The Religion Toolkit E-Book

John Morreall

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 768

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

This complete overview of religious studies provides students with the essential knowledge and tools they need to explore and understand the nature of religion. * Covers the early development of religion, with overviews of major and minor religions from Islam to Scientology * Considers recent developments including secularization; the relationship between religion and science; and scientific studies on religion, health, and mystical experience * Uses humor throughout, allowing students to remain open-minded to the subject * Explains what it means to study religion academically, and considers the impact of the study of religion on religion itself * Contains numerous student-friendly features including photos, maps, time lines, side bars, historical profiles, and population distribution figures * Provides classroom users with a lively website,www.wiley.com/go/religiontoolkit, including questions, quizzes, extra material, and helpful primary and secondary sources

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES AND MAPS

TIMELINE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CREDITS

1 INTRODUCTION

PART I THE TOOLS

2 AN OVERVIEW OF RELIGION

Overview

Explaining Suffering and Evil

Explaining Death

The Importance of Order

The Role of Ritual

Conclusion

3 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Overview

Sociology

Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies

Scriptural (Biblical) Studies and the Impact of the Printing Press

The Rise of Modernity and New Academic Disciplines: Oriental Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology

Negative Views of Religion

Sociology of Religion

Conclusion

4 RELIGIOUS STUDIES IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Overview

Back to Philosophy

Philosophy of Religion

Anthropology of Religion

Sociology of Religion

Psychology of Religion

Conclusion: Theories and Methods

PART II USING THE TOOLS

5 EARLY TRADITIONS

Overview

Prehistoric Religions?

The Neolithic Revolution and the Rise of Historic Religions

Conclusion

6 THE FAMILY OF WESTERN MONOTHEISMS

Overview

The Torah, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament

The History and Teachings of Judaism

The Rituals of Judaism

Judaism Today

The History and Teachings of Christianity

Christian Rituals

Christianity Today

The History and Teachings of Islam

Islamic Rituals

Major Divisions Today

Biblical Studies

Theology

Conclusion

7 330 MILLION GODS – OR NONE

Overview

Hinduism and Buddhism

Hinduism

Buddhism

Conclusion: Religious Studies and Indian Traditions

8 BALANCING AND BLENDING: CONFUCIANISM, TAOISM, AND BUDDHISM IN CHINA

Overview

The Tao, Yin and Yang

The History of Chinese Religious Thought

Confucius (551–479 BCE)

Taoism

Buddhism in China

Chinese Folk Traditions

Rituals in Chinese Traditions

Chinese Traditions Today

Conclusion: Religious Studies and the Traditions of China

9 ZOROASTRIANISM, SHINTO, BAHA’I, SCIENTOLOGY, WICCA, AND SENECA TRADITIONS

Overview

What Makes a “World Religion”?

Zoroastrianism

Shinto

Baha’i

Scientology

Wicca

The Traditions of the Seneca

Conclusion: To Be or Not to Be a Religion?

10 CLOSING QUESTIONS

Overview

Can We Define Religion?

Secularization?

Other Issues

Conclusion: Another Surprise?

GLOSSARY

INDEX

This edition first published 2012© 2012 John Morreall and Tamara Sonn

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morreall, John.The religion toolkit: a complete guide to religious studies / John Morreall, Tamara Sonn.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-8247-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4051-8246-1 (paperback)1. Religion—Study and teaching. 2. Religion—Research. I. Sonn, Tamara. II. Title.BL41.M625 2011200—dc22

2011010576

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs 9781444343700; mobi 9781444343724; ePub 9781444343717

FOR JORDAN

Wherever we are,

whatever the tune,

we dance in the light

of the very same moon.

FIGURES AND MAPS

Figures

1.1

“That’s what they all say, honey”

1.2

A temple of Ganesha

1.3

Ostara, Goddess of the Dawn

1.4

Slave

1.5

Pope John Paul II

2.1

“Actually, I preferred ‘Heaven’ too, but then the marketing guys got a hold of it”

2.2

Luca Signorelli (1450–1523), The Resurrection of the Dead

2.3

Victor Vasnetsov, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death), 1887

2.4

Hammurabi before a god

2.5

Prayer for the auto industry

3.1

“Theologian? You guys are always fun”

3.2

Aristotle

3.3

Baruch Spinoza

3.4

Max Müller

3.5

Edward Burnett Tylor

3.6

Cargo cults

3.7

Karl Marx

3.8

Sigmund Freud

4.1

“I had a nice chat with my trainer today about Allah”

4.2

Mircea Eliade

4.3

Rangda the Witch, mask, Bali

4.4

Rats at Karni Mata, “Rat Temple,” in Rajasthan, India

4.5

William James

5.1

“Couldn’t be a man. Must be a god!”

