Is religious identity more comparable to racial or political identity?

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

The answer is definitely political. As I've pointed out elsewhere that in the US at least that more people change religious identity than change political party is basically an objective fact.

[bore]

It clearly depends on the location.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

I don't accept the premise that it can be compared to either of them. Salvation will not be found through our politicians or our genes, after all. Religiousness presides above and beyond everything else.

[Chief Justice PiT]

I don't accept the premise that it can be compared to either of them. Salvation will not be found through our politicians or our genes, after all. Religiousness presides above and beyond everything else.

     Except what he is talking about is unrelated to the concept of salvation.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

I don't accept the premise that it can be compared to either of them. Salvation will not be found through our politicians or our genes, after all. Religiousness presides above and beyond everything else.

     Except what he is talking about is unrelated to the concept of salvation.

What he is talking about is unclear really. But I can't see a good argument for religious identity being comparable to either.

[Chief Justice PiT]

I don't accept the premise that it can be compared to either of them. Salvation will not be found through our politicians or our genes, after all. Religiousness presides above and beyond everything else.

     Except what he is talking about is unrelated to the concept of salvation.

What he is talking about is unclear really. But I can't see a good argument for religious identity being comparable to either.

     I think that he means the notion of affiliating with a particular religious group. It's an interesting question, given that there are groups where it is common to affiliate religiously as a statement of identity without actually being religious (e.g., Irish Catholics, Israeli Jews).

     The problem I see is that religious, racial, and political identity all have different meanings for different people. There are some people who view religious identity as being racial in nature, some who view it as being political, and some who view it as neither. The question would need to be posited differently to get any sort of a solid answer.

[nclib]

Political. If one is to make the claim that it is hard to change deeply-held religious beliefs, the same could be applied to some political beliefs.

Also, the anti-gay crowd often says that sexual orientation shouldn't be a protected class because it can change, while not saying the same about religion.

[Del Tachi]

Religion is certainly much more a source of identity for Americans than politics is, and in that regard I suspect that it is much more akin to race than politics.

And I'm going to have to agree with Pit on this one, religion for most people is an extension of racial or political allegiances rather than something completely separate form it.   

[Blue3]

In the old world, religion/race are tied much closer together. The U.S. has a unique diversity of religious denominations and frequent mobility between them.

[afleitch]

In the old world, religion/race are tied much closer together. The U.S. has a unique diversity of religious denominations and frequent mobility between them.

Which is why I can't subscribe to religious belief or identification as being comparable to racial identity. There are exceptions of course where religion is collapsible into race (Jewishness through the mother, for example) but given that people can change faith, leave it, join it and at any point in the day place priority on one facet of it over another makes it more closely analogous to holding a philosophic or political identity.

[DemPGH]

Voted political overall since yes, in this day and age it is very much like holding a philosophical position, but I would acknowledge that there is in some quarters still an aspect of it that is tied to national identity more than race (depending upon how you define race, of course). Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, etc., and subtle differences that race doesn't completely explain. It's also perhaps why separating religious law from civil law and religion from government has been such a necessary struggle.