Understanding Religion 101

Lesson 2 (Religious Nones)

In the previous module we considered one of the global phenomena regarding the global estimates of people that are religious. In this module, we consider a second phenomenon.

A 2010 report by Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life show a markedly rise in the number of people who no longer identify with any religious group. This begs the question, is religion set for extinction?

Research shows that there is a steady rise worldwide in the so-called religiously unaffiliated. These are people without organized religion (also known as “religious nones”. This is an interesting development in the study of world regions.

The Pew Forum shows that about 16% of the world population that is 1.1 billion people have no religious affiliation whatsoever. The unaffiliated forms the third largest religious group worldwide after Christianity and Islam. That is a substantial rise in the number of people that no longer affiliate themselves with any religious group. In the USA, for example, the Pew Research report of 2014 shows a downward trend of decline of people who say they believe in God, pray daily, and regularly go to church or attend church.

Interestingly, research has also shown that decline does not mean people are rejecting religion. Even though they're moving away from organized religion, it doesn't mean that they are losing their religiosity. “Nones” still remain firm and strong in the faith even though they do not identify with the end religious group. Many of the unaffiliated hold some form of religious or spiritual beliefs such as believe in God, higher power, or a universal spirit. For the religious “nones”, religious commitment has remained relatively stable, while a substantial number distanced themselves from any organized religion. As we have already seen. The “nones” no longer observe religious practices in a conventional religious way or in a traditionally experienced way. Yet, as we have seen, they remain very strong in their spirituality as well as their religiosity.

Religious “nones” live on the boundaries between the religion of the culture they were brought in and the appeal of other religions. Meaning that the boundaries the religious boundaries here are quite porous. In Europe and in North America, though no longer affiliated with any practicing faith community, the “nones” make claim to what is called cultural Christianity as the religion in which they grew in (even though no longer practicing Christianity).

Cultural Christianity refers to the experience that derives meaning from Christianity, its texts, laws, metaphors and art. The new global phenomenon shows that while a substantial number of people distance themselves from any organized faith, religious commitment has remained relatively stable. Even though we are making the claim that there is this change in terms of how people relate to their own religion. It does not mean that religion is on the decline.

In the next module we will continue asking the question: what do we say or what have people said about this phenomenon? Thank you.

Lesson 3 (Is Religion Dying?)

We have so far looked at two main phenomena. I want us to take a pause and ask the question: Is religion set for extinction? With the facts that we already have and the knowledge as well as evidence of significant decline in organized religion, could this be true? There are some scholars in the world today who think the answer to this question is a definitive YES. Is Religion Dying? This is our concern in this lesson.

While study shows that religious commitment has remained relatively stable despite the substantial decline in religious affiliation with any organized faith, there are some who believe that religion will soon become extinct. As I have already mentioned, many in the scholarly world use research to make this conclusion.

In the so-called secularization theory, from as early as 1800s, several social scientists and historians have proposed that modernity inevitably produces a decline of in religion. As we advance in technology and knowledge, they argue, religion finds no place in existence in human society.

Proponents of this secularization theory, as it has come to be called, have used the religious “nones” phenomenon to come to the conclusion that religion is set for extinction, and they confidently argue so from the research that they have carried out.

In 2011, one of such studies, using census data from nine countries, confirmed a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation. The research study confidently declared that religion would die in Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Czeck Republic, Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland, Ireland and Canada. Proving the fact that modernity leads to the death of religion.

However, I have several questions that I would like to explore with you:

1. Is religion really doomed to extinction?

2. If the academic forecast is a possibility, how do we reconcile it with the fact that in 2010 about 85% of the global population identified with some form of religious tradition?

3. Is it justifiable to use non-religious affiliation as evidence for the demise of religion, meaning that when people are not religiously affiliated then we can say religion is dead?

One of the greatest critics of the Secularization theory, the late sociologist Peter Berger said, “modernity does not necessarily produce secularity it necessarily produces pluralism, by which I mean the coexistence in the same society of different worldviews and value systems”.

So rather than negating the enduring existence of religion, Berger highlighted on the research which shows that a basic knowledge of world religions is a necessity for better understanding our world today. This is my position and the position of many that we need to study religion. We need to understand it objectively and see what role it plays in our world today. At the same time, we need to understand fully the term “religion”. What sustains religious belief? Come with me to the next module as we explore this question together. Thank you.

Lesson 4: Religious Literacy

In this section, we seek to have an appreciative introduction to religion as a phenomenon which has varying spiritual intentions and meanings. We seek to understand fully why religious knowledge is necessary.

Religion & Politics:

Mahtma Gandhi once quipped, “Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.” Gandhi recognized the need to understand the relationship between religion and politics. One of the important educational needs in our world today, is to understand the connection between religion and politics.

Religion & Culture:

Besides the phenomenon of the unaffiliated, as citizens of the world, we equally need to understand the relationship between the religion and culture.

Identity & practice:

We also need to understand the relationship between religious identity and practice.

What is religious literacy?

Religious literacy refers to the ability to understand and to use religious terms, symbols, images, beliefs, practices, scriptures, heroes, themes, and stories that are employed in public life.

Religious literacy involves ability to participate in ongoing conversation about the private and public place of religious beliefs and practices without fear, favor, and also without prejudice. This allows you to participate fully in how it influences our public life.

Categories of Religious Knowledge:

One of the main purposes of this course is to help you begin to recognize how the problem of religious illiteracy does have solutions. That is, study of the world religions. We have the opportunity to help expand our religious knowledge, which may also help reduce intolerance. Knowledge and ability to articulate accurately the teachings of the sacred and issues of religion outside of our own spiritual realm are needed.

a) Based knowledge can be referred to as other knowledge of one's faith and ability. For example, the one that is knowledge received in catechetical classes.

b) The other form of knowledge that is important is the knowledge of other religions besides ones religious experiences. Many Christians, for example, cannot confidently say they know anything about Islam other than what has been reported in the media or other biased channels of information.

c) Religious literacy enables us to engage our faith (with sophistication) with issues of race, gender, inequality, human sexuality, science and culture.

Many religious people lack basic knowledge of religion, despite personally identifying with a particular religious faith. Being religious does not necessarily mean that one knows a lot about religion. For example, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh-American and a gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona was murdered on September 11th, 2001 in a hate crime in the aftermath of the 9/11. The person who killed this man believed that he was Muslim – a perfect example of religious ignorance.

Religious ignorance impels public life and exposes our vulnerability to talking heads in news and social media. No wonder these two outlets are the strong influencers of how we view religion. Some of us do not have any other source of religious knowledge other than what is in social media and news, which are always biased in many ways. Our knowledge on religion, should not be shaped by daily news headlines.

We should not allow ourselves to be influenced by what comes from the news headlines. Rather, we should invest in understanding religion fully and its impact in our lives.

In addition, education on religion differs from religious teachings or teachings on one’s own faith. What you learn at church or in any other religious institution is different from understanding fully what religion stands for, objectively.

Teaching about religion is important for the sake of peace and coexistence in the world today.

Religion is equally a benefit to democracy and advancement of society. We have witnessed worldwide, how religion has been misused to help propagate certain political ideologies. Understanding religion is very beneficial to democracy and advancement of our society.

We seek to fully understand religion in this course and in our next module we shall give a full definition on what religion is. Thank you.

What is religion?

Now that you have an idea on why religious literacy is necessary in our world today, let us turn to the definition of the term "religion".

In several of the upcoming videos, we will look at different propositions that have been offered in the attempt to define "religion".

We hope you will appreciate how elusive defining religion has been in the history of the study of religion.

It will also become apparent that interest in understanding religion is not a recent endeavor.

Some people have defined religion as the belief in the supernatural. But, can religion be defined simply as a belief in the realm of the supernatural? Is religion only about things that are outside of the human realm? Or is religion only a given from outside that which is human?

Some proponents of religion like French sociologist Emile Durkheim, one of the greatest of our time, identified “supernatural” as one of the contestable ideas in the definition of the region. He saw the term as limited and argued that we needed to seek other terms that may help define religion fully.

The proponents of religion as simply a “belief in supernatural”, also defined “supernatural as the world of mystery the unknowable, the incomprehensible”.