5.2

Caves in Lascaux, France

5.3

Face in rock – Mars

5.4

Nun Bun, Tennessee 1996

5.5

The Makapansgat cobble/pebble

5.6

Rock person, Morocco

5.7

Venus of Willendorf

5.8

Image from a cave in Ariège, France, of a man/stag, painted and engraved about 13,000 BCE

5.9

Photo of shaman

5.10

Wall carving from the Temple of Horus at Edfu in Egypt

6.1

“I’m calling it ‘Genesis.’ It’s part of a five-book contract”

6.2

Clay figure of Asherah

6.3

Yochanan Ben Zakai Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City

6.4

First page of the Babylonian Talmud

6.5

Rebbe Menachem Schneerson

6.6

Moses Mendelssohn

6.7

At his Bar Mitzvah ceremony, a young man holds the Torah Scrolls

6.8

Statue of Jesus Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janiero, Brazil

6.9

Woman baptized in the Jordan River

6.10

Inhoc signo vinces

6.11

Greek Orthodox priests, Palm Sunday procession

6.12

Indian Muslims praying

6.13

A page from a 14th-century Qur’an

6.14

Mevlevis, known as Whirling Dervishes for their spinning spiritual dance, are followers of Rumi

6.15

Pilgrims walking around the Kaaba in Mecca during the Hajj

6.16

Rudolf Bultmann

6.17

Sculpture of Romulus and Remus suckling under a wolf

6.18

The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky

6.19

Farid Esack

6.20

Rosemary Radford Ruether

6.21

Amina Wadud

7.1

“I imagine serenity’s pretty much the same, one season to the next?”

7.2

Men conduct ritual for Durga, who is worshipped during Navaratri

7.3

Arjuna and Krishna

7.4

Woman bending backwards – hatha yoga

7.5

Statue of Sarasvati outside music college in Puttaparthi

7.6

Shiva as Lord of the Dance

7.7

Shaivite with marks on forehead

7.8

Vaishnavite with marks on forehead

7.9

Dalits, Untouchables, at an anti-government rally, 2006

7.10

Carvings on the outside of Khajuraho temple

7.11

Students celebrating Holi

7.12

Mohandas Gandhi

7.13

Sculpture of the Buddha near starvation

7.14

The Great Stupa at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh in India

7.15

Buddhist laypeople putting food into the bowls of monks

7.16

Statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon with blue sky

7.17

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the best known representative of Vajrayana Buddhism

8.1

“Nothing happens next. This is it”

8.2

Help one another, for we are all in the same boat – old Chinese saying

8.3

Part of a giant traditional Chinese landscape painting: A Trip to Hills and Lakes in Spring by Chen Minglou

8.4

Yin–yang

8.5

An oracle bone with writing on it

8.6

Lao Tzu, riding his legendary “green” buffalo, Chinese, 18th century

8.7

A painting of Confucius, Lao Tzu, and the Buddha together by Kano Masonobu, 1480

8.8

Meditating frog, painting by Sengai

8.9

Traditional Chinese wedding

8.10

Mao Zedong

9.1

“Put up with thy neighbor”

9.2

Wiccan Beltane Fire Festival, Edinburgh, spring 2008

9.3

Freddie Mercury

9.4

A Zoroastrian priest starts a fire as part of Sadeh, the ancient feast celebrating the creation of fire

9.5

Kami kaze – “the wind of the kami” or “divine wind”

9.6

A Shinto shrine with a torii gate

9.7

Dizzy Gillespie

9.8

Baha’i temple in Wilmette, Illinois, in the U.S.

