There are far more than two strains of Buddhism and yes, some do indeed include the concept of divinity among their plumage. Your definition of religion opens up any philosophy to the term, which renders it a bit useless. These things are confusing enough without muddying terms.
i'm curious as to where u get your information about the many "strains" of buddhism. point them out to me if u can, and i'll prove to u that all of them basically filter down to the 2 main schools, theravada and mahayana.
and i don't think it's necessary to debate whether buddhism is a real religion or not. if u insist it isn't by your own definitions, then so be it. because to me and to many people it just is.
One of the more obvious signs religions are not measures of objective truth.
No, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. You did contradict yourself. Read what you wrote again. Once we're "nothing to do with belief" then faith is unnecessary. But based on what you wrote below I think you might be misinterpreting my meaning. .
well, this could get tedious and childish, with a back and forth: "you're wrong! no, YOU'RE wrong."
so i will not attempt to convince u of my point. please do not mistake this as me conceding self-contradiction.
I never said it wasn't. This is a completely separate issue as to whether the supernatural claims of religion are true or whether religion as a cultural force is a good thing. I don't dispute religion helps some people become better people, just as you presumably would not dispute some people do not "need" religion to become better people. But this isn't the point of Religulous and it's not the objection of people like me, which specifically is that the supernatural claims of religion are silly and encourage people to embed irrationality into their intellectual core. This is not helped by the mainstream religious failing to stand up and eradicate the extremist planks in their faiths, whether that be average Muslims not speaking out against terrorism or average Christians not speaking out against Prop 8.
if you're not disputing that "religion as a cultural force is a good thing" then you yourself are missing the sore point i have with maher in religulous. i simply took issue with him claiming to practice "doubt" when in fact he has no doubt whatsoever abt his dismissive view on religion.
I don't disagree, but it gets back to the central issue of whether the supernatural claims of these books are true. If these things are not "real" then they become merely instructive parables. Well so are Uncanny X-Men comics, but nobody seriously considers using those as cultural guides. We have to question whether books written by Bronze Age sheep herders are actually relevant on the whole, especially since they are so open to misinterpretation and we have proof enough they are fundamentally unnecessary.
again, your definition of relevance differs from mine. relevance to me is whether there is "truth" in the religious books, in the context of helping people understand the right way to live. u insist these are separate issues but i'm talking precisely abt that. if the teachings help people be better people then they work. no one is saying you HAVE to ONLY study religious texts to be a moral person. and no one is disputing that agnostics and atheists can also achieve that without turning to religious texts. BUT for a vast majority of people in the world, having "the good book" as a reference point for self-improvement is actually necessary. and where is your "proof" that religious texts are "fundamentally unnecessary"? i'd like to see it, please.
Well no, it's a conclusion drawn by the fact that god(s) and leprechauns have precisely the same amount of evidence in their favor: None at all.
Is believing in leprechauns a foolish thing, in itself?
well, if leprechauns taught u a good way to live your life then believing in them is not foolish at all. but so far i haven't heard of any leprechaun bibles. have u?
Yes, because the things we are talking about apply to all of them. Good atheists show religion is unnecessary in moral terms. It doesn't matter what religion we're talking about. Indeed the very notion of competing religions show religion is unnecessary in moral terms, unless we're to accept that the adherents of all but the "one true faith" are immoral. The conversation becomes much easier once we untangle the threads:
• Are the supernatural claims of any given religion real?
• Are the moral claims of any given religion necessary?
• Does the social benefit of faith outweigh the social cost?
These are three distinct issues. We can open a thread in the sandbox to talk about them if you want, but this is the last I'll post in this thread so it can return to Religious. Which, by the way, would answer those questions with a trio of nos.
i'd like to answer your point above with one simple observation. (and don't take this as an attack on u.)
any form of narrow view, be it from a religious or secular perspective, is dangerous. and that's the basic hypocrisy of bill maher. he goes on and on abt organized religion's dogmatic views when he is guilty of the very same thing. and it's PRECISELY that kind of narrow thinking that starts wars.
That will teach me to have two threads open at once 
