Prelude

In the Beginning: Religion Basics

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looking at a broad definition of religion

Discovering the power and purpose of ritual

Recognizing the universality of religious ethics

Understanding the attraction religion has for so many people

Knowing how religion differs from philosophy and spirituality

Looking at how people of faith prove the existence of God

Divining the nature of God, gods, and goddesses

Searching for answers and maintaining faith

If you travel to some remote part of Earth and find a group of people who had never met anyone outside their tribe, you'd discover that these people have some type of food, shelter, and language. The group would also have some kind of religion, which is one of the basic parts of human life.

This chapter helps you understand what defines a religion; what the main components of a religion are; and how religion differs from other approaches to life - such as spirituality and philosophy - that, on the face of it, sound an awful lot like religion. Understanding religion helps you understand what it means to be human.

Defining Religion

You can say that religion is a belief, except not all beliefs are religions. (Your Aunt Martha may believe that her potato salad is the best in the world.) You can narrow that definition and say religion is a belief in God. Well, that definition covers monotheistic religions (those that believe in one god), but it doesn't cover the religions that believe in many gods (polytheistic religions) or religions that believe in a chief god and other, lesser, gods and goddesses (henotheistic religions). You could say that religion is a way of behaving - being decent to others and caring for your environment; but not all decent, responsible people are religious. You could say that religion is the belief in the truth. But what's the truth? Different religions have different understandings of what is "true."

Basically, the definition of religion includes all of these definitions (expect for the potato salad, maybe): A religion is a belief in divine (superhuman or spiritual) being(s) and the practices (rituals) and moral code (ethics) that result from that belief. Beliefs give religion its mind, rituals give religion its shape, and ethics give religion its heart.

Every religion has a belief system. Beliefs are the ideas that make any religion what it is. Of the three elements that make something a religion (beliefs, rituals, and ethics), beliefs are the most important because they give rise to and shape the ethics and the rituals of a faith. Each religion teaches or expounds its own truths about the world and humanity and God (or gods) as those truths are seen by that particular faith. These beliefs also explain how a religion's followers achieve salvation or enlightenment and why these are important goals for their spiritual journeys. From these fundamental beliefs flow the beliefs that establish authority and explain how the leaders of organized religions rightfully exercise the power of that authority.

Through these belief systems, religions teach their truths about life and death, suffering and hope, and whatever comes after death. These beliefs give meaning to the lives of the religion's followers and sustain hope in the face of suffering and loss.

A religion's theology (its religious teachings, or doctrine) and its stories connect the beliefs. A religion's theology is its handbook of beliefs (although many theologies are not even written down). Theology is important because it puts a religion's beliefs in an order that people can understand. Some religions, such as Christianity (see Book 5) and Islam (see Book 6), have a long tradition of theologies that are complex and sophisticated. Other religions - such as Judaism (see Book 4) and Hinduism (see Book 1) - use stories, not systematic theologies, to convey their beliefs. For this reason, pinning down the essential beliefs of Judaism or Hinduism is much more difficult. Yet, other religions, such as Buddhism (see Book 3), combine both.

Whether or not religions use theology or storytelling as the main way to teach, their beliefs depend on the following:

• Their history: Both Judaism and Hinduism are very ancient and developed before contact with the Greeks, who first organized beliefs into a system. In the ancient faiths, stories convey beliefs, and the impulse to yank the beliefs out of the stories and put them down in some systematic order would have been an insult to the sacred texts.

• How they define membership: Tribal religions define members of the faith not by belief but by blood. Many Native American religions are like Judaism in this respect. You have to be born into the tribe or culture in order to share the faith of the tribe. If you're born into a tribal religion, what you believe doesn't matter very much; you're a member whether you like it or not and whether you believe in the religion or not.

  In contrast, belief-oriented (open) religions, like Islam and Christianity, seek converts. These religions need to have clear and easily identifiable theologies because people need to understand the religion's beliefs in order to join up. A good example is the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet" (which can also be said other ways, like "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is his messenger.") This simple and powerful statement of belief is all you have to say to enter Islam and become a Muslim.

Acting It Out: Religion and Rituals

Rituals are important to religions because they provide a tangible way for believers to experience their faith. Beliefs are the province of your mind, but rituals get the rest of your body into the act. Through rituals, religions take physical form. These practices give texture and taste, form and function to a religion.

Religious rituals

• Establish the sacred calendar and its holy days.
• Set the ways followers celebrate the passages in life.
• Focus the mind in a spiritually disciplined way.

Religious rituals are also often limited to the people who make up a particular religion. In fact, many religions specifically forbid those of other faiths from practicing their traditional rituals:

• When Judaism instructs Jews to light candles on Friday night, it's a ritual meant especially for Jews.
• When some Christian groups, such as Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, offer Holy Communion (also known as the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist), only their members can receive it.
• The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, is only for Muslims. Non-Muslims are not even allowed to visit Mecca.

Happy holidays to you

Holidays are basic religious rituals and one of the main ways that religions define themselves. Whether these days are called festivals, holidays, holy days, or something else, religions celebrate or note a particular event that's important to them and mark it in a specific way. (See the related sidebar titled, "Sacred calendars," later in this chapter.)

Following is a sampling of important religious observances:

• Easter: This holy day (which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion) is the most important holiday for Christians; Christmas (the day celebrating Christ's birth) is another big one, but Christians have a whole slew of other holy days. Learn more in Book 5, Chapter 2.
• Ramadan: In addition to other dates of note, Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan (see Book 6, Chapter 4 for more on Ramadan) and celebrate the night that the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and descended into hell (a trip he made so that he could tell Muslims about the rewards and punishments that awaited moral and immoral people).
• Passover: An important holy day for Jewish people, Passover commemorates God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Another Jewish holiday is Hanukkah, which celebrates the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem. Learn more in Book 4, Chapter 3.

Rites of passage

The rituals that accompany the rites of passage are another way that religions define themselves. In every religion, rituals surround the milestones of life: birth, adulthood, marriage, childbirth, and death. These rituals recognize (and even enhance) the importance of these events. As such, they serve as rites of passage that help their followers make the transition between what came before and what comes after.

Rites of passage accomplish the following:

• Connect the followers to their ancestors, their traditions, their beliefs, and their duties and reinforce the religion's beliefs about the way life begins, progresses, and ends.
• Help reinforce the value of the family as a primary religious value (one of the main tasks and purposes of religion).

So important are these rituals that, many times, people who don't live particularly devout lives (that is, in strict accordance with the tenets of their faith) return to their religions to...