A Short Look at Religion
Introduction:
It is obvious to anyone who follows the news that religion has a huge impact on our world today. However, ask anyone to define religion and you will probably get a different answer from each person you ask. Each person could have their favorite definition, which they think is the correct one and sometimes, if not most times, this definition is not complete. Basically, there is no consensus on the definition of religion.
This essay is part of my own religious studies, so in essence this is my attempt to look at what religion is to me. The aim of this essay is to define religion (from my point of view though I will try to include other definitions) and determine (again from my point of view) the characteristics of religious worldview.
What is religion?
Etymology of the word religion changes depending on the time the etymology was used. In the fifth century Cicero said that the word religion came from relegare, which means go through again or read again, from (re) meaning again and (legere) meaning read. And in the eleventh century the word religion was thought to come from Anglo-French religiun, from Old French religion meaning religious community, from Latin religionem, which means respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods. In popular etymology among the later ancients and many modern writers religion is connected to religare, to bind fast, to the notion of place an obligation on or bond between humans and gods. Another possible origin is religiens, which means careful. [1]
Most people focus on a very narrow definition that matches the individual’s own religion, but few others. Some definitions exclude beliefs and practices, like for example a required belief in a God or Goddess or a combination of both and this will exclude religions like Buddhism and some forms of religious Satanism. Some definitions are so broad that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religion. And some definitions use terms in them that in and of themselves require further defining. [2]
Now let me give you some definitions that are out there for religion.
Wikipedia defines religion as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. [3]
The American Heritage Dictionary gives us four definitions of religion. Religion is a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe and a personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship. The life or condition of a person in a religious order. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader. And finally a cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion. [4]
Barnes and Noble (Cambridge) Encyclopedia (1990) say no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practices, and ideas which constitute different religions.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990) says human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience. [5]
Then of course there are the definitions put forward by people who are formulating the theories of religion.
The different approaches to studying religion give us the different theories of religion. It is also interesting to note that the same people who gave us theories on culture, society, mythology, economy and politics are the same ones that gave us the theories of religion.
Theories of religion can be divided into theories that focus on what religion is and theories that focus on what it does. [6] I don’t want to go into too much detail on theories of religion but I will give you the definitions put forward by the most famous people of the field.
Edward Burnett Taylor defined religion as belief in spiritual beings. He believed that all religious ideas developed out of a primitive belief in the animate nature of natural phenomena or animism. For Taylor all religion is a mistaken attempt to make sense of the physical world in which we live.
Émile Durkheim saw society rather than the individual as the source of both the profane and the sacred. To him religion is the embodiment of society’s highest goals and ideals. Religion acts as a cohesive social force and adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
Clifford Geertz saw religion as a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long – lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating concepts of a general order of existence and clothing these concepts with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.
Malinowski focused on the individual, psychological function of religion. For him religion came out of a response to emotional stress. When technical knowledge failed humans turned to magic and religion in order to achieve their ends. [7]
Karl Marx saw everything in terms of economics. He saw religion originating from alienation and there to keep the masses happy with economic inequality. It was a dependent value, mostly on economics.
James George Frazer believed that magic came before religion. As magic failed people looked for other psychological support and concocted the illusion that spiritual beings could help them.
Max Weber didn’t focus on the truth claims of religions so much as what their role was in society and though he agreed with Durkheim’s definition, unlike Durkheim, he thought that religion can be a force of change in society.
Sigmund Freud saw religion as an illusion. Freud thought that religion was something that people really wanted to believe in and was a response to repression.
Mircea Eliade saw religion as something special and autonomous that can not be reduced to social, economical or psychological alone. He also differentiated between the sacred and the profane.
Carl Gustav Jung saw religion as a psychological phenomena, and a natural process which stems from archetypes in the human mind. He thought it preforms the function of harmonizing the psyche and in that it is a beneficial phenomena. [8]
Characteristics of Religious Worldview:
When looking at different religions there are somethings that seem to be common to all. Most if not all religions have beliefs, sacred texts and writings, rituals and ceremonies, and some sort of moral code or ethics. I’ll discuss characteristic seperately.
Beliefs:
People who follow a religion have a specific belief about deity, doctrines and/or creeds, theology and sacred stories and myths. Sometimes they have beliefs in all of these or just a few of them depending on the religion.
Sacred Texts and Writings:
Sacred texts and writings are very easy to define in religions like Islam, where they have the Qur’an, in Christianity where they have the Bible, and in Judaism, where they have the Torah (Old Testement), but what about paganism? Sacred texts and writings can come in three forms; oral traditions, which are then written down later, artistic representations like statues, paintings, and icons, and manuscripts like the ones mentioned above or writings of the influential persons in any religion.
Rituals and Ceremonies:
Almost every religion has its rituals and ceremonies; these include festivals to mark the seasons and important events, sacrifice and/or offerings, sacremental rites, pilgrimages, meditation, healing rites and customary worship.
Ethics:
Every religion has a code of ethics and moral standards that it lives by. These codes and standards are influences by the religion and the culture the individual may come from. What is exceptable in one culture may not be so in another. And religion is most certainly influenced by the culture it lives in, just like it influences that culture.
What Sorts of Religions are There?
