Why do people always think God = religion?

Fascinating thread. I've always been interested in religion and why people believe what they do and in how vehemently they do. I wasn't raised in any kind of religious environment so it doesn't even occur to me that I should assign meanings of 'god' and the like to things that seem to me to have no correlation.

When someone asks me what I 'believe' in I answer that reality as far as I can tell doesn't care what I happen to believe in so the question is for me made self irrelevant.

I have known some wonderful individual Muslims in my private life. However, it is entirely possible that they fail to meet my criteria of "sincerity of belief" in their own faith... Or that they had me fooled, and would welcome the dominance of a world-wide Caliphate, even if it meant forcibly converting or killing me, mine, yours, and everybody else not otherwise inclined to join them in their adoration of their God and his prophet.

For Muslims, it may be argued that God =/= Religion, but rather that God = Politics:

https://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/a-muslim-president-its-the-social-justice-thing-to-do/#more-8158

The salient quote from that article (italics the author's own):

"

The most serious problem with Islam, the problem so many Americans fail to grasp, is that it is impossible to be an orthodox Muslim and swear primary allegiance to a nation and its principles. Muslims swear allegiance, first and foremost and exclusively to Islam, which recognizes no national borders, and which aims for nothing less than world domination and the imposition of Sharia—Islamic law. They do not, if they are faithful followers of Islam, think of themselves as Frenchmen, or Jordanians or Americans, but as Muslims.

='[.]'=

Sincere believers are not really that many. I mean, not a lot of people actually know their religions (because they don't read or they cherry pick few passages).

Also, this makes me remember those fundamentalist christians that swear that US is a christian nation, and that there is no conflict between the bible and the constitution.

I dont know about muslims, but i know that my priorities have no place for the concept of nations. Nations are fictional constructs, with no true objective value. Anyone who promotes a completely random property(nationality) above everything else...including the well being of the entire human species... has a seriously lack of foresight and objectivity.
So please, dont talk about patriotism as if it a positive thing.

"

SkyCore wrote:

I dont know about muslims, but i know that my priorities have no place for the concept of nations. Nations are fictional constructs, with no true objective value. Anyone who promotes a completely random property(nationality) above everything else...including the well being of the entire human species... has a seriously lack of foresight and objectivity.
So please, dont talk about patriotism as if it a positive thing.

The corollary is that "one-worldism" is a pipe dream, as not only does it ignore the factual differences between groups of people, but it also reduces the notion of cultural diversity to window-dressing, in favor of political unity (just look at the stresses within the Eurozone). Different groups have different cultures, the expression of which includes their chosen/evolved form of government. To imply that an individual's pride in their own nation (patriotism) is necessarily a negative is to ignore that, and also to ignore the natural human tendency toward group identity and individual ego. ='[.]'=

"

You speak as if a unique nation implied cultural unity. Why should it? Couldn't all the different cultures have one common government, which doesn't need to dictate all the laws, but only a set of common rules so as to avoid some of the crap we're currently submitted to, like governments turning a blind eye to people doing illegal stuff because they profit from that?

And who, raised in what culture(s), decides those rules? How? By a vote? According to what? Population? People in their own nations can't always agree on their laws; how would a supra-national agency go about it?

The United Nations is a fine example of such a mess. For example, members of the so-called "Human Rights Committee" have included delegates from nations whose own human rights records (including the United States) have been questioned. The implementation of an actual global government which would require the surrender of national sovereignty would be a nightmare, and don't think for a minute that there would be no corruption within its ranks. The existence of polities independent of such a system would provide at least some balance, some alternative, though they would have to possess some weight of geopolitical power to resist the inevitable attempts at co-option by the collective. ='[.]'=

Just wait until the aliens threathen us and a global government is needed.

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NeroNoah wrote:

Just wait until the aliens threathen us and a global government is needed.

Yeah, it seems human nature to only cooperate against a common threat.

But as for aliens. If a society is advanced enough to cross the vastness of interplanetary space, i doubt it would take their technology more than a few minutes to destroy the surface of our entire planet.