What is Religion?
In studying different religions, we may well begin with the question "What is religion?"
for thousands and thousands of years, humans have pondered about the nature of their existence,
the place they occupy in the universe as well as the meaning of human life and death. Today,
we tend to look at religion as separate from the rational modes of thinking, but
until as recently as three hundred years ago, science and religion were very much
linked together in the ways people examined life and the universe.
According to John Bowker, religions may be viewed in terms of
"communities of people who share practices and beliefs . . .and who
gather in special buildings for worship or meditation, and who live in
special ways in the world."1
Some religions have a central belief in one God (i.e. mono-theistic religions),
others may have several or no gods as such. Worship of a deity or deities,
however, forms only a small part of most religious practices--different religions
may require regular visits with prescribed rituals to temples, synagogues or
churches. Some require meditation, fasting, entering into trance states or even
inflicting physical pain. Still others may place a heavier demand on ethical
behavior in this existence rather than upon a future paradise or heaven after
birth.
Bowker explains that the word "religion" itself is derived from the Latin word
religionmeaning "something done with over-anxious or scrupulous
attention to detail" and from the verb religare which meant "to bind things closely together."
In this regard, religion may also be regarded as "a social practice that bind
people in common practices and beliefs."2
Religions for the most part enable as well as regulate communities of people.
Furthermore, religions provide humans with the means by which lives may
acquire meaning and purpose. Religions enable humans to explore their inner
and outer worlds by providing intellectual frameworks or epistemologies within
which they may delve into questions about the meaning of life, about life and
death and so forth. In many religions, these explorations into what people
commonly refer to as "the deeper questions" are accompanied by rituals,
such as prayers and meditational practices such as yoga or the Zen practice
of zazen. Rituals including liturgies, pilgrimages and festivals, may thus be thought of as actions that when repeated and regulated in predictable ways confer a sense of order, meaning and predictability upon what would otherwise be an unpredictable and thus frightening existence.
From the sociological standpoint, religions also serve to regulate human
behavior by predicating rules that protect communities from disintegrating into chaos.
Sexual taboos, food taboos, rules pertaining to the dos and don'ts of different
aspects of human life such as marriage, gender roles, property rights etc.,
all play an important part in ensuring the survival of human communities.
One of the most important functions of religions is to provide the intellectual frameworks--epistemologies, or ways of looking and thinking about the universe--that guide human actions. Inevitably, how humans view the world shape the ways in which we act, live and die. These frameworks as Bowker notes, offer different communities "a shared picture of reality" 3 and a common ground upon which decisions can also be made in secular life. A codified belief, for instance, in the secondary importance of women thus translates into secular, legal, and, or, cultural practices where women may be placed in a less advantageous position.
Religions are also characterized by cosmologies--world pictures--that
serve to explain a range of topics such as the origins of the world and
human existence, the place of humans in the universe, the after-life, heaven
and hell or the place of the gods. The information regarding these topics
may be transmitted not only in words but are done so also through symbols,
pictures, art, gestures, colors and sounds. One of the important means of
transmission that may be found in all religions is the narrative or story.
Story-telling not only explains a community's views about the topics mentioned,
but lays down the tenets or guidelines by which individuals are able to
learn how to function as members of a particular community.
End Notes:
1 John Bowker, World Religions:The Great Faiths Explored and Explained
D and K Press, 1997, p.6.
2 Bowker, p. 6.
3 Bowker, p. 9.