When people ask the above question the first answers that are given are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Paganism, and so on. There are three religions from what is mentioned above that are the same SORT of religion. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all monotheistic. There are even forms of Buddhism and Hinduism that are concidered monotheistic while others are concidered polytheistic, but what do those terms mean. I will be defining the sorts of religions available next.
Monotheism from the Greek mono meaning single or alone and theos meaning a god. [9] So monotheism is the doctrine or belief that there is only one God. [10]
Polytheism from French polythéisme (16th century), formed from Greek polytheos “of many gods,” from polys “many” and theos “god”. [11] Polytheism then is the doctrine of or belief in more than one god or in many gods. [12]
These two terms and the most well known of all the sorts of religions out there but there are more.
Pantheism is the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God’s personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature. It is any religious belief or philosophical doctrine that identifies God with the universe. [13]
Animism first attested to in 1866, and reintroduced by Sir Edward Burnett Taylor, who defined it in 1871 as the “theory of the universal animation of nature,” came from Latin anima “life, breath, soul.” Earlier sense was of “doctrine that animal life is produced by an immaterial soul” (1832), from German Animismus, coined c.1720 by physicist/chemist Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) based on the concept of the anima mundi. [14] Animism is defined as the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls, the belief that natural objects have souls that may exist apart from their material bodies, the doctrine that the soul is the principle of life and health and belief in spiritual beings or agencies. [15]
These two terms are also famous though not as famous as the first two.
Panentheism is the belief that the universe is part of God. Followers believe that god, God or gods are both part of the universe and above it. To some people, this is a very confusing concept (idea) and was first created by philosophers in the early centuries CE. [16]
Henotheism is first attested to in 1860, from Greek henos “one.” The term was coined by (Friedrich) Max Müller (1823-1900), professor of comparative philology at Oxford. [17] Henotheism is defined as the worship of a particular god, as by a family or tribe, without disbelieving in the existence of others and the ascription of supreme divine attributes to whichever one of several gods is addressed at the time. [18]
Deism is first attested to in 1682, from French déisme, from Latin deus “god.” [19] Deism is defined as the belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation, and the belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it. [20]
Ditheism is the belief that two gods exist and they are both equal (Wiccans believe in this with a God and Goddess, or Lord and Lady, who have equal control/power). [21]
Nontheism is a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of — or the rejection of — theism or any belief in a personal god or gods. [22]
This covers the major sorts of religions out there, but certainly not all of them.
Conclusions:
Knowing that no definition is perfect, the best way to describe religion is to use the following: “Religion is any specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, a philosophy of life and a world view.” [23]
MY definition of religion then would be as follows: Religion to me is the belief in many gods, the performance of rituals to honor these gods and the passing of the seasons and rites, having a code of ethics and having a philosophy of life that gels with these beliefs and ethics.
The reason I chose this definition of religion is that I am a polytheist and I believe in honoring and (YES I DARE TO SAY IT) worshiping the gods, trying to live my life according to a certain code of ethics and morals and trying to live my life in harmony with the world around me.
I began thinking of writing this essay because I wanted to know what constitutes a religion. I wanted a clear cut answer but in the end settled for defining religion from my point of view, though I have tried to include other definitions and determining, again from my point of view, the characteristics of religious worldview. I’ve discovered while researching this essay that trying to pin point or define “religion” is hard. The best one can do is discuss and study different religions for comparison. Basically, people who study religion should assume that in any cultural context there is a field of cultural activity that is not always labeled as “religion” but none the less can be equated with it. This cultural activity is influenced by the culture around it and it in turn influences that same culture.
I have tried to discuss the different sorts of religions that I knew about, discovered ones that I didn’t know and corrected my assumptions of others.
I am sure I have not covered much in this essay, and I am equally sure that there will be people out there that disagree with something I wrote here, either with the choice of topics that I covered, or with the definition of religion that I considered important, please keep in mind that this is a personal look at religion and that if I had to write about everything I would need to write volumes of books not an essay, even if it is a long one.
Endnotes:
[1] “Etymology of Religion” November 2001. Access Date: February 12, 2010 <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=religion>
[2] “Definitions of the word “Religion”” Access date: February 9, 2010 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm>
[3] “Religion” February 13, 2010 Access date: February 13, 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion>
[4] “Religion” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. February 13, 2010 <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Religion>
[5] “Definitions of the word “Religion”” Access date: February 9, 2010 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm>
[6] “Theories of Religion” February 5, 2010 Access date: February 12, 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_religion>
[7] Robert A. Segal. The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2006) pp. 3-24
[8] “Theories of Religion” February 5, 2010 Access date: February 17, 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_religion>
[9] “Monotheism.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Monotheism>.
[10] “Monotheism.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Monotheism>.
[11] “polytheism.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polytheism>.
[12] “polytheism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polytheism>.
[13] “Pantheism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Pantheism>.
[14] “Animism.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Animism>.
[15] “Animism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Animism>.
[16] “Panentheism” January 7, 2010. Access Date: February 18, 2010 <http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism>
[17] “Henotheism.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Henotheism>.
[18] “Henotheism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Henotheism>.
[19] “Deism.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Deism>.
[20] “Deism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 17 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Deism>.
[21] “Ditheism” February 4, 2010. Access Date: February 18, 2010 <http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism>
[22] “Nontheism” January 31, 2010. Access Date: February 18, 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheism>
[23] “Definitions of the word “Religion”” Access date: February 9, 2010 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm>