Those opposed to this definition argue that the idea of the supernatural goes against science and intellect. They argue that the idea of the supernatural presupposes that which is it intends to negate. It acknowledges the existence of a natural order of things. And for this reason, it led many scholars to dismiss the argument that religion can only be defined as I belief in the supernatural.

What is Religion? – Notion of God

Let us continue discussing further the idea of religion as something beyond the intellect. We also meet other proponents such as the British philosopher Herbert Spencer. Spencer said religions that are diametrically opposite in their dogmas, tacitly agree on recognizing that the world with all that it contains and all that surrounds it is a mystery seeking an explanation. For this philosopher, religion is something that can be defined as a belief in the omnipresence of something that goes beyond the intellect. In this case, the source of religion is that which comes from outside of the human mind.

There are others who suggested that religion is an aspiration towards the infinite. On his part, the German philologist Max Müller defined religion as an effort to conceive of the inconceivable and to express the inexpressible – an aspiration toward the infinite.

Edward B. Taylor, found the notion of divinity limiting. He therefore, sought to expand the idea to include the souls of the dead and spirit that people believed populated nature.

Others scholars have used the idea of God as another notion to define religion. The included the quest for God as a way of understanding religion. The idea of God is a belief in a greater reality which lies beyond the world that we can perceive with our human senses - something that is equally mysterious, unknowable and outside of the human mind.

The two concepts of God discussed so far limit the definition of religion and would thus not include religions in which the idea of gods and spirits is absent. For example, Buddhism is a religion without the idea of God. In fact, many see Buddhism as propagating atheism. While there are some elements of the divination of the Buddha in some branches of Buddhism, it is only as a saint but not as a God. So in essence, Buddhism does not hold the belief or the idea of God.

The Jains also are known to have no conception of God or creator, since the world itself is eternal.

Jainism is one of the religions of India with an approximately 6 million followers. Its historical origins is in the same region as that of Hinduism.

This limitation on the definition of religion has forced others to seek new ways of defining religion which will we will begin to consider in the next lesson. Thank you.

Defining Religion Continued…

We continue with the definition of the term religion. What we have seen in the previous lesson is that we cannot singularly use the idea of God to define religion. That idea in itself is too limiting, as we have already seen.

• Why do people hold ideas about mystical and extraordinary kinds of events?

• More importantly, why do we need to study religion and religions of the world?

These two questions are important to help us situate the idea of religion, as we expand the meaning.

The term religion derives its meaning from a Latin word that translates “to tie again” or “to tie back”. Comparative study of religions of the world as it is our case in this class reveals that all religions share a common goal of tying people back to something behind the surface of life. The attempt to connect people with a greater reality has taken many religious forms.

Almost all religions of the world hold a belief in a greater reality which lies beyond the world that we can perceive with our human senses. Religions try to connect people to some with something outside of themselves.

Traditionally, religion has been the foundation of life, allowing all aspects of human existence. A careful look at what we call religion reveals complex, diverse, ever-changing and overlapping realities. Many people understand religion to refer to collective beliefs and practices that profoundly shapes societies’ moral identity. No wonder some see religion as a repelling and others embrace it.

Religion is composed of conceptual representations (beliefs) and ritual practices (rites). So beside using the idea of the supernatural or the idea of God, we see that we can expand the definition.

Religion binds individuals to each other and ties them in common beliefs. Such individuals collectively profess common religious beliefs and practices. Together, they practice rites that are related to the beliefs. There's that common unity that is bring together individuals who are in search for meaning.

Religious beliefs and rites bind followers together as a moral community. As in the case of of Judaism and Christianity, beliefs and rites help develop moral terms or concepts that bind such communities together, forming a very strong moral community.

As already mentioned, all religions of the world seem to share the common goal of tying people back to something behind the surface of life. But, what does this reality look like? Join me in the next module as we continue exploring how people have wrestled with the question of religion. Thank you.

Elementary Religious Phenomena:

In this module we consider together some of the basic elements of religion and how scholars in the past considered such elements. As you can see, defining religion is not easy. Some scholars approach religion as a “whole” made of “parts” or what is referred to as phenomena.

To begin with, religion has almost always been identified as a complex system made up of myth, legends, dogmas, rites, and ceremonies. For this reason, a full grasp of the “parts” that form a religious system, which is the “whole” helps us have a richer understanding of religion itself.

Emily Durkheim was among the first thinkers to approach religion as a whole, made up of parts. Durkheim classified religious beliefs in two main parts or domains: the profane and sacred. He saw both the profane and the sacred, as parts of the whole. He held that there is no way we can understand religion without first of all seeing religion as divided into these main parts that eventually form the whole. Durkheim further categorized religious phenomena in two other parts: beliefs and rites.

He defined “beliefs” as states of opinion, consisting representations and “rites” as fixed modes of actions. For Durkheim, in order to understand religion correctly, one must first define a “belief”. The beginning point is the sacred domain. By sacred domain, he meant that it involves representations or systems of representation such as beliefs, myth, gnomics spirit, and legends. Such representations express the nature of sacred things. The representations also express the virtues and powers attributed to the sacred. The representations communicate history of sacred things, their relations with each other.

What, then, is the profane? Durkheim suggested sacred things are not just gods or spirits. Even though in all religions, the sacred things are regarded as superior in dignity and power, the sacred also includes such profane things as rocks, trees, springs, stones, wood, houses among others. Rites also are profane in nature. Yet such profane things, equally carry some degree of sacred character which includes words, speeches, formulas that can only be spoken by sacred persons.

At what point then, does the sacred meet the profane? In some religions, Durkheim suggested, the sacred things are accepted as ideal and transcendent, while the material world is left entirely to the profane. But even then, that which is profane is allowed to undergo a form of transformation in order to enter the sacred realm.

The priests, sages, or saints who make such pronouncements may also be considered sacred. Monasticism is an extreme case of such a transformation where a young initiate through the rite of initiation leaves the purely profane life to enter the circle of the sacred.

Is the duality formed between the sacred and profane sustained in religious experiences? For Durkheim, sacred things are protected and isolated through prohibitions. Prohibitions keep profane things separate from the sacred.

Rites on their part are rules of conduct that prescribe how believers conduct themselves with sacred things. Religious beliefs as representations, then express and sustain the relationship between the sacred and the profane things. For Durkheim, the inner workings of the “sacred” and the “profane” are the sources of religious thoughts and of religion in general.

Lesson 8 - Genesis of the Study of Religion

In history, human beings have been interested in the genesis of religion. This brings us to the larger question: Where did religion come from? This is a question that humankind has wrestled with for a very, very long time.

• Why do people hold religious beliefs?

• Why do such beliefs survive?

The Romanian historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade suggested:

“The ultimate aim of the history of religions is to understand and to make understandable to others religious man's behavior and mental universe. It is not always an easy undertaking. For the modern world, religion as form of life … is represented by Christianity”, so he said.

In all fairness, one cannot separate the genesis of academic study of religion from the European world explorations and the age of Protestant Reformation, which included voyages of explorers, academics, traders, missionaries, and adventurers to the New World.

In the ensuing explorations and travels the West, which was mainly Christian, encountered other people who were not Christians, Jews or Muslims. General consensus in Europe was that Christian ideals and values expressed the highest in human moral and cultural achievement, and consequently Christian civilization was the one destined to endure.

At the time, many Christians in Europe dismissed Jewish religion (Judaism) as mere preface to Christianity. Christians universally argued that they had replaced or superseded Jews as people of God. That is what is referred to as “supersessionism” or the theology of replacement. Many laughed off Islam as a perversion of Christianity. The Christian missionaries understood their mission as divinely mandated to bring heathens or heathen nations to Christianity or to Christ and the church.

King Edward VI addressing a group of navigators, is quoted to have said:

“serving of Christianity must be the chief interest of such as shall make any attempt at foreign discovery, or else what is built on the foundations shall never obtain happy success or continuance.”

In 1606 King James I while granting patent to the Virginia company which planted the first permanent British settlement beyond Europe enjoined:

“the world and service of God, be preached, planted and used not only in the said colony, but as much as may be, among the savages, bordering upon them, according to the rites and doctrine of the Church of England.”