9.9

The Hubbard Professional Mark Super VII E-Meter

9.10

Calling the elements (earth, air, fire, water, and aether) – part of a Wiccan ritual of handfasting (marriage)

9.11

The Wiccan pentagram

9.12

Dancers from the Allegany and Cattaraugus Reservations of the Seneca Nation of Indians perform at St. Bonaventure University’s first Native American Heritage Celebration in 2008

9.13

Portrait of Red Jacket by John Lee Mathies, oil on canvas, 1828

10.1

“I guess this is where we part ways”

10.2

A megachurch service, Katedral Mesias, Jakarta

10.3

Pilgrims visiting the grotto at Lourdes, France

10.4

A mystic in India

Maps

6.1

Map of the Ancient Near East

6.2

Map of the Roman Empire – East and West

6.3

Spread of Islam in the 1st century

TIMELINE

3000–1500 BCE

Cities are built in the Indus Valley.

c.2100 BCE

Abraham is called by God.

c.2000 BCE

Jacob, a descendant of Abraham through his son Isaac, is born; later he is called Israel. Thus the descendants of Abraham through this line are called the people of Israel (or Israelites).

c.1900 BCE

Joseph, a son of Jacob, is sold into slavery in Egypt. The Israelites eventually become captives there.

c.1766–1046 BCE

The Shang Dynasty.

c.1440 BCE

Led by Moses, the Israelites leave Egypt and after 40 years settle in the land of Canaan. During the trip, the Exodus, God describes himself to Moses as Yahweh.

1200–900 BCE

Early Vedic Period – the first Vedas are compiled.

c.1046–256 BCE

The Zhou Dynasty.

c.1010 BCE

David becomes king of the Israelites, and makes Jerusalem his capital.

c.970 BCE

David’s son Solomon becomes king and later builds a temple in Jerusalem to honor the God of Israel.

930 BCE

After Solomon’s death, his kingdom is divided into a northern kingdom led by the tribes of Israel and a southern kingdom led by the tribe of Judah.

900–600 BCE

Late Vedic period – the religion of the Brahmins emphasizes sacrifice and social obligation.

800–300 BCE

The 11 major Upanishads are written; they include the ideas of reincarnation and karma.

722 BCE

The kingdom of Israel is destroyed by the Assyrians.

612 BCE

The Babylonians conquer the Assyrians.

c.604 BCE

Lao Tzu is born.

586 BCE

The Babylonians defeat the kingdom of Judah, capture Jerusalem, and destroy Solomon’s temple. Many members of the kingdom of Judah are taken into captivity in Babylon (the Exile).

c.566–486 BCE

Siddhartha Gautama is born, becomes enlightened, and preaches in India.

551–479 BCE

Confucius lives.

c.538 BCE

Many of the exiled members of the tribe of Judah return to Jerusalem, and begin the rebuilding of the temple.

c.486 BCE

The first Buddhist council meets.

c.383 BCE

The second Buddhist council meets, leading to divisions in the community.

371–289 BCE

Mencius lives.

369–286 BCE

Zhuang Tzu lives.

c.330 BCE

The Jews (as the descendants of the tribe of Judah are called) are conquered by Alexander the Great. Greek culture – Hellenism – starts to influence Jewish culture.

c.300 BCE

Buddhism spreads to Southeast Asia.

c.269–232 BCE

Indian emperor Ashoka the Great converts to Buddhism and rules over most of the Indian subcontinent. He sends missionaries to Sri Lanka.

c.250 BCE

The work of translating the Bible from Hebrew into Greek begins. This Greek Bible is called the Septuagint.

c.200 BCE–200 CE

The Laws of Manu are compiled.

1st century BCE

Buddhism enters China and Southeast Asia.

c.100 BCE

The Bhagavad Gita is composed.

63 BCE

Roman rulers defeat the Greeks, beginning 700 years of Roman rule of the land they name Palestine.

c.5 BCE

Jesus of Nazareth is born.

c.30 CE

Jesus begins teaching a new interpretation of the law of God to his fellow Jews.

c.32

Jesus is executed by the Roman rulers of Palestine.

c.48

The followers of Jesus hold a meeting in Jerusalem and accept Gentiles (non-Jews) into their community.

70

A Jewish rebellion against the Roman rulers ends with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

c.70

The first Gospel is written – Mark.

c.80–90

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are written.

c.90–100

The Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John are written.

c.150–250

Nagarjuna develops his Doctrine of Emptiness.

