RELIGION
About this chapter
The subject of this chapter is a particularly thorny issue and requires a certain maturity on the part of the reader: for this reason the authors of this site decided to write the chapter for children no younger than ten or twelve, who will have to be helped by their teachers.
There are three basic ideas:
1) there are many religions in the world
2) some people say that human beings are religious animals by nature
3) there is a variety of possible attitudes towards religions that are different from one’s own.
The first part (which underlines the variety of religious traditions) deals with the concrete aspects of religious experience (i.e., religious practices), which are the aspects that children may relate to more easily. First of all, we provide some basic notions about each of the major world religions (while readers are asked to send us brief presentations of the many religions that are missing from our list), in an attempt to eradicate some of the most deeply-rooted prejudices, and we refer those readers who are interested in finding out more about each religious tradition to sites that are specifically dedicated to them. The points of view of atheists and agnostics will also be presented. Next, we shall try to encourage a balanced understanding of the various traditions by comparing and contrasting various religious ceremonies: for example, in the section dealing with those ceremonies that mark people’s passage through the most important stages of existence, we shall compare the ways in which Hindus, Jews, Christians, etc., celebrate marriages, funerals, and other ceremonies.
In the second part of this chapter (which deals with the answers that each religion provides for the great universal questions) we shall try to demonstrate how, faced with the same existential problems, the various religions have worked out specific solutions. Of course, we won’t be able to supply in-depth analyses of the positions adopted by each religious doctrine vis à vis the origins of the universe, life and death, suffering, good and evil: we shall therefore limit ourselves to providing some examples and, once again, we shall ask the readers to fill out our “in progress” collection with their contributions.
Whereas the first two parts are devoted to a description of the different religions, in the third part (regarding the various possible attitudes towards religions that are different from one’s own) we shall also talk about conflicts, persecutions, wars, and exterminations perpetrated in the name of religious belief. Then we will ask the children whether they perceive a contradiction between the abstract principles of the religions in question and such forms of behaviour. The aim is to stimulate group discussion so as to encourage the children themselves to suggest possible ways in which the different religious faiths can co-exist peacefully.
As with the previous chapter of Accepting Diversity, each of the three parts will be subdivided into five sections: Basic Idea, More About, Examples, Exercises and Quotations (to find out more about the purpose of these sections, go to Umberto Eco’s Introduction).
Pre-basic idea
by Umberto Eco
In order to begin to tackle the difficult subject of religion, the teacher should first of all ask the kids whether their family or their neighbours’ families take part in the religious rites that are practised in their country. Then he/she should ask them whether they know of anyone who, in their country, practices the rites of a different religion (or whether they have read in some book, or seen at the cinema or on television, that there are people who profess different religions – including ancient religions that are no longer professed, such as those of the Ancient Romans or Egyptians). Starting off from this observation, that different religions exist, the teacher may pass on to the question “what is a religion?”.
Religious feeling
It has been said that human beings are religious animals. We do not know what goes through a cat’s, a dog’s, or a bird’s head, but, as far as we can see, animals do not have any religion (even though someone once said that when a dog bays at the moon it is in fact recognizing the existence of Something that does not belong to its world). Instead, all the peoples that we know anything about have shown they have religious feelings.
As we shall see later on, there are religions that believe in a single God (monotheistic religions), and others that believe in a multitude of religious entities, such as the ancient gods, or the spirits of water, trees, etc., (polytheistic religions); there are religions that have churches or temples, and others that honour their gods amidst a natural environment; there are religions that represent their gods in the forms of statues or paintings, others that venerate them through a rock, and others still that don’t seem to have any object to venerate or adore. But, before we decide what a religion really is, we ought to establish the nature of religious feeling, which seems to be present in all human communities, past and present.
Why?
Children very soon begin to ask their parents lots of “whys”, why does the sun give light?, why does water make things wet?, etcetera etcetera. Religious feeling sets in when people ask themselves why they exist, or why the Universe (the World, the Sky, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars) exists and how it came into being.
These “whys” regard first of all the Past, the Present, and the Future. As far as the Past is concerned, human beings ask themselves whether the Universe was made by Someone. As for the Present, they ask themselves how they must live and behave with their kin, and whether the Being that made the world in any way helps, protects, judges, rewards or punishes them – perhaps through the mediation of His/Her “helpers”, such as angels, spirits, or other forces of nature. And because all human beings feel that certain things are bad (for example sickness, death, the loss of loved ones, or of the things they are most attached to) they ask themselves why things in the world do not happen the way they would like them to, and whether that which they perceive as bad is allowed by the Being that created the world, and for what reason. Finally, they ask themselves what will happen to them or to others after death. Do all things end in nothingness or will the Creator of the world look after them?
All of these questions (which we shall be talking about in the second part of this chapter) are expressions of religious feeling, and it is from them that the various religions (which we shall be talking about in the first part) originally sprang.
Transcendent Principle and Immanent Principle
Generally speaking, religions acknowledge the existence of something that is superior to us, something Sacred, something we cannot see or touch, but from which we depend. Religions are divided into those that recognize a Transcendent Principle and those that recognize an Immanent Principle.