By the turn of the 19th century, several scholars, though still supportive of traditional religious beliefs that insisted that the origin of the Christian religion was miraculous in character as revealed by God in scripture and affirmed in church traditions, proposed a new approach to other religions encountered.

For example, Edward Burnett Taylor, whom we have already met, a self-educated anthropologist who never attended university, was among the first proponents of this new approach. Taylor joined Oxford University in 1884 to become its first reader in the new field of anthropology, including the sub-disciplines on ethnography and ethnology and later becoming its first professor in that discipline.

Taylor challenged any intellectual inquiry that settled scientific questions by an appeal to the Divine Authority of the church or the Bible. In the next section we look at some of the proposals that Taylor himself put forth publicly.

Lesson 9 - Genus of Religion

With the emergence of such disciplines as anthropology, ethnology, and sociology, people like Taylor, sought to understand the genus of religion. The new development on the religion as seen in Taylor, argued that in order to understand the genus of religion one had to to observe and study the so called “primitive” societies, since in this their simplicity, rudimentary religious thoughts are revealed.

This approach concluded that religion gradually evolves upward from the first, primitive or savage belief in the spirit of the trees and rocks to the latter higher plane of monotheism and ethics. Accordingly higher civilizations correlate with higher religions (meaning that the more evolved you are - high in the hierarchy of civilization, the more you are likely to be involved in so-called higher religions.)

19th century Western ethnographers and anthropologists such as Taylor came to the conclusion that in its most rudimentary form, religion existed either as animism or as naturism. We will briefly consider what these two terms refer to.

Animism refers to religious beliefs drawn from spiritual beings such as spirits, souls, jinns, demons, and gods considered to be animated with consciousness and superpowers.

On the other hand, naturism is considered as religious beliefs and practices that seek to interpret great cosmic forces, such as wind, rivers, stars, and sky, or objects of nature (plant, animals, rocks, mountains and trees.)

The two schools of thought postulated that the rudimentary idea of religion is found in the human sensations of awe and wonder which are awakened by certain natural phenomena, whether physical or biological.

Edward Taylor became the first proponent of animism in his study of what he termed as “the crudest religions of the primitives”. Taylor proposed that the essence of religion is animism (from the Latin word anima, meaning “spirit”.)

Taylor published Primitive Culture in which he made an amazing proposal on the origin of all religious beliefs systems, including Christianity. He saw primitive cultures as complex systems made of knowledge and beliefs, art and morals, tools and technology, language, laws, customs, legends, myths and other components. In his exploration of the so-called primitive cultures, action, deeds, laws, legends, myths, habits and customs, Taylor suggested that there were underlying principles or laws that could be identified, studied, scientifically classified, compared and defined in order to understand their origin.

Taylor identified two of what he referred as the main animistic principles: i.e.

a) the principle of psychic unity or uniformity within the human race.

b) the pattern of intellectual evolution.

He suggested that the cardinal notion of religion, as evident in the history and mythology of the primitives, is the soul. At an intellectual level, it was suggested, the animists think rationally, but does so only as children. This kind of denigrating attitude towards the so-called “primitive” was not new.

Taylor surmised that because of this intellectual limitation, “primitive” people could not comprehend the difference between sleep (the reality of the human body) and dreams (the ideal soul coming from dreaming).

Consequently, Taylor concluded, souls became the object of cultic worship and eventually transformed to “spirits”. In death and through funeral rites, souls were perceived free to roam the world leading to the development of “cult of nature” alongside “ancestor cult”. Essentially, the argument goes, the cult of the dead led to organized religion. This was indeed a fantastic argument!

Taylor concluded, religion is believe in spiritual beings which think, act and feel like human persons. As such, the genus of religion is animism.

Lesson 11 – Animism Defined

This module explore further why Taylor's invention of animism became the cornerstone for understanding of religion in general among the 19th century scholars. As already mentioned, Taylor proposed that the essence of religion is animism. Consequently, animism referred to the belief in “living personal powers” behind all things. As such, the origin of religion can be traced to the primitive idea that the world is animated by spiritual principles, just as humans and and things are animated by souls or spirits.

Taylor defined religion as “belief in spiritual beings that are conscious beings which can be influenced by words, invocations or prayers, or with offerings and sacrifices. In essence, animism developed as an effort by primitive peoples to understand the world as a response to its mysteries and uncertain evidence.

By analogy, and by extension, the concept of a soul explained the movement, activities and changes of the human person. Applied more widely, the same concept explained that the rest of the natural world such as plant, trees, rivers, wind, animals and even stars and planets are beings moved by souls. Animists were said to have applied same analogy to develop beliefs in souls or spirits, demons/devils, angels, and gods. These non-attached beings could enter and possess other beings. As souls animated persons so spirits also animate the world.

The conclusion: through animism, humans arrived at first religious beliefs. With time, according to Taylor, animism followed a pattern of growth and development. At first, scholars speculated, people thought of individual spirit as small and specific associated with each tree, river or animal. Later, such powers widened where the spirit of one tree, for example, grew in power to become the spirit of the forest or trees. Progressively, the same spirit evolves to a separate entity with its own identity and character.

Through gradual evolution, animism grew into complex polytheistic systems typical of barbaric age. Eventually, religion reached its highest form when Animism became organized in such a way that one god, one Supreme being stands at the top of the divine society, i.e. monotheism.

Taylor continued to conclude that the animistic principle united all humanity into two great classes: (a) those of lower systems and (b) those higher faith. Thus, all humanity is interconnected in the process of the evolution of religion even though the moral element of religion remained intimate and powerful in the higher cultures but barely present in the lower cultures.

In Taylor's estimation, however, the animistic principle, and consequently religion in general, is a fatal error that cannot stand the test of modern science. Taylor forecasted that while a few of religions ethical principles may linger as still useful, its gods or God must die and disappear in the face of science. So in essence, Tylor was dismissive of religion in general.

Lesson 12 – Religion as Magic: a pseudo science

Following in the footsteps of Taylor is James G. Frazer. While insisting that research in religion should be based on scientific and objective research, Frazer concluded that religion in itself is an improved version of magic - a pseudo science.

James Frazer, a student of Taylor, is credited with the so-called magic theory of religion, which he articulated in his book The Golden Bough. The Golden Bough was a monumental study on folklore, legends, customs, and beliefs that served as definitive statement of Frazer's conclusion on the origin and nature of religion.

Frazer understood religion as a sign of progress. It improves on magic and marks intellectual advancement in the human race of evolution. Unlike animism, which is rudimentary in the primitive society, Frazer concluded that the purpose of religion is to regulate the relationship between human beings and the special beings through prayers, sacrifices, and propitiatory rites.

In Frazer's opinion, religion does not exist in the absence of rites such as prayers and sacrifices. Like his teacher Taylor, Frazer came to the same conclusion that the worship of gods arose in the earliest human attempts to explain the world. As such, Frazer concluded, worship is driven by the human desire to control the power of nature, avoid its hazards, and win its favor.

In essence, the development of magic preceded religious worship of gods. First, came magic and everything else followed.

Frazer found religion wanting, and as such must give way to the age of science. Definitely, Frazer’s work is important in helping us understand the history of the study of religion. However, it is highly speculative and difficult to maintain as objective work of science and research. Almost all of these theories we are looking at are quite speculative.

Lesson 13 – Emergence of the Science of Religion

We now encounter pioneering scholars of so-called “religious science” or “science of religion”, which came to be associated with the term world religion. As the West continued encountering other religions, serious comparative researchers on different mythologies, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, was struck by the remarkable similarities found in all regions, including Christianity.

For example, when the Jesuit father Matteo Ricci took residence at the court of Emperor Emperor in China, he very nearly converted to Confucianism. Roberto di Nobili, a jesuit too, had a similar experience in India among the Hindus and Buddhists. The reason behind these experiences was the discovery of real civilizations and wisdom of China and India, which included art, ethics, literature and sacred texts, particularly the Vedas.

