Introduction

Understanding religions takes time.

The Importance of Religion

Eighty-five percent of the world's population is religious-roughly 6.9 billion people. This means that religion shapes and justifies much of what goes on in the world. To understand religion is to understand people. To understand religion is to understand today's world.

When people go to war, when they make peace, when they buy and sell, when they start families, and when they honor their dead, they do so in ways influenced by religion. Here are some examples that have important political or economic implications: Almost one-fourth of the world's population (1.9 billion people) does not eat pork or drink alcohol for religious reasons. Another 1.4 billion people do not eat beef. Many countries have a national religion, display religious symbols or colors on their flags, or require their citizens to pay a religion tax. In the United States, sessions of Congress begin with prayer; the outcome of national elections is influenced by religious organizations; tens of thousands of churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are exempted from paying taxes; and in the grocery store, many foods carry a religious mark or symbol (Figure I.1).

Figure I.1 Many foods at the grocery store bear a mark of religious certification. The "circle U" on this jar designates the approval of a Jewish organization called the Orthodox Union. The "D" signifies that the product contains dairy, and hence should not be eaten with meat.

Source: Will Deming.

Knowledge of Religion

Despite religion's considerable presence and influence in the world (Figure I.2), most people know little about it. Maybe this is not so surprising. Most people know little about their own language. Religion, like language, is something people use but rarely think about-it is simply a given of their world. But even when people do ponder religion, it is usually their own religion that comes to mind. Most Roman Catholics, for example, know little about Islam or Hinduism. Most, in fact, know little about other forms of Christianity. And the same is true for Baptists and Methodists, and for different types of Muslims and Buddhists.

Figure I.2 Religion is a human activity practiced by about 85 percent of the world's population.

In the United States, several legal and social norms actually discourage people from learning about any religion beyond their own. The American principle of separation of church and state has limited the extent to which religion is studied in public schools, while the secular nature of American society promotes the idea that religion is a private matter, unsuited for public discussion. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was even popular to single out religion as one of two topics that people should avoid in polite conversation-the other being politics.

Beyond this, the absence of a national religion in the United States encourages religious diversity. Today, more religions are practiced in the United States than in any other country. But with so many smaller religious circles carrying on internal conversations of their own, a larger forum for the public discussion of religion has been slow to materialize. Historically, Christians and Jews have had little interaction with one another; Roman Catholics and Protestants have also kept to themselves; and the various Protestant denominations have more often than not established their identities by highlighting their differences. The unifying factors that now promote the public discussion of religion are fairly recent to the American scene. Ecumenical movements, the notions that most Americans practice an "Abrahamic religion" or share a common "Judeo-Christian" value system, and the adoption of the phrase "In God We Trust" as the national motto go back no further than the previous century.

Finally, the importance given to science in the United States often marginalizes religious perspectives on social and economic issues. In legislatures and boardrooms across the country, it is now a matter of course to demand that someone "do the science" before addressing an issue. By contrast, it is rarely appropriate to ask that someone consider the religious or spiritual dimensions of an issue-that is, "do the theology."

A Closer Look

Approaching Religion

Not everyone interested in religion practices religion-some people are insiders and some are outsiders. Religious adherents and theologians are insiders. Those in the first group practice a religion; those in the second both practice a religion and seek to understand, explain, and articulate how that religion works. Students of religion, by contrast, engage in the academic study of both religion and religions from the outside, often by comparing several religions. They can practice a religion in their private lives as well, but they are rarely theologians.

Understanding Religions

The purpose of this book is to provide an objective approach to learning about and analyzing religions. It is one thing to know facts about a religion-its history, its size, its geographical distribution, and its principal beliefs and practices. It is quite another thing to understand a religion: to appreciate why a particular religion is so appealing to some people; why it makes sense to its adherents; and how it works as a system for defining and achieving human aspirations. This sort of understanding gives us insight into how religious people view the human condition and what motivates them to live as they do.

Defining Religion and Religions

There are many ways to define religion. Typical definitions include things like:

• a system of beliefs and moral behavior,
• faith in God, and
• the worship of supernatural beings.

While these definitions may be helpful in discussing certain religions or certain aspects of religions, they are not broad enough to cover all the religions we will study in this book. As a consequence, we must take a more inclusive approach, defining religion as orientation to what is supreme or ultimate in one's life.

A definition such as this is necessary because of the tremendous variation we find among the religions of the world. The word "orientation," for example, is flexible enough to account for the innumerable ways in which people practice their religions (pilgrimage, sacrifice, dancing, acts of kindness, storytelling, devotion, etc.). Likewise, the use of "what" in the phrase "what is supreme or ultimate" is necessary because the focal point of some religions, such as brahman in Hinduism or nirvana in Buddhism, is neither a thing nor a being. Indeed, according to some Buddhist teachings, nirvana may, in fact, neither exist nor not exist. For this reason, each of these is best designated as a "what." Finally, the phrase "supreme or ultimate" is needed because, while "ultimate" accurately describes the Muslim God and nirvana, it would distort African and Oceanian views of the divine world in a way that "supreme" does not. The difference is a subtle but indispensable distinction between what is most important and what is more important than anything else could ever be.

Given this definition of religion, we may define religions (the plural) as discrete systems or traditions of orientation to what is supreme or ultimate-for example, Buddhism and Islam (Figure I.2).

The goal of orienting oneself to what is supreme or ultimate is to make one's life more real, more true, and more meaningful, and in every religion this requires the use of symbols. While everyday English uses the word symbol to mean something that "represents" or "stands for" something else, it is important to think of religious symbols as tools. This is because religious symbols do not just represent something, they do something. They enable religious people to achieve their fullest potential in life by linking them to what is supreme or ultimate. Lighting a candle and placing it in front of the statue of a god does not simply represent wisdom or divine light. Rather, it nurtures a relationship with a divine being who is accessible through the symbols ("tools") of the candle and the statue. Likewise, prayer does not "stand" for anything. It is orientation to deities by speaking to them.

This raises an important question: what qualifies a candle, a statue, or a prayer as a religious symbol? As we will discover, many things serve as symbols: words, objects, images, sounds, motions, rituals, foods, animals, clothing, buildings, mountains, rivers, and much, much more. Even so, not just anything can be a symbol for a particular religion. Because each religion has its own understanding of what is supreme or ultimate, each will also have its own set of appropriate words, objects, images, etc. If what is supreme or ultimate comes through enlightenment, as in Buddhism, then meditation will be an appropriate tool for orientation. But if it comes through establishing balance and harmony in an ever-changing cosmos, as in...