wafflepudding comments on Arguing "By Definition" - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 February 2008 11:37PM

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Comment author: wafflepudding 27 September 2015 06:05:20PM 0 points [-]

I disagree. Agreeing on term definitions beforehand would solve all of these problems: The definition of religion is not "something that answers theological questions," therefore the By Definition argument is ineffective for proving that atheism is a religion. (Incidentally, if that were the definition of religion, then atheism would be a religion.) For Hinduism, if someone tried to tell me that it was not a religion, I would necessarily use the definition of religion to prove them wrong. If Hinduism did not fit the definition of religion, it would not be a religion.