The encounter with Hinduism and other religions found in Asia led Frederick Max Müller to propose the science of religion. In his book Introduction to the Science of Religion, written in 1873, Müller believed that scientific study of religion, a less partisan approach, had a lot to offer than the path taken by most Christian theologians who aimed at proving their own religion true and all others false.

Unlike the proponents of animism, Müller and others suggested that religion is a system of ideas and practices well grounded in reality. Müller proposed that key to understanding religion, myth and other aspects of culture lay in language. He sought elements, patterns and principles that could be found uniformly in the religions of all times and places.

This approach systematically gathered various facts about the customs, rituals, and beliefs of all religions throughout the world for the purpose of comparison and accounting for similarities and differences noted in religions so far encountered. Through comparative method, this school of thought believed they could trace back beyond the individual religions, a much more ancient system of ideas - a truly primitive religion from which others are derived.

The study of comparative philology (linguistics), according to Müller and others, revealed that forms of speech in India and some of the European languages had a common origin, a single ancient people.

Lesson 14 – Naturism and Primitive Religion

The pioneers of “religious science” in their attempt to show that all religions are equal, sought to connect the origin of religion to naturism. Philological studies led to the conclusion that religion began when ancient people reacted to the great and powerful workings of nature. This is not so different from what Taylor had proposed years earlier.

Müller on his part concluded that nature awakens in humans, an overwhelming sensation of the infinite that surrounds and dominates them. In his estimation, it is from the sensation of the infinite that religion finds its origin.

In the natural processes such as sunrise and sunset, the ancient people experienced a dim perception of the infinite and the sense of a single divinity behind the world. So in his estimation, again, this is how the rudimentary idea of religion started. Unfortunately, according to Müller, since speech language could not grasp the Real, the ancient people personified things.

For example, for the Greeks, the word “Apollo” once simply meant “Sun”, while “Daphne” referred to “dawn”. Over time, the simple original meanings were forgotten. Since the words used, it was speculated, were nouns with either masculine or feminine gender, and because they were used with verbs expressing activity, the names for natural objects gradually became personal beings.

Consequently, due to the “disease of language”, words meant to describe nature and hint at the infinite power behind it, degenerated into silly stories of many different gods. Thus, the birth of mythology. The conclusion, therefore, is that mythology is rooted in human experiences and reality. You may remember that Taylor had talked about dreams as the source of myth and religion.

Naturist theory concluded that for Asian people the body and forces of nature were the original source of religious feeling. The sensations that natural phenomena induce in humans and with the marvelous workings of language, such sensations are transformed into religious reflections and other-worldly ideals. As such, religion is born out of the reflections on nature.

So the argument goes, the chief purpose of religion is to express the forces of nature through language and thoughts. For the proponents of naturism, religion was born to ensure harmony between human beings and the material. What this means then, is that religion finds its meaning in hallucinatory images that have only a verbal existence, and believes woven by mythology.

Let us pause for a minute and ask:

1. If what Müller and others suggested is true, why has religion survived?

2. Why does religion persist on despite breakthroughs in science?

3. How does one account for the stable and permanent systems of ideas and practices that make up religion?

We will continue probing on these questions as we move on.

Lesson 15 – Religion as Alienation

In this lesson we encounter yet another European militant atheist who made the claim that religion can be explained as an evolution from the dynamics of class struggle. We will also encounter other Western scholars of the 18th century who dismissed religion as a great error invented by priests.

Scholars who argued against religion maintained that religions persisted because of the deft art of the priestly class to deceive the masses. Karl Marx is one of those who agreed with this position and argued that religion existed only because the priestly class existed too. Meaning, without the priestly class religion would die.

He also argued that all aspects of social structure including religion, spring from economic framework. Marx was quite dismissive of religion as pure illusion originating from the longings of the oppressed. His understanding was that without the economic framework of oppression, there would be no religion. There would be no religious longings because people would be satisfied with what they have through mere effort.

For Karl Marx, religion was nothing else but “the opium of the people” that makes them “high” so that they can forget their sorrow and their pain.

In essence, what religion does, just like in the case of the sick or the suffering, is to function as a tranquilizer which momentarily lessens pain, suffering, or even sorrow. As such, instead of religion giving freedom it paralyzes! It imprisons the workers and particularly those that are oppressed.

I want you to think with me a little bit about what Karl Marx proposed.

1. If it is true, how could this deception be perpetuated throughout the course of human history?

2. Does it mean that 85% of the world population live in delusion or in a pleasant illusion? This is something that the Marxist or Marxists needed to answer.

Lesson 16 – Religion as Illusion

In this lesson, we meet others, other than a Karl Marx, who in their quest to understand the religion gave priority to issues of human psychology and personality. Several psychoanalysts presented a dim view of religion as an illusion rooted in dysfunctional personality. In this category, we find that Karl Marx was not alone in arguing that religion is a human creation.

Psychoanalysts suggested that in the real world, honoring the material exists and that the supernatural is imagined by humans. Such is the case of the Australian born psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, who described religion as a collective fantasy, a “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity” - big words simply saying religion is all made up.

Freud concurring with what Tylor's position, argued that religion is the experience of dreams, which lead primitive people to believe in souls. According to Freud, human dreams in ancient times attracted curiosity among people of the world, as evident in myth, legends, folklore, literature, and magic. His position was that beyond the conscious and the preconscious level of mental activity there lies another level at different region of the mind that is deep, hidden, huge and strangely powerful - the realm of the unconscious.

Freud's contention was that the unconscious mind is not only the source of human, most basic physical urges like desire for food and sexual activity, but it is also the area of extraordinary assemblages of ideas impressions and emotions associated with everything an individual has ever experienced all done or wished to do?

Though the conscious mind is unaware of the urges that bled with images, impressions and trace memories of past experience deposited in the unconscious, these urges exercise a powerful indirect influence on all that we think and do.

For Freud, religious ideas do not come from a God or gods - for gods do not exist. Indeed, religious beliefs are erroneous and irrational, so Freud argued. He concluded religion arises merely from human emotional needs.

Powerful emotions, contradictory feelings of both love and aggression, do not only lead to religion, Freud argued, but also serve as the origin of morality and social contract.

So, out of those emotions, people will act and people will believe and even live their moral life. For Freud, religion provides childlike security and assurance by projecting onto the external world a God, who through his power dispels the terrors of nature and give human comfort in face of death.

Religious beliefs give humans a God powerful enough to protect them from the terrors of life and will reward or punish for obedience or disobedience to social norms.

Freud came to further conclusion that religious beliefs are mere superstitions and illusions born out of people’s infantile insecurity, neurotic guilt, and hate. Meaning that any religious encounter is not out of the divine but mainly out of guilt.

Freud maintained that mature people allow their lives to be guided by reason and by science, not by superstition or faith.

What Freud was arguing was not new, because long before Freud, a German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach argued that deities are simply projections. Gods are made up - people project the idea of God for certain reasons - psychological reasons. According to Feuerbach, human beings objectify qualities and emotions of power, love and wisdom to an imagined cosmic deity.

On his part, Psychoanalyst Eric Fromm argued that humans have a need for a stable frame of reference and that religion fulfills this psychological need. So basically what the psychoanalysts were arguing is that many have been drawn to religion because of the discomforting sense of being alone in the universe. Religion is not real, it is imagined just as fears and guilt are.

Lesson 17 – Totemism

What we have seen so far, is that many theorists attempted to explain religion by way of seeking to understand religious origins. In this lesson we encounter yet another doctrine that connected religion to human social evolution: totemism.This school of thought held that religion is the result of a long process that begun with events lodged deep in the human past.

Towards the end of the 18th century, another school of thought on the origin and nature of religion emerged in America, and this is what we are referring to here is totemism. This school of thought considered totemism to be the most primitive religion that ever existed in any human Society of the world.

Totemism explains the evolution of totem and the process of apotheosis to a high God. Apotheosis refers to the elevation of something to the status of God. The term comes from the Greek word apotheoun – “to make a God, or to deify”. The term implies a polytheistic conception of gods, while it recognizes that some individuals cross the dividing line between gods and men. It is the elevation of historical persons and heroes to deities before or after the death of such beings.