161–180

Under the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, there is widespread persecution of Christians.

175

The Five Classics, carved in stone, are displayed in China’s capital.

c.200

The Mishnah is compiled and committed to writing.

c.250

The third Buddhist council leads to split between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.

312

The Roman emperor Constantine defeats his rival, Maxentius, after having his soldiers paint a Christian symbol on their equipment.

313

Constantine issues the Edict of Milan, making Christianity legal in the Roman empire.

325

Constantine holds a meeting of Christian leaders (“ecumenical council”), at Nicea, to overcome disagreement in their interpretations. They agree on a list of beliefs known as the Nicene Creed.

350–650

The Gupta Dynasty rules in India. Buddhist philosophy and art flourish.

367

Saint Athanasius compiles a list of the 27 books now known as the New Testament.

381

At an ecumenical council at Constantinople, Christian leaders continue their debates and revise the Nicene creed to its current form.

4th century

Vajrayana Buddhism begins.

c.400

The Palestinian Talmud is completed.

Buddhism enters Korea.

431

Christian leaders meet at Chalcedon, and declare Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be Theotokos, “God-bearer,” “Mother of God.”

449

Pope Leo asserts the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over other bishops.

520

The Buddhist missionary Bodhidharma arrives in China.

527

Korea accepts Buddhism.

552

Buddhism enters Japan from Korea.

c.570

Muhammad is born in Mecca.

572–621

Prince Shotoku sponsors Buddhism in Japan.

c.589

Chinese Buddhist commentaries are written.

6th century

Burma accepts Theravada Buddhism.

600

The Babylonian Talmud is completed.

600s

Mahayana Buddhism is adopted in Indonesia.

c.600–650

Buddhism enters and spreads in Tibet.

c.600–1600

Devotional Hinduism becomes popular.

610

Muhammad receives his first revelation from God and begins to teach a new interpretation of the will of God.

618–907

T’ang Dynasty, the golden age of Buddhism in China.

Pure Land and Chan Buddhism develop.

622

Muhammad and his followers complete their emigration (hijra) from Mecca to Medina, marked as the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

630

Muhammad gains control over Mecca, and rededicates its shrine – the Kaaba – to the one God/Allah.

632

Muhammad dies. His close companion Abu Bakr is recognized by the majority as “Leader of the Believers.”

Muhammad’s companion Umar succeeds Abu Bakr as Leader of the Believers, and begins the process of expanding Muslim rule throughout the region.

638

Muslim forces defeat the Romans and take control of Jerusalem.

644

Muslims complete their defeat of Persian forces.

c.650

God’s revelation through Muhammad, known as the Qur’an, is committed to writing.

661

The Ummayads take control of the Islamic empire, establishing their capital at Damascus and continuing expansion of Islamic sovereignty.

700s

Buddhism becomes the state religion of Japan.

711

The Umayyads establish control of part of Spain.

732

Muslim westward expansion is halted at the Battle of Tours.

740

Mahayana Buddhism is established in Tibet.

750

The Umayyad dynasty (“caliphate”) is replaced by the Abbasids, who will establish Baghdad as their capital.

c.792–794

Indian Mahayana Buddhism is chosen as the form of Buddhism for Tibet.

800

Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III.

845

Chinese emperor Wu Tsang persecutes Buddhists.

early 900s

Korea institutes a Buddhist constitution.

1054

The Eastern Orthodox and the Western Catholic churches split.

1095

Pope Urban II authorizes the first Crusade to recover the “Holy Land” from Muslims.

1099

European Christian “Crusaders” capture Jerusalem.

c.1150

Buddhism is almost extinct in India.

1185–1333

Kamakura period in Japan.

Rinzai, Soto Zen, Pure Land, True Pure Land, and Nichiren Buddhism.

1187

Jerusalem is recaptured by a Muslim army led by Salah al-Din (Saladin).

1231–1259

Mongols invade Korea and destroy Buddhist scriptures.

1253

Mongolian leader Kublai Khan accepts Tibetan Buddhism.

1258

The Mongols destroy Baghdad and end Abbasid rule.

1360

Theravada Buddhism becomes the state religion of Thailand.

1392

Confucianism is made the state religion of Korea.

