this way, organized sports is like organized religion. (I'm not a fan of either.) But to play the game, you do as the coach says, without question.

Perhaps religion is a bit like organized sports. A person can opt out and just be a spectator, or armchair referee.

A skeptic, like me, doesn't like to believe something just because I've been told it, or I've read something convincing. I like to do my own research as much as possible and come to my own conclusions regarding controversial topics. While I realize much of the information I read about any given any hotly debated subject is likely skewed one way or the other, I like to read both sides and choose the side that makes the most sense to me or seems the most honest. If an article is using untruths to make its point, I can discount that.

With religion, what is written in the text is not going to amended, updated, abridged. It's not a living growing thing, malleable to society as it progresses. So, belief in it, as absurd as it sounds to thinking people, is the only way some people know, until something shakes them out of it. They may know intellectually that what is taught isn't the truth, but they don't know another way, and they are afraid of breaking cultural or family bonds if they stray, so they continue with their believing attitude, even though their minds might wrestle with the fairness or scientific possibilities.

@Julie808 Yes that is about it. But there could be appeals to other sources of false authority such as tradition, or a literal god, not just text. My point being that it is the use of fake evidence or proof from authorities, which makes religion different from mere beliefs, such as superstision which is unsupported, and honest belief, which honestly admits it has no support.

That is actually pretty close to the same thing.

Really good definition, thank you. My definition is of course mainly for established organized religion and not so generalized as yours. I like the metaphor of glasses, that is very clever.

@Fernapple Yes so many ways to describe religion, some personal, some organized. I have friends who say the beach is their religion, some say basketball is their religion, etc., I think what ever a person gets solace and direction can be a personal religion. Science can even be a religion for some, I suppose.

Organized religion with followers rather than thinkers is a bit scary!

The main problem here is that todays religion is tomorrows mythology.

Both argument from authority and proof by authority have existed for a long time. I just chose proof because those within a faith, would not admit to it being merely an argument.