The term totem first appeared in John Long's book Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader, which was first published in 1791. In 1841, George Grey published an article suggesting that similar practices existed in Australia. Unfortunately, like all other theories that we have encountered, the theoretical framework on totem was informed by observations and thought coming from the biased Western ethnographers, sociologists, and anthropologists looking into the lives of the so-called “Primitives”.

To understand and explain religion, it was argued one had to first discover the constituent elements of religion as found in the simplest over-investigated Australian totemism. This followed the prevailing ideology of evolutionary thought that continued to hold the belief that the explanation of complex human phenomena requires the examinations of their simpler form of existence. Meaning that, to understand complex societies one needed first of all to go to the so-called “primitive” societies and investigate how they lived their lives and such investigations would reveal how even those complex societies developed.

Anthropologists, who were always thought to be objective, decided that the first aspect or characteristic of totemism that one needed to investigate is the clan. The basic idea here is that when the social structures of the Native Americans and Native Australians are investigated and analyzed, they reveal one major organizing principle: the Clan. Clan here is taken to refer to a social structure composed of individuals who claim to be joined together in a very special bond of kinship. Western travellers and anthropologists, among others, claimed that those of the same clan receive each other as family, collectively designated and given a name or word (emblem) that represents the family.

Lesson 18 – Totemism as Primitive Religion

We now consider the term totemism and how it fits in in the larger definition of religion. Researchers that we have encountered, particularly those coming from the Western world, concluded that the name that clan bears (emblem) is also the name of that particular clan. Totem is thus defined as the definite species of material thing, mostly animals or plants that is collectively accepted to have a designated special relations of kinship with the clan itself. For example, in the case of the Native Americans, an eagle, or with the Aborigines of Australia, the kangaroo.

Each individual member of the clan has the same totem just as it is with the whole clan. Each clan makes exclusive claim to its own totem and no other clan can make a claim to another clan’s totem. The relationships that develop claim mutual obligations among members, including obligations to assistance, not to intermarry, vengeance, mourning, among other issues that may arise within the community.

Then how did totemism become a religious tool? Researchers claimed that a totem (as a clan emblem) was not just a tool of social organization, it also carried religious meaning. This religious character is revealed in religious ceremonies in which things are classified as sacred or profane in relation to totem's religious character, given to it by the community. The totem, thus, becomes a material and external sign that represents something deeper and sacred than what is seen – totemic being.

Totemism, then, on an evolutionary scale, speaks of that totemic thing or an animal becomes a sacred being. It is also emblematic of all things that belong to a clan. Consequently, all of the things in this clan that the totem is emblematic of shares the totem’s character. They also share the same religious character of the totem – every thing in the clan is thus sacred.

Later on, in the evolutionary development of religion, gods appear which are individually assigned a particular category of natural phenomena according to its totemic progenitor. Totemic being in advance state becomes a religious representation of the universe. Individuals or things are elevated to become gods or what we are referring to as apotheosis.

That is not all. The religious or sacred character in totemism is said to derive from a common principle that pervades:

1. the totemic emblems

2. the people of the clan

3. the individuals of the totemic species.

This totemic principle is referred to as Mana. This totemic principle is:

a) Anonymous and impersonal force.

b) The force is independent of the particular thing it embodies.

c) It preexists and survives all.

d) Ever present, living, and unchanging.

Therefore, at the source of totemic religious thoughts are the impersonal powers or anonymous forces known as Wakan or Orenda in North America and mana in Australia.

The forces can attach to words, gestures and material things.

They are comparable to physical forces whose manifestations are studied through natural sciences.

They also have an important role in the development of religious ideas – the god-principle.

These forces can only be defined by their efficacious effects.

The other characteristic of totemic principle that we have encountered is apotheosis. We find in this characteristic the ancestor spirits that are forged images of individual souls and that are then transformed into impersonal forces through which the seeds of religions.

The idea of the soul thus serves to orient the tribal mythological imagination creating mythic personalities to form a unified “whole” represented in the idea of a high God, thus apotheosis.

The visiting anthropologists also observed that despite the evolution of the totemic principle, the general idea and mythology remained limited since they are deeply embedded in the tribal feeling i.e. the need as a human society to relate socially.

It is interesting that the so-called simple-minded “primitives” could develop such a complex social and religious system that only the learned Western scholar or “Science of religion” could name, classify, and organize it into a more coherent system such as totemism (as developed by various scholars like Emile Durkheim in their texts such as The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.)

One of the many contradictions that we encounter is that the Western theorists rationalized by arguing that the “primitives” did not have the mental capacity to imagine and interpret their own religious beliefs with relative clarity that such an analysis would require. “Primitives” had the mental capacity to develop complex religious thoughts that only the learned Western elites could interpret and make coherent.

Lesson 19 – Religion as a Comprehensive Program of Human Salvation

Sociologists have also not been left out in defining and explaining religion. They have been interested in religious experiences, researched on the conscious religious motives that may account for religious behaviors such as worship, devotion, ritual and belief.

In this module we will discuss religion as a comprehensive program of human salvation. Among the sociologists who chose a different approach in the definition of religion is the German sociologist, Max Weber.

In his Sociology of Religion, Max Weber observed that most religions tend to offer a comprehensive program of human salvation as a plan for the final peace or deliverance, either in this world or beyond the earth. Weber, proposed two ways of salvation that are discernible in most of religions of the world.

First, he identified religious traditions that sought salvation through human effort. Through ritualized action, such as in the case of ascetics seeking self discipline, engage in a spiritual struggle that demands of all their strength to overcome weakness and resist temptation. Included in this category are seekers such mystics who see themselves as God's instrument. Max Weber suggested that mystics see themselves as vessels that receive spirituality rather than instrument that actively achieve that spirituality. They seek to lose their self through a passive, contemplative, spiritual posture as in case of yoga. Weber identified a second group within the first category i.e. those who seek doing good spiritual works as in the case of Buddhists, Christian monks, Pharisaic Jews, Sufi mystics, and Puritans.

The second category that he identified are those who receive salvation as a gift. Salvation is only given from outside and in this view humans can do utterly nothing to achieve salvation. Salvation arrives as an unmerited gift earned by a divine savior, such as in the case of the Buddhist bodhisattva, or Christianity's risen Christ. Salvation may come as a divine grace, bestowed in response to a simple, heartfelt, and utterly personal faith as seen in Islam and some Protestant churches. Salvation can also be received as an institutional grace, such as the absolution given the sinner by a priest in the Roman Catholic confession.

Weber also observed that salvation may come to certain people and not to others through a mysterious act of divine predestination, as in case of Islam and the Protestant Calvinists.

So what is the end goal? Beside the categorization of religious experiences, Max Weber suggested that one of the main problems that religion has to deal with is the question of the mystery of evil or what is referred in theology as theodicy. Theodicy in this case refers to the need to explain how any idea of ultimate goodness can fit together within a day today world that is so deeply flawed and filled with suffering. Weber suggested three ideal types as responses that religions offer to in response to the problem of evil.

In the first instance, evil will be solved either within this world at some future time when justice at last will triumph as in the case of early Judaism or outside of this life in another realm or a future existence, when all will be made right, as in the case of later Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The second way that Weber suggested that religion deals with the question of evil is that God or the universe is simply inexplicable because human reason can never fathom ultimate questions as in the case of Islam and also as found in the Jewish and Christian Text of the book of Job.

The third way that Weber suggested is the coexistence of two ultimate realities in the universe, either good or evil, as in the case of ancient Zoroastrianism and Daoism (Taoism).

Weber equally identified other spheres of life impacted by religion. Such is the case of religion positively recognized in the common rule of kindness to neighbors, which appears almost universally as the doctrine of charity and giving of alms.

Religion can also be negatively received, as in the case of deep seated distrust or usury in some religious traditions.

We should also not lose sight of the tension and compromise in the arena of politics, human sexuality, and art.

Equally important in is the observation that marriage in many religious traditions is received primarily as a legal rather than an erotic or romantic institution. In almost all religions, women are assigned secondary status or roles.

Lesson 20 – Religion as a the “Sense of the Numinous”

I am sure by now you are able to see how defining religion is quite elusive.