By Transcendent Principle we mean a Deity that does not belong to our own Universe and is fundamentally different from us. It has a spiritual nature and lives in the sky or somewhere else. According to some religions, such a Transcendent Principle not only created the Universe, but also manifested Itself to human beings through a Revelation, which is handed down to us through some Sacred Texts.
By Immanent Principle we mean a Cause (or a set of different Causes) that belongs to our own Universe, and that is often considered as the Deity itself; or, alternatively, it is believed that the many forces at work in the Universe (air, fire, and the various natural powers such as the winds, the Sun or the Stars) are different aspects of the Sacred dimension.
What do non believers believe in?
In some ways, those people who do not recognize any religion also have a religious feeling. This includes agnostics and atheists.
Agnostics are people who believe that no answers can be provided for the questions we mentioned earlier. Thus they do not accept the answers offered by the various religions. This does not mean, however, that they underestimate many of these questions. Therefore they try to find their own life values (see Ethical Systems).
Atheists are people who do not believe that the Universe was created by a transcendent entity, and they often think that they can prove this scientifically. They also think that the Revelations of the various religions cannot be proved to be true. Some of them accept an Immanent Principle, but feel that if the Deity is identified with the Universe of which we are a part, then this means that there is no God outside of us. However, just like agnostics, atheists also try to follow certain life values.
Some people do not believe in any Deity. They think that, as God does not exist, then human beings are free to do what they will, and in order to satisfy all their desires, they can kill, steal, or ride roughshod over other people’s rights. But such cases are less frequent than one may think. It is very rare for a human being not to ask him/herself what is good and what is bad, and not to feel tied to others by bonds of affection, duty, and common responsibilities. This happens because human beings are essentially social animals, which means that they can live only if other people recognize them, love them, and help them. When people ask themselves questions about their relationship with others, and wonder why they feel attached to them, they express some form of religious feeling, even if they do not believe in any religion.
1. BASIC IDEA: There are many religions in the world
There are many religions in the world: from Hinduism, which includes several different religious movements, other religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, were derived and became distinct religions. The three monotheistic Semitic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Some religions are rooted in the cultural life of a specific people, such as Confucianism, Daoism, Shintoism and the Native African, American and Australasian religions. Others, such as Baha’ism, combine elements taken from different traditions.
The list of religions that you will find in these pages is, inevitably, incomplete. If you wish to help us make it more exhaustive, you may send us a brief presentation of one of the many missing religions. Get in touch with the editors who will send you a style-sheet to guide you as you write the presentation.
Religions and dates
Different religions count the years in different ways. For example, Jews count them from the presumed date of the creation of the world (the year 2001 would be 5761), while Muslims count them from the date of the Hegira (2001 would be 1379).
The calendar that is usually used in international affairs is the Christian calendar, which starts from the year in which Jesus Christ was presumably born: in the Christian world it is the year 2001 AD (Anno Domini, “the Year of Our Lord”), or 2001 of the Common Era (CE).
1.1. MORE ABOUT…
1.1.1. What is a religion?
When you compare different religious traditions, you have to avoid taking for granted your own definition of what a religion is. Indeed, the word “religion” may be employed to refer to at least four different things.
Religion as a set of practices
A set of traditions, rites, stories, habits and ceremonies that are cultivated by a certain group of people and are handed down from one generation to the next.
Religion as an overall vision of life
A series of beliefs, a system of rules, a conception of what is right and wrong and, generally speaking, a certain overall vision of life.
Religion as a theological doctrine
A doctrine explains the relationship between human beings and all that lies beyond concrete reality, i.e. the ultramundane dimension.
Religion as an intimate spiritual attitude
An individual relationship that each person establishes with the sacred dimension, sometimes identifying wholly with a certain religion, and other times interpreting the tradition he/she belongs to in a personal manner.
According to the specific meaning one attaches to the word “religion”, a given spiritual tradition may or may not be considered to be a religion. For example, some religious historians wonder whether Buddhism may be seen as a religion in the same way as Judaism, Christianity or Islam: if by religion one means the relationship between human beings and a Superior Being, then Buddhism (which does not talk of God) is not a religion; but if one extends the meaning of this word to a set of spiritual and moral teachings accepted in faith by a community and practised in everyday life, then Buddhism can be totally included in this definition.
1.1.2. How religions change
According to many historians of religion, religions are not fixed and perfectly coherent systems, but are continuously evolving traditions.
Human beings who practice a certain religion, and who transmit it to the following generations, live within their own culture and are influenced by it. If the culture they belong to changes, then the religious tradition is also subject to the pressure of change. For example, the caste system that was central to the Hindu tradition has been abolished by the modern Indian Constitution, which forbids all forms of discrimination on the basis of caste. Another example of the transformations that may occur within a religious tradition is given by the role that Buddhism assigns to women: the Dalai Lama has stated that it is necessary to reconsider deeply the position of women (which, as in most other religions, was originally marginal and subordinate to that of men) within Buddhism.