14th century

Theravada Buddhism comes into Laos.

1453

The Ottoman Turks conquer Constantinople and change its name to Istanbul.

1492

The king and queen of Spain expel Muslims and Jews.

1498

Europeans enter southern Asia with the arrival of Vasco da Gama.

15th century

Theravada Buddhism spreads in Cambodia.

1517

Martin Luther writes his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, Germany, beginning the Protestant Reformation.

The Ottomans claim leadership of the Muslim world.

1526

The Mughal Empire begins in India.

1534

The Act of Supremacy is passed – King Henry VIII becomes head of the English Church.

1536

John Calvin publishes his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

1545–1563

The Catholic Council of Trent meets to respond to the Protestant Reformation.

1578

The first Dalai Lama is recognized.

1617–1682

Dalai Lamas begin to rule Tibet.

1618–1648

Protestants and Catholics fight the Thirty Years War in Germany.

c.1700

The British East India Company is formed.

1722

The Saffavid Dynasty is established in Persia.

1730–1760

The “Great Awakening” – a revival movement among Protestants in the United States.

1757

British rule is established in Calcutta.

1828

The French take control of Algeria.

1844

The first Buddhist text is published in the United States, translated by Henry David Thoreau.

1857

The British take control of India.

The unsuccessful National War of Independence is launched by Indians against the British.

1876

Queen Victoria of England is declared Empress of India.

1895

The Vedanta Society is founded by Vivekananda, to promote Hinduism as a world religion and India as a single nation.

1897

The World Zionist Organization is formed in Basel, Switzerland, advocating emigration to Palestine and creation of a homeland for Jews in response to ongoing discrimination and persistent persecution of Jews in Europe.

1882

The British take control of Egypt.

1910–1945

Reformations of Korean and Chinese Buddhism.

1919

The British take control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq), and the French take control of Syria and Lebanon, betraying promises of independence made to Arabs in return for their assistance in defeating Turkey and Germany in World War I.

1920

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi starts non-violent campaign against British rule of India.

1931

Zen Buddhist Society is formed in New York.

1939–1945

World War II; culmination of persecution of Jews in Europe in the Holocaust/Shoah, leading to rapid escalation of emigration of European Jews to Palestine and, in turn, conflict with local inhabitants of Palestine.

1945

Religious freedom introduced in Japan.

1947

Britain partitions India into independent states for Hindus and Muslims. The Muslim sections are named East and West Pakistan, separated by over 1,000 miles. Both India and Pakistan are declared independent of Britain.

1948

The World Council of Churches is formed.

1949

The Chinese communist government begins suppressing religions.

1950

Tenzin Gyatso becomes the 14th Dalai Lama.

China invades Tibet and suppresses Buddhism.

1959

The Dalai Lama goes into exile.

1960–1965

The Roman Catholic Church is modernized by the Second Vatican Council.

1966–1976

The Cultural Revolution suppresses religion, traditional culture in China.

1971

Civil war results in the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan. East Pakistan becomes the independent country of Bangladesh.

1976

Death of Mao Zedong.

1989

The International Network of Engaged Buddhists is founded.

1995

The U.K. Association of Buddhist Studies is formed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR COLLEAGUES RAVI GUPTA AND KEVIN VOSE for their careful reading and valuable advice concerning our treatment of Hinduism and Buddhism. Continued gratitude, too, to friends and mentors John Esposito and John Voll for their unfailing inspiration and guidance.

We would also like to express deep appreciation for our William & Mary students; they demand and deserve nothing but the best from their teachers.

Most importantly, our publisher Rebecca Harkin deserves credit for this unique book. It was her idea and she encouraged us every step in the process of giving it life. Any blame due belongs to us alone.

JMTS

CREDITS

The authors and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book.

1.1

cartoon © Tom Cheney 1996/The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com.

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photo Stuart Forster/Alamy.

1.3

SLUB Dresden/Deutsche Fotothek.

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photo MPI/Getty Images.

1.5

photo © Rene Leveque/Sygma/Corbis.

2.1

cartoon © Lee Lorenz 1997/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

2.2

© Sandro Vannini/Corbis.

2.3

Museum of Religion and Atheism, St. Petersburg, Russia/The Bridgeman Art Library.