In this lesson, we meet yet another Western scholar who defined religion as the “Sense of the Numinous”. Rudolf Otto was among the first to revise or reject the evolution theory of religion. Instead, Otto suggested that religious experience has something distinct and unique, evident even in “its most primitive manifestations”.

In his critique on the western idea of God, Otto surmised, “so far from keeping the non-rational element in religion alive in the heart of the religious experience, orthodox Christianity manifestly failed to recognize its value, and by this failure, give to the idea of God a one sidedly, intellectualistic and rationalistic interpretation”.

In his estimation, Otto saw the misconception as coming as a result of understanding of the term “holiness” only as an attitude that is morally absolute – “completely good” (a sanctity of duty or law which is universally obligatory). As a result, Otto suggested, the misconception led to what he called “schematization” (e.i. rationalization and moralization) of the term “holy” (a process that gradually shaped and filled it with ethical meaning) robbing it “unique, original feeling-response”.

The beginning point for Otto is that one had to understand the term “holy” as it was defined in its original intent (mainly in Latin, Greek, Semitic, and other ancient languages). In this case, the term “holy” did not include any “ethical element” or “rational aspect”. In order to capture its original meaning, Otto coined the term “numinous” from the Latin “numen” to refer to the definitive state of mind which is always found whenever the term “holy” is applied.

The “numinous” is the human object of search, desire, and yearning, known only by way of direct and living experience. Meaning that to understand religion, one has to understand this direct and living experience rather than trying to rationalize it. The experience of the “holy” as the sense of “numinous” brings forth two general responses in a person - Mysterium Tremendum:

1. a feeling of great awe or even dread,

2. a feeling of great attraction.

When one comes into the presence of that which is “a mystery, inexpressible, and above all creatures”, several things happen:

First of these is Mysterium Tremendum: The experience of the Mysterium is both tremendum et fascinans i.e. a mysterious something that both frightens and fascinates at the same time.

Tremendum: Otto held that one of the specific elements found in the numinous is the “creature-consciousness or the creature-feeling” i.e. “the emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above or creatures”. The submergence into nothingness grips or stirs the human mind with a determinate affective state, meaning that when one comes to the presence of this awesomeness, one is left with nothing else but absolute adoration.

Accordingly, one is filled with overwhelming dread or terror - numinous dread or awe (the element of awfulness) - wholly distinct from the feeling of being afraid.

Religious dread (“awe”) forms the starting point of the religious development.

The second feeling is what Ott called Majestas: “the element of absolute, overpoweringness” - bringing in the “feeling of one's own submergence of being, but ‘dust and ashes’ and nothingness” - the raw material for the feeling of religious humility.

Eventually, this feeling leads to what he called “identification” of the self with the transcendent Reality.

Beside Tremendum is the idea of fascinans: beyond the overwhelming dread lies the element of fascination which is a living factor in the idea of salvation, found in almost all of the world religions. In some religions, the fascinans or the idea of fascination is experienced as:

1. The eschatological promise of the coming Kingdom of God.

2. The transcendent bliss of Paradise.

3. An entry into the beatific reality that is beyond the world.

4. The ultimate and highest part of human nature.

All these are experiences that are found in different world religions. Otto argued that a spontaneous experience of being grasped by Reality is the essential basis of religion. At one time or another in people's lives, most human beings encounter something truly extraordinary and overwhelming.

At this point, people feel gripped by a reality that is “wholly other” than themselves (a peculiar moment of consciousness): something quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible, and the familiar, filling the mind with wonder and astonishment. The “wholly other” is something mysterious, awesome, powerful, and beautiful (the experience of “the holy”) - an encounter with the sacred (the transcendent and the supernatural).

Otto concluded that these responses in turn give rise to the whole gamut of religious beliefs and behaviors. In a reflecting upon the spiritual and the world, religions formulate teachings, philosophies, dogmas, and systems. Eventually religion is born.

Lesson 21 – Idea of Comparative Religion

In this lesson, we encounter other theorists who believed that religious ideas, beliefs, and attitudes stand at the center of human experience. For this group it is not just religion that needs explanation. Through the study of religion one can equally understand all other human activities. One of such scholars is Romanian Mircea Eliade who proposed a more nuanced approach to religion.

He argued that the phenomenon of the sacred, in all its complexity and even its irrationality, needed to be examined fully. For Eliade, while all religions of the world are not one and the same, the essence of religious experience is unique, comprehensible, and not delimiting as many other theorists before had suggested. As such, one has to recognize the autonomy of religion, not as a mere product of some other reality.

More profoundly, the intuition of the sacred, which is the opposite of the profane, remains a permanent feature of human thought and activity. For this reason, Eliade observed that life can be changed by sacramental experiences, and that symbols are the key to any spiritual life. He also noted that a deeply felt form of spiritual life has been in existence since the beginning of the human society. Accordingly, human awareness of the sacred becomes possible only because the sacred “manifests itself as something wholly different from the profane” – hierophany (i.e. something sacred showing itself to us - the manifestation of sacred reality through history.)

In an encounter with the sacred people feel in touch with something otherworldly in character, a reality that does not belong to our world. Eliade also believed that people, feel they have brushed against a reality unlike others they have known. They experience a dimension powerful, strangely different, surpassingly real and enduring.

Therefore, given the centrality of religious experiences, Eliade proposed what he called phenomenology of religion, to study in-depth the sacred aspects of religion. The term phenomenology, from the Greek phenomenon i.e. “appearance” gave Eliade the idea that comparative study of religions is important because it helps us see religion in its form or appearance in which it present itself to us.

Comparative study of religion is the discipline that attempts to understand and compare religious patterns found around the world. It involves an appreciative investigation of religious phenomena in order to comprehend their spiritual intention and meaning. This is a more satisfying approach to the region, even though it has its own downsides. Comparative study of religion helps us understand, historically, the religious experiences of all human beings. It takes seriously the study of the ancient simple, rural or person folks who viewed the world as an unbroken cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Eliade recognized that to the ancient mind, things sacred and eternal are related to the mysteries of agriculture.

As in the case of Durkheim, Eliade also proposed that there are two modes of being in religion: the profane and the sacred.

He defined the profane as:

a) the everyday world of seemingly random, ordinary, and unimportant occurrence.

b) vanishing and fragile.

c) the arena of human affairs.

d) changeable and most times chaotic.

On the other hand, the sacred is:

the realm of the extraordinary, apparently purposeful but generally imperceptible forces.

a) eternal, full of substance and reality.

b) the sphere of order and perfection.

c) the home of ancestors, heroes, and gods.

Eliade also proposed two other terms that help explain religion: immanent and transcendent.

The idea of immanent is that experiencing of reality as present in the world, the reality and divinity present in the world today.

The transcendent, on the other hand, is a belief that reality exists outside of the material universe: God is out there!

The concern of religion, then, is with the supernatural (the sacred).

Symbolism is the other phenomenon that Eliade suggested. Symbolism plays an important role in the religious life. If we want to understand religion, we also needed to understand its symbols. Through a symbolism, the transcendent becomes apparent and known to humans.

Comparative study thus helps identify the fact that while the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane is helpful in understanding region, we must as well be aware that not all religions and cultures make these distinction.

Lesson 22 – Religion as a Cultural System

In this lesson, we encounter Clifford Geertz, who discredited any theory that reduced religion to the product of hidden neurosis, social needs or economic claims. In order to understand religion Geertz insisted, one has to first grasp the system of meanings that religion conveys. This American anthropologist presented religion as a cultural fact in its own right, not a mere expression of social needs or economic tensions.

In his opinion, through its symbols, ideas, rituals and customs, the influence of religion is present in every crevice and corner of each community that is religious. He saw religion as a system of symbols i.e. anything that carries and conveys to people an idea as in the case of Buddhist prayer wheel, event such as crucifixion, rituals such at Jewish bar mitzvah, simple wordless action, or a gesture of compassion and humility. In these we see symbolic actions that reflect meaning in the religion.

Geertz also suggested that symbols establish powerful, pervasive, and longstanding moods and motivations. As such, religion motivates or makes people feel things in a certain way and also want to do something in that regard. Such religious motivations have goals and are guided by enduring set of values - what matters to people (good and right.)

