Is religion the same as theism?

The latter is a sub-set of the former. After all, the term theism is most generally understood in the West to define a personal god and there are religions that have impersonal godheads.

So one could answer the question "do you believe in god" with "to which type of god do you refer? That with a small "g," or large "G?"

No.

physics-=the interest in what is.
metaphysics=the interest in what isn't.
religion=metaphysics
theism=metaphysics.
OmSigDavid=string theory

What would you call an individuals determination to seek his identity, greater understanding and peace of mind?

a silly goose.

You answered your own technical question with no, they are not the same thing. If they were, there would not be a need for two words when one would suffice. Would one call Christianity a religion? Would one call Buddhism a religion? Would you also call both of those theisms? I'm not sure it would be correct to do so.

The latter question I would answer yes to, as religion is a belief and a belief only comes from the believer. The world around us will never give us more than we can take. That would literally be impossible. Therefore, those who look for "signs" will receive them. Those who look for "facts" will likewise find them. And every tiny detail will always make just enough sense to believe. I wouldn't qualify the act of self definition a religion. What Wikipedia left out is that a religion must be recognized. Before something becomes a religion it is a cult. Before that, it is merely an idea.

That is true. Before the christian god came on the scene, the Greeks used the human form as gods. Greek mythology shows humans creating the earth, and all living things on it. That became the precursor of the christian god (man made in his image). Before then, all gods were animals, the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, and even other living things like trees.

Evolution in religion is as interesting as the kings, emperors, and conquerors of old.

well Sikhism for monotheism and then again the enigma of the trinity complicating the christian monotheism.

Yeah, I could never figure out what "father, son, and holy ghost" meant.

it's easy, it's tri-monotheism.

Some one told me that Rush Limbaugh was the father, Shawn Hannity was the baby jesus [son] and Glenn Beck was holier than any holy ghost.

rl, We can always depend on you for the answer.

Sentience.

You could call it that, kuvasz. But I know alot of sentient beings who do something entirely different. They have one thing in common, and that is that they are a miserable lot, always feeling bad about something.

Dys, your reply wasn't nearly as clever or witty as I have come to expect from you. I am disappointed

The trinity, father, son and the holy ghost... That's a poetic rendering of the immortality of man. And it is indeed holy after a fashion. The idea is this: For you to exist now, the line of father and son has to be unbroken all the way down to the origin of life. If your line was at any point interrupted you wouldn't exist. This is the immortality of the human spirit, aka the holy ghost.
Christianity has, of course, perverted this idea in order to abuse it.

What I am proposing in this thread is that our definition of "religion" comes from a misunderstood version of the concept. One tainted by abuse and worse things. Christianity isn't religion; the thing inside a human being that makes it seek out christianity is.

I think that when a religion becomes recognized, as you put it, when it becomes organized, it has betrayed it's very function.

I agree with you that we find what we seek. Anything else is indeed impossible.
But how, then, can anything be anything but exploration of self? If you always find what you seek, and still you experience things you don't want and run into things you would rather avoid, doesn't that suggest that you might not know entirely what it is you are after?

spirituality is individual whereas, to me, religion is group

metaphysics actually means beyond physics. It is a subject which includes all knowledge of the sciences of the world, and also attempts to look beyond the mundane to find the interconnectedness of all things. Which is NOT what you said!

Also I don't think that organised religion is bad per se. The problem seems to lie in man (and womans) ignorance of things, which they in turn bring to their faith. On this understanding then, it is not the fault of the faith where the dissalusions come in, because faith itself is surely a positive and righteous force. Like prayer, charity and love. And these are three of the founding tenants certainly of Christianity (check out corintians 1:13), but also of the other major world religions in practice, or so has been my experience of them anyway. Thanks for listening.

well Cyracruz, wit isn't my strong suit but actually I'm inclined to think of the trinity as just another failed attempt at a unified field theory. The logic doesn't hold up in physics or in theology. One can, at best, refer to both as a cosmological enigma. finite and unbounded.