Is 'no religion' a new religion?

The Macquarie Dictionary's (1997, 3^rd ed) definition of religion includes these ingredients (remember the fruit cake): It is 'the quest for the values of the ideal life involving three phases, the ideal, the practices for attaining the values of the ideal, and the theology or world view relating the quest to the environing universe'.

That definition would include theistic and non-theistic religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism. However, I suggest here that it also could embrace other worldviews or religions, including secularism, rationalism and atheism. So the 'no religion' category is as religious as any of the other categories listed in the ABS 2016 Census form that asks: 'What is the person's religion?' I'm jumping ahead of myself. Put on your thinking caps.

In following the Macquarie Dictionary, I'm using religion and worldview as essentially equivalent concepts as the dictionary associates religion with worldview and praxis (practice, as opposed to theory). So religion amounts to worldview in action.

This involves examining the values of the ideal in life. Is that ideal to live life without any encounter with the God or ultimate of theism or non-theism? If the way to that ideal is through the use of reason in secularism, rationalism and atheism, it is suggested that that makes these three –isms into religions. That's because, according to the Macquarie Dictionary, the quest for the values of the ideal life are through a worldview that is a quest of the 'environing universe'. I take 'environing universe' to refer to the finite environment of the universe in which a person seeks the ideal life.

Every religion or worldview will be a quest, like looking through a set of spectacles, by which we examine a range of aspects of our world consciously or unconsciously.

Religion difficult to define

Academics have found the ingredients of religion difficult to identify. Wright (1992:124-25) refers to 'the slippery word religion' that 'focuses upon symbol and praxis, but draws more specific attention to the fact that symbol and praxis point beyond themselves to a controlling story or set of controlling stories which invest them with wider significance'.

Michael Bird, lecturer in theology, Ridley College (Anglican), Melbourne has ventured to state it refers to 'a blend of identity, symbol, purpose, behaviour, community and hope. If this is what religion is, then at its best it can make significant contributions to the lives of individuals and to our communities'. In writing for ABC Religion & Ethics (23 Sept 2015) he stated that 'religion is more than dogma and rules. It is a mixture of worldview and praxis that permeates all of peoples' lives'.

If we take Michael Bird's blends that contribute to religion and apply them to secularism, we find the Rationalist Society of Australia (RSA) promoting its own religion through….

· Secular identity in a '10 Point Plan for a Secular Australia'. This reads like a statement of faith that includes views on secular, pluralistic, democratic Australia; separation between religion and the State; one law for all and that includes religious organisations being subject to the same laws as other organisations; education to be strictly secular, etc. This is a very religious manifesto with the language seeming to expose and oppose religion when it is supporting its own religion – secularism.

· Symbols or rituals. In this 10-point plan, these rituals for a secular Australia include no discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual or gender identity and freedom of reproductive choice without religious interference. What is short-sighted about this view is that it is as religious as the view it opposes because it includes rituals that are as legalistic as those of its opponents. Isn't it appealing that in opposing separation of religion from the State, secularism imposes its own religion on the State. It's a self-defeating argument.

· The purpose is stated clearly. It's a 10-point plan for a secular Australia, but without recognising the religious dynamics of such a view.

· As far as promoting purpose, the RSA's purpose is stated in its endorsing the words of former High Court judge, Michael Kirby, who said, 'The principle of secularism is one of the greatest developments in human rights in the world. We must safeguard and protect it, for it can come under threat in contemporary Australia'. I ask: why secularism has to be democratic as in the 10-point plan? Why can't it be totalitarian under Stalin or Mao? The fundamental in any worldview is: Who or what decides the content of human rights?