On the other hand, religious moods arise because religion occupies itself with the goal of giving ultimate explanations of the world. When people face things that they cannot comprehend intellectually, religion provides ultimate meaning (a great ordering purpose to the world.) In essence, religion offers solace when emotionally people face sufferings they cannot bear. Religion also offers a moral grounding. When people encounter evil which they cannot accept, religion marks out a sphere of life that has special status i.e. religious symbols claim to put people in touch with what is “really real”. In rituals, people are seized by the sense of this compelling reality. In rituals there is the symbolic fusion of what people want to do and feel they should do.

Geertz was essentially proposing that there are three main centers in any religious system:

i. society,

ii. individual psychology,

iii. symbols.

All of these three centers need to be investigated and understood. Until they are fully comprehended, one cannot fully argue that they understand religious systems or religious beliefs.

Lesson 23 – Dimensions of Religion (Part I)

In several of the previous lessons, we encountered Romanian Mircea Eliade who proposed a comparative approach to the study of religion. In his phenomenology of religion, Eliade identified several elements of religion that are common in many of the world religions. Before we move on to the final section of this course, let us pause for a moment and consider some of the important elements. These categories are helpful in comparative study of religion.

1. Sacred being: Religious experiences hinge on the acceptance or rejection of a sacred being or beings. Such being is held responsible for bringing forth (or consecrating) into existence the world and the universe, and this is the first of the many elements that we shall consider. Being or beings are believed to inhabit sacred spaces beyond the natural or profane world. The transcendent sacred spaces is the place where all existence and reality is said to have begun. In most of these religious traditions, it is from this sacred space that God or gods communicates sacred reality to human beings who seek religious renewal or religious experiences. There are different categories on beliefs in sacred beings:

a. Monotheism, which is the worship of a singular form of deity perceived as personal, father, friend, teacher and the beloved.

b. Theistic: This refers to religions whose beliefs are based on one's relationship to a divine being.

c. Polytheistic: those religions whose emphasis is on the many attributes and forms of the divine.

d. Monistic: this stand for religious traditions that seemingly worship multiplicity of deities. However, beneath such multiplicities, there is only one underlying substance. For example, Brahma in Hinduism.

e. Nontheistic: Buddhism is nontheistic. Non-theism refers to the Unseen Reality in non-personal terms such as “changeless unity”, “suchness” or the “Way” as in the case of Taoism.

f. Incarnation: There are others such as Christianity and Hinduism in which they hold onto the belief of incarnation. This is the belief in a sacred reality which is usually invisible, but occasionally appears visibly in human forms, and this is what is referred to as incarnation, or an incarnated being.

g. Atheism: Sacred beings are also experienced negatively, as in the case of atheism. This refers to the belief that rejects the existence of God or a deity.

h. Agnostics: who hold the idea that the existence of God cannot be proven. They do not reject the possibility of such an existence, yet they don't hold on to that kind of existence so firmly to it.

2. Mythology and myth-making: This is one of the essential elements of religious life as it is the case of almost all of wild regions. In almost all of the world religions, the idea of gods and spiritual beings are essentially mythic. Myth determines the features attributed to a deity. Devotion to a divine being are dependent of such features. Sacred history itself is actually relived in myths. Myths reflect on sacred history as revealed to the living beings. Whether just and sound or whether offending and disturbing, myths have some objective foundation. They are symbolic stories to explain the universe. They are also symbols put into narrative forms to explain sacred realities. Myth narrate how and why reality came into being. As we have seen previously, myths also tell stories of gods, ancestors, cultural heroes and the world of the supernatural. Myths, in many cases, are metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that is too complex and elusive. Sometimes it is difficult for people or believers, and more so for religious people, to accept this concept of myths. Once revealed myths become established truth, actually, absolute truth that is beyond dispute. Their main role in religion is to interpret existing rites rather than record or commemorate past events or history. In most cases, people assume that mythical events can be attested historically, but this is not the case.

Rituals: The third element of religion is what we have referred to as rites or rituals. Rituals are worshipful actions that are predictable and repeated rather than spontaneous. Religious rites or rituals help the worshipper to actualize human participation in the divine and in the divine drama. Rituals are used in worship, meditations, rites of passages, and pilgrimages by pilgrims who go to places such as Mecca, Jerusalem, and other sacred places. Rites help create a sacred atmosphere or a state of consciousness in order to approach the Ultimate Reality or the divine. Rites are usually conducted by priests or ritual specialists, or the worshipper themselves. Religious rites include recitation of prayers, chanting, singing, dancing, offering foods or fragrance to the divine, to gods, or to God. The most common of these, in almost all of the world religions, are the rituals of death and rebirth.

Lesson 24 – Dimensions of Religion (Part II)

In this lesson, we continue discussing the “dimensions of religion”.

4. Worship: The language of the sacred is found in worship. This is an expression of reverence and adoration among worshippers. Worship is an expression of reverence through rituals, prayers, thanksgiving, sacraments, and spiritual practices.

5. Symbols: The language of the sacred is also found in symbols as mainly a discussed by Geertz. These are images or symbols borrowed from the material world, which is the profane and used to speak to the deepest consciousness in regard to the sacred. Symbols are very specific, concrete and tied to daily experiences of the worshipper. They are rooted in the principle of likeness or the principle of analogy. Most of the symbols specifically speak of things that happen in peoples lives. For example, the symbols of sexuality, cycle of birth, and death and how they relate to their religious experiences of people. The symbolic action of royal substitutions is another example that we can give, where sacrifice of a “pretend” king as a substitute is given. Another example is that of a scapegoat which is taken to represented sin and sickness of a community. The goat is usually banished and represents the death of a god.

6. Sacred Texts: Sacred texts are either written or oral, and they have the power to inspire or influence behavior, and people claim them to have come from above or given by gods or God. Important among these are the Vedas in the Hindu tradition, the Gita, the Christian Bible, the Torah, and many others. Sacred texts are crucial in the formation of people's perception of reality, their own reality, and the reality of the divine. Followers of religion treat sacred texts as authoritative and as expressions of the revelatory experience of who God is and what God demands of the community of faith. As already mentioned, some religious traditions accept sacred texts as heavenly books delivered to humans by God or by other divine beings, as in case of Islam, where Muhammad received the text directly from angel Gabriel. Sacred writings also contain laws mainly for liturgical, ethical, and legal use, as in the case of the 10 Commandments or the laws of Moses as given to the Hebrew people and also accepted by Christians as revealed by God. Some religious traditions, of course include great oral traditions, which are usually a body of lore functioning as scripture. Basically, majority of these written texts started off as oral traditions.

7. Institutions: religions, through rituals, doctrines, and myths organize themselves into institutions that are mainly used to carry on the traditions of beliefs and practices that have been revealed to a community. Institutions are usually manned by ministers who dispense sacraments and perform rites to those who fall under their jurisdiction. The most common one is the priest who pronounces forgiveness, mercy and also give sacraments to the community. Some religious traditions hold institutions as formal, hierarchical structures for administration and leadership, as in the case of the Roman Catholic Church’s institution of Pope or papacy. Institutions also include marriage, places of worship, statutes, buildings, sacred grooves, among others.

8. Ethics: Religions teach wisdom, right and wrong, ethical attitudes of love and compassion. All these are very important in the organization and in the social structures of most religious institutions. Some institutions hold distinct moral attitudes toward politics, work, economic activity, and the environment.

9. Contemporary Issues: Religion also deals with contemporary issues such as:

a. role of modern science as in the case of creational creationism or the question if we intelligent design and Darwinism.

b. Breakdown of humanity has led to what we usually refer to as apocalyptic symbolism within many religious traditions.

c. Great massive outbreaks of evil and most importantly the oppressed people of the world have used religion to counter some of these evils.

d. Ecologists and environmentalists, likewise, do attempt to use religion to answer to some basic questions of ecology and environment.

e. In the Western cultures we have found that there are continued struggles between those who seek “religious orientation” and those who move away from religion leading to “secularism”.