2.4

© Ivy Close Images/Alamy.

2.5

photo © Carlos Barria/Reuters/Corbis.

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cartoon © Charles Barsotti 2004/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

3.2

The Art Archive/Alamy.

3.3

Imagno/Getty Images.

3.4

Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

3.5

Granger Collection/Topfoto.

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photo Paul Raffaele/Rex Features.

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photo © Bettmann/Corbis.

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photo © Bettmann/Corbis.

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cartoon © Donald Reilly 1997/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

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photo Michael Mauney/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

4.3

photo J. Marshall – Tribaleye Images/Alamy.

4.4

photo Rafal Cichawa/Shutterstock Images.

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photo Paul Thompson/FPG/Getty Images.

5.1

cartoon © Al Ross 1989/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

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photo © Photononstop/SuperStock.

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photo © 1989 Roger Ressmeyer/NASA/Corbis.

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photo AP Photo/Nashville Tennessean/Bill Steber.

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photo © The Natural History Museum, London.

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photo Robert G. Bednarik.

5.7

photo Caro/Alamy.

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photo World History Archive/Alamy.

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photo Library of Congress.

5.10

photo © Luke Daniek/iStockphoto.

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cartoon © Mort Gerberg 1998/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

6.2

photo Z. Radovan/BibleLandPictures.

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photo AKG Images/Israelimages.

6.4

photo AKG Images/Israelimages.

6.5

photo Z. Radovan/BibleLandPictures.

6.6

photo Imagno/Getty Images.

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photo © CapturedNuance/iStockphoto.

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photo Mark Schwettmann/Shutterstock Images.

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photo Eddie Gerald/Alamy.

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photo © Hanan Isachar/SuperStock.

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photo Fredrik Renander/Alamy.

6.13

photo Christie’s Images Ltd./SuperStock.

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photo © Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis.

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photo ayazad/Shutterstock Images.

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photo Ullstein Bild/Topfoto.

6.17

photo javarman/Shutterstock Images.

6.18

photo Mark Lyons/Getty Images.

6.19

photo Kopano Tlape, University of Johannesburg.

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photo used with permission of Pacific School of Religion.

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photo © Albert Gea/Reuters/Corbis.

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cartoon © Donald Reilly 1997/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

7.2

photo Louise Batalla Duran/Alamy.

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photo © Frédéric Soltan/Corbis.

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photo Mehmet Dilsiz/Shutterstock Images.

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photo Tim Gainey/Alamy.

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photo © Paul Prescott/iStockphoto.

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photo Stuart Forster/Alamy.

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photo © imagebroker.net/SuperStock.

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photo Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images.

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photo © Prisma/SuperStock.

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photo © Jayanta Shaw/Reuters/Corbis.

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photo Dinodia Photos/Getty Images.

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photo Globuss Images/Alamy.

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photo © Hidekazu Nishibata/SuperStock.

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photo © imagebroker.net/SuperStock.

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photo © Prisma/SuperStock.

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photo Mike Flokis/Getty Images.

8.1

cartoon © Gahan Wilson 1980/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

8.3

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A part of Giant Traditional Chinese Painting6.jpg.

8.5

AKG Images/Erich Lessing.

8.6

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France/Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library.

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AKG Images/Ullstein Bild.

8.8

Idemitsu Museum of Arts.

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THE RELIGION TOOLKIT

1 INTRODUCTION

Prepare to Be Surprised

FIGURE 1.1 © Tom Cheney 1996/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com.

When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

BISHOP DESMOND TUTU

Religion is found around the world and may well be as old as the human race. Some of the earliest evidence of human life found by archaeologists seems to involve religious ritual. And throughout history human beings have developed a mind-boggling multiplicity of beliefs and practices that scholars recognize as religious. Today there are over 10,000 distinct traditions identified as religions, and many of these are divided into smaller groups called denominations and sects. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, Christianity alone includes over 9,000 denominations and over 34,000 sects. The diversity within some traditions is so extensive that some scholars do not even use terms like “Judaism” or “Christianity.” Instead, they speak of “Judaisms” and “Christianities.”

