My "WTF?" of the day, Christianity is *NOT* a religion?

[haele]

12. Religion - 1) the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power,

especially a personal God or Gods.

2) commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance.

3) a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

4) a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

I don't know, but I'm thinking that simply the belief that you have a living relationship with a supernatural, superhuman entity that creates and controls your reality is a religion.

Especially since you can't apparently question his comment about Christianity being a reality vice a religion. Which is rather strange, because I'm sure that Muslim convert who is attempting to impose his own Personal version of Sharia law on the community says the very same thing...

Y'know, my not so distant G-G-G-parents and their kin also strongly and ardently believed that God gave animals, trees, rivers, and rocks spirits as well as people. They weren't quite sure how to connect the long-held family animist traditions with the church the Lutherans made them attend regularly back during the 18th century, so they just sort of carved a niche for the old world they knew to live comfortably alongside the more modern, socially acceptable religion that took over the area.
But as they still kept little "granny rituals" to appease and communicate with all of God's spirits - making sense of their new reality and their old reality, I think their practice would still be considered a religion.

Haele