Lesson 25 – Empathetic Approach

This lesson brings us now to the main objective of this class e.i. empathetic approach. Theoretical pre-suppositions over the years have increasingly come under intense scrutiny. Newer approaches to religion have been proposed. Insight into a specific religion can best be provided through dialogue between practitioners (insiders) of that particular religion and outsiders.

There has broadly been two major viewpoints which tend to ignore or dismiss the claims of most practitioners of religious traditions. These two viewpoints are:

1. The Confessional approach to religion;

2. Scientific study of religion.

The confessional approach primarily focuses on defending the truth of one’s own tradition. The followers scholars within a particular religious tradition write about their own religious truth and experiences. They don't pay attention or even time to think about other religions. In this approach, the practitioners defend their own faith while critiquing or even condemning other faith traditions. The main aim in this approach is to defend ones own theological tradition and use categories that are uniquely understood within their religious tradition, and therefore see no need to explain other religious traditions to their followers. The practitioner in this regard find no concern, or they find no reason for them to listen or learn about the intricacies of other religious traditions which they usually see as misguided or demonically inspired.

The confession approach has found definitive expression in some of the largest world religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam. The general consensus among theologians and historians in these religious traditions are that their religious ideals and values express the highest in human moral and cultural achievement, and therefore see no need of following or even trying to understand or seek to understand other religious traditions. As such, Islamic and Christian civilizations are believed to be the only one destined to endure, and everybody else would either submit or finally come to destruction in the end. The confessional approach tends to focus only on the differences between faith traditions and ignores any similarity or any good. Those of the other faiths, as we have seen, are usually categorized as pagans, infidels or heretics. Some in these traditions also hold the idea that one cannot place science alongside religion without one destroying the other. Even though, the confessional viewpoint is very important to the followers, it is so limited in very many ways.

The second approach is the Scientific approach. In this viewpoint, in order to uncover the true form of religious life, one has to penetrate beneath observable features of religions and analyze the basic elements that all religions share or derive from each other. The scientific approach, or what is known as “historical comparative method”, tries to be more objective. The approach focuses on comparative description of religious things, practices, prayers and scripture.

This approach seeks to compare practices in various religions. Even though it strives to be objective, sometimes as we have already seen, the approach describes a religion differently than the adherent or the followers of that religion would want.

In many instances religions from the non-Western world are not fairly treated most of the time. Followers of a tradition thus described do not accept the descriptions imposed upon them.

These two main approaches that we have considered so far have led many other scholars to argue that there is a different way that is more nuanced, that is more considerate, and allows the other traditions to speak for themselves rather than having other people speak for those traditions. This is the approach that we are referring to as Empathetic approach, which will be the main point of discussion in the coming lessons.

Lesson 26 – Empathetic Approach: Practical Interfaith Engagements (Part I)

To build knowledge that is helpful in interfaith practical engagement. One has to develop awareness of religious diversity and religious issues in his or her own community. Such an awareness helps us put into practice our vision, knowledge and skills of interfaith engagement. This calls for practical interfaith engagement. We need to develop areas of knowledge to help us to foster interfaith dialogue and to bring people together for the common good of our society. Building up this knowledge takes time and effort.

For example, let us assume you are a manager of a company that has several employees who are Muslims. How might the month of Ramadan affect such Muslim employees? Awareness of the Muslims in your company would help you note the obvious, that Muslims who are fasting might not necessarily desire unwarranted attention as they go about their daily experiences. Issues like these allow you to take time to support the need of your Muslim employees, possibly before Ramadan begins.

Giving close and thoughtful attention to religious relevance of current events prepares us to engage constructively when new conversations or conflict arise from such events. For example, how would an affirmative court ruling on same sex marriages affect your conservative African Christian business partners?

This can be accomplished through empathetic approach, which tries to remedy the weaknesses in both confessional and scientific approaches by stressing the need to listen closely to the “insiders” of traditions that are different from our own faith tradition. The “outsider” seeks to gain appreciative understanding of the “insiders” perspective. Then the “outsider” either confirms his or her perspective or modify it after having been influenced by the “insiders” perspective. Meaning that you are empathetic towards the understanding of the “insider” rather than you imposing your own understanding of that which the “insider” believes.

The empathetic approach then involves the process of “passing over” to the “insiders” perspective and then “coming back” to evaluate what is learned and compare it with the previous held perspective on the particular religion. We must note that empathetic approach does not exclude confessional concerns or scientific approaches, but it seeks to integrate them and apply them together and in the context of dialogue with the “insider’s” perspective of a tradition.

Empathetic approach takes religion seriously as a major player in shaping culture. In this approach, there is also an admittance that religion influences government, politics, families and daily habits of our lives. This is why it also accepts that religion has assumed great political significance in today's world, as in the case of Mahatma Gandhi and the late Dr. Martin Luther King junior. We also have examples of religion affecting societies negatively as a source of conflict, as in the cases of now-ended wars in Ireland and also in Sri Lanka.

Empathetic approach also admits religion provides a code of behavior with almost every major religion promoting a tenant resembling the golden rule of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This is seen very well in Confucianism and also in Christianity.

We shall consider now three practical ways of engagement that empathetic approach offers those who study the religion:

a) appreciative knowledge,

b) scriptural reasoning,

c) dialogue.

To begin with, appreciative knowledge helps us actively seek out and find out what is beautiful and admirable in other faith traditions. We no longer pay attention to the deficits or deficiencies, problems, and the ugliness of other traditions. Instead, we begin to recognize the contributions of such traditions. Appreciative knowledge empowers us to work effectively with those that are different from us. We may not necessarily agree with the beliefs and practices of someone else, but having an appreciative knowledge of their tradition means that one can work to understand their point of view, their values, and their religious context. The more we know about our religious tradition or the more appreciative knowledge we have about our religious group, the more likely we are to have positive attitude towards them and in turn to develop relationships with members of that group.

Appreciative knowledge equips us with the skills to address rising issues and help us to be better prepared to offer suggestions and solutions. Appreciative knowledge impacts our choices and our engagement in religious conversations.

Appreciative knowledge also leads us to seek a better understanding of our own religious or ethical traditions. In the end, we develop an explicit ethic or theology of interfaith cooperation.

Lesson 27 – Empathetic Approach: Practical Interfaith Engagements (Part II)

The second practical way of engagement is through scriptural reasoning, which is a form of interreligious dialogue. Scriptural reasoning is a practice of interfaith reading of sacred texts. Scriptural reasoning is best defined as,

“a tool for interfaith dialogue, whereby people of different faiths come together to read and reflect on their scriptures. Unlike some form of interreligious engagement, scriptural reasoning is not about seeking agreement. About anything rather than exploring the texts and their possible interpretations across faith, boundaries and learning to disagree better, the result is often a deeper understanding of others at once own scriptures as well as the development of strong bonds across faith communities. Scriptural reasoning is now practiced globally, including places affected by religious related tensions and conflicts.” (Source: http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/)

It was first developed at Cambridge University and later at the University of Virginia in the USA. In scriptural reasoning, people of different religious traditions come together to read and reflect on their scriptures. It offers several benefits:

1. First, it brings together people of different faith to explore their scriptures and possible interpretations across religious boundaries.

2. Secondly, it can be used by religious leaders as well as laypeople, in interreligious contexts and dialogue.

3. Scriptural Reasoning also results in deeper understanding of the other.

4. It helps the insider to appreciate and deepens understanding of his or her own sacred text.

5. It also promotes stronger bonds across people of different faith.

6. It empowers individuals to build religious understanding in their neighborhoods.

The third practical way of engaging in interreligious cooperation is through dialogue. We have different forms of dialogue:

a) The first of this is the the dialogue of life where people strive to live in an open and enduring neighboring spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, human problems and preoccupations. They do this with people of other faith, and not just the people of their own communities.

b) The second form of dialogue is the dialogue of action in which people of diverse religious backgrounds collaborate for the integral, development and liberation of people.

c) We also have the dialogue of theological exchange where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective theological heritages and to appreciate each other's spiritual values.

And finally we have the dialogue of religious experience. This is where persons rooted in their own religious traditions share their spiritual riches. For instance, with regard to prayer and contemplation, faith, and ways of searching for God or the Absolute.