The sheer number of religious groups is only one of the surprises awaiting students of religion. Many are also surprised to discover how different learning about religion is from learning a religion. The goals and methods of the academic study of religion are quite distinct from those found in the devotional or normative study of religion. These are terms that describe the approach most people follow when they are taught their own religion. The scholarly approach to learning about religion is so different, in fact, that it is usually called Religious Studies, to distinguish it from the devotional or normative study of religion.

In learning a religion, people are trained to follow it. When people give children lessons in religion, these lessons are about their own religion (or denomination or sect or cult). This approach to religion is a kind of initiation into one tradition. Students are taught what their tradition considers true, so that they will be able to distinguish between that and what is false. And they are taught what their tradition considers right and wrong, so that they may do the one and avoid the other. They may learn some of the history of their group, but will probably spend more time learning stories, rituals, and prayers. If, in the process of being trained, they learn about other religions, it is often so that they will understand why their own tradition is right, and what is wrong with the teachings and practices of other traditions.

What is a Cult?

In ordinary conversation, we may say simply that some people belong to certain religions and other people belong to other religions. But in Religious Studies we make finer distinctions. Scholars have developed several terms to deal with the divisions and subdivisions within religions.

    According to the standard vocabulary, a church is a religious group that exists in harmony with its social environment, and is sufficiently institutionalized to be passed on from one generation to the next. The term “church” is technically appropriate only for Christianity; people of other religions have different terms for their groups and houses of worship. But “church” is used generically here, so that even Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism count as churches.

    A denomination is a subset of a church – also existing in harmony within its church and among other denominations, and institutionalized enough to be passed on through the generations. Again, scholars use the term “denomination” for subsets within all religions so that, for example, Reform Judaism is a denomination of Judaism, and Shi’ism is a denomination of Islam.

    A sect is a subset of a church that does not exist in harmony within its environment or church, although it may eventually come to be accepted within its church and develop institutions to survive generational changes, thus achieving the status of a denomination. An example is The Society of St. Pius X, started in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in opposition to recent reforms within the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop Lefebvre was excommunicated from the Catholic Church when he took upon himself the right to consecrate bishops – a right reserved for the pope. That was in 1988. But in 2009, the Church revoked the excommunication and started a process to integrate members of the Society of St. Pius X back into the Church.

    A cult is a religious movement that develops outside an established church structure and often exists in tension with socially accepted religious institutions. Scientology is considered by some authorities to be a cult, since it originated outside an established church structure. However, followers of Scientology have organized themselves sufficiently to survive and prosper since their beginning in 1953, and they refer to themselves as members of the Church of Scientology.

    While many scholars use these terms as defined above, some reject them as imposing concepts from Christianity onto other religions.

In Religious Studies, on the other hand, we are not trying to determine what is true or false or right or wrong about any religion’s teachings or practices. Our goal is to understand religious traditions, not be trained in them. In doing this, we examine many traditions that are identified as religions without judging any of them. We do study what certain traditions teach is right and wrong, and true and false, and why they teach what they do. But whether we agree with those teachings or not is not part of Religious Studies. When we study the teachings of a single tradition, we may well learn how they changed over time. There, too, we do not judge the truth or rightness of either the old or the new teachings. In other words, in Religious Studies we learn about diversity, both among and within religious traditions, but our goals and methods are like those of scientists rather than those of preachers.

A second goal of Religious Studies is to understand what religion is in the first place. And this holds still more surprises about the field. When you take a course in Accounting, you know that you will be studying how to manipulate numbers for specific purposes. When you sign up for Chemistry 101, you know you will be introduced to the tiny particles that make up the world we see around us. But when you sign up to study a religion other than your own, you may find yourself studying things that you were not aware could be considered religious.

If you think of your own religion as consisting of certain beliefs, rituals, and values, you might expect to study the beliefs, rituals, and values of the other religion. So it often comes as a surprise to students in Religious Studies courses that they may be studying history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and even economics. In Religious Studies we study these things, and more, because many traditions do not confine themselves to beliefs, rituals, and neatly identified values. Some traditions consider themselves simply a way of life, so that everything in life is subject to religious teaching.

Similarly, you may have grown up with the idea that religion is about what is holy or sacred, as opposed to what is worldly or secular. And so you may expect to find that distinction in other traditions. But, as just mentioned, many traditions consider all of life as the domain of religion, and so they do not use the distinction between sacred and secular.

