The Origins of Religion (Adapted)
Then and Now
If you lived in the United States of America 50 years ago, you could conceivably have moved from the beginning of the year to its end without encountering someone whose religious tradition differed markedly from the one that was most familiar to you. But, if you live in the United States of America today, you are likely to supervise, be supervised by, meet on a social basis, or even suddenly find yourself related to someone who pursues a religious tradition that seems bewilderingly different from your own. In an earlier era, unfamiliar religious systems could be dismissed as “foreign” and left for the scholars to explore. In this era, that is usually not a realistic option.
Why does religion exist?
An evident answer is that it serves many human needs. One of those primary needs has to deal with our mortality. Because we and our loved ones must die, we have to face the pain of death and the inevitable questions to bring about whether there is any soul, afterlife, or rebirth. People often look to religion for the answers. Religion can help us cope with death, and religious rituals can offer comfort. Human beings also desire good health, a regular supply of food, and the conditions necessary to ensure these things…
Human beings are also social by nature, and religion offers companionship and the fulfillment that can come from belonging to a group. More over, religion often provides a way to care for the needy.
Human beings have a need to seek out and create artistic forms of expression. Religion stimulates art, music, and dance, and has been the inspirational source of some of the most imaginative buildings in the world. Religion not only makes use of multiple arts but also integrates them into a living, often beautiful whole.
Perhaps the most basic function of religion is to respond to our natural wonder about ourselves and the cosmos – our musings on a starry night. Religion helps us relate to the unknown universe around us by answering the basic questions of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.
Why study religion?
Students embarking upon a study of the religions of the world, whether for a semester, a year, or a lifetime, must question their reasons. After all, we have been told that religion is a personal matter and that although we should be informed about the nature of our own religion, the religion of others need scarcely concern us. ..The subject can be worth studying simply because the student is interested in it. Certainly anyone interested in the history of the world and in better understanding his or her own culture will find the study of the world’s religions imperative. Also, religion permeates many other areas of study. An art historian studying the art of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe will examine picture after picture and find that it is filled with religious themes. Indeed, we could not understand the art of 90 percent of the world’s cultures without knowing the religious themes of those cultures. Likewise, the student of world literature must know religions. We cannot comprehend the “Bhagavad Gita”(the main literature of India)without a knowledge of Hinduism nor can we cannot truly grasp Hermann Hesse’sSiddharthawithout a knowledge of Buddhism.
Perhaps the greatest contribution that knowledge of the world religions can make to a citizen of the twenty-first century is in the area of world politics. Religion plays an increasingly important role in political conflict at home and abroad. At the time of this writing, as at almost any other time in history, major political conflicts have religious differences at their roots. Religious differences are fundamental to debates concerning civil rights, abortion, and gender relations in the contemporary United States. In other parts of the world, Catholic Christians war against Protestant Christians; Hindus battle Muslims; Buddhists battle Hindus; Sikhs and Hindus are engaged in bloody confrontation; Muslims are at war against Christians; and Jews struggle with Muslims. Certainly, these conflicts have other dimensions, but the religious differences are imposing. If we are to fully understand these conflicts, we must know that Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists have basic philosophical differences and that religion can be a source of conflict as well as understanding. Another reason to study the various faiths of the world is that the ways they influence, mirror, and support one another are quite simply, fascinating. Sometimes, the true nature of a particular religious tradition can come into clearest focus when a seeker within that faith examines another tradition with a nonjudgmental approach and learning about the ways in which the world’s faiths reinforce one another can be very fulfilling.
Furthermore, the world of the twenty-first century pushes us out of our insulated worlds into closer and closer contact with what were formerly considered exotic and distant religions. Television brings instant coverage of events in formerly remote parts of the earth. Industrialization brings use together in urban centers. The fastest-growing religion in the world is Islam, due to the influx of immigrants from Turkey, Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, as well as internal conversion. The largest concentration of Hindus outside of India is found in Leicester, England; New York City has a larger Jewish population than the nation of Israel. Hollywood figures proclaim their conversion to Buddhism and pop stars to Islam. Dance clubs play CDs recorded by Sufi devotional singers. Whereas the Hindu, Buddhist, Muslims, or Orthodox Jew may once have seemed a distant and exotic person, known only through books or movies, that person today may well be our neighbor, our co-worker, or a student in our classes. One simply cannot be a well-informed citizen of this era without a knowledge of the religions of the world.
A Definition of Religions
The English word religion is derived from the Latin word religio, which refers to the fear or awe one feels in the presence of a spirit or god. In Western cultures, we tend to define religion in terms of a set of beliefs having to do with the gods, through which one is taught a moral system. Although this definition contains elements that are found within many of the religions of the world, it cannot do justice to them all. For example, some religions recognize existence of gods but actually have very little to do with them. Jainism and, to some extent some forms of Buddhism may be called atheistic religions because their emphasis is on people’s delivering themselves from their plight without the help of gods. Some religions are not naturally tied to moral systems. Most of the religions that have existed on earth have probably been far more concerned with humanity’s proper relationship to gods, demons, and spirits, worldly prosperity, and well-being than with ethical relations among people. One distinctive characteristic of the religion of the early Hebrews was the ethical dimension their God required of them. Similar concerns can be found in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions that have a broad, universal appeal. Modern adherents to these religions associate the word religion with the word moral, but among most religions these terms are not synonymous.
Directions: After completing the reading, answer the following questions.
1)Why does religion exist? (Give several examples).
2)According to the article, why should you be taking this class? (Give several examples).
3)Define the word religion.
4)Now, put it all together – What is religion?