Because the study of religion gets into so many areas, it is necessarily multi-disciplinary. Experts in Religious Studies may have their primary training in any of the fields mentioned above, or others such as Art History and Classics. And this wide-ranging approach to the subject matter of Religious Studies is also why there is so much debate within the field regarding what “religion” is.

The 19th-century German scholar who introduced the term Religious Studies (Religionswissenschaft), Max Müller (see Chapter 3), is often credited with saying “He who knows one, knows none.” His idea is that people who know only their own religion cannot understand the nature of religion itself, just as people who know only one language are not qualified to explain the nature of language itself. Asking someone who knows only one religion what religion is would be like asking a fish what water is. “Compared to what?” would be a reasonable answer. Not until we have at least two examples of something can we try to describe the category to which the two specimens belong.

As we shall see, trying to figure out just what religion is began as soon as scholars started trying to identify religions other than their own. Should tribal practices associated with healing in pre-modern societies be considered religious? In modern industrialized societies we generally leave healing to science, not religion. Should practices designed to influence the thoughts or feelings of someone far away be categorized as religion, or should they be called magic or superstition? Should stories about events that modern science says could not have happened be included in religion, or should they be dismissed as holdovers from a pre-scientific era? Is it even possible to distinguish religious stories from myths, or religion from superstition or magic?

This quest, to understand what religion is, is made even harder by the fact that many languages have no word that means the same thing as “religion” in English. Scholars are not even sure where the term “religion” came from. We know that its root is Latin, but what did it mean in early Latin? The 1st-century BCE philosopher Cicero traces the term to legere, to read, so that “religion” would mean to re-read (re-legere), but the 4th- to 5th-century CE Christian thinker Augustine traces the term to ligare, meaning “to connect or bind” (the same root as the English word “ligament”), so that “religion” would mean “to bind again” or “to reconnect.” Many modern theologians favor this etymology, seeing religion as something that binds a community together. However, A Latin Dictionary by Lewis and Short traces our modern meaning, “reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, [or] piety,” only to the 13th century CE. So what word might earlier Christians have used for what modern Christians think of as religion?

To complicate things further, the term that the sacred texts of Judaism and Islam use for “religion” means something quite different from any of the Latin roots for “religion.” This term is din. (It might also be counted as a surprise that in both Hebrew and Arabic, the languages of Judaic and Islamic scriptures, the term is the same. Hebrew and Arabic are closely related Semitic languages, and Judaism and Islam are very similar traditions.) Din can mean “judgment,” as in “Day of din” or “Court of din.” It can also mean “way of life.” What is more, the same term is used in modern Persian, but that usage is traced to Zoroastrian (the ancient religion of Persia) texts, where it means “eternal law” or “duty.” Similarly, the term from Buddhist texts that sometimes is translated as “religion” is dharma. But dharma does not mean what “religion” means in English. Dharma means “cosmic truth” or “the way the world is.” It also means the teachings of the Buddha, and “duty,” too. Dharma is used in Hinduism to mean both “ultimate reality” and human beings’ duties.

Scholars may not agree on exactly what “religion” means, but they generally agree that the term is too narrow to refer to all the phenomena that are examined in Religious Studies. As a result, many scholars use the term tradition rather than “religion.” This may be not only surprising, but confusing. By “tradition” Religious Studies scholars do not mean simply something that people do because it has always been done that way. We use the term “tradition” to refer to the amalgam of a group’s beliefs, rules, and customs insofar as they are associated with that group’s ultimate concerns, values, and ideas about the meaning of life.

Because of its interest in understanding what “religion” is in general, Religious Studies includes both historic and comparative elements. Religious Studies scholars examine traditions not just as they are now but as they have developed over time. This aspect of Religious Studies is known as History of Religions. The comparative elements of Religious Studies may involve looking at a single religious tradition in various historic periods, tracing any changes that developed. As well, it may involve studying a number of religious traditions within a single historical period. It may also involve comparing and contrasting the ways several religious traditions deal with a certain topic, such as salvation or war. This approach to Religious Studies is called Comparative Religions.

The historical and comparative approaches to the study of religious traditions lead to a number of other surprises for the new student. People who are used to religions that revolve around a single God may be surprised to find that some traditions involve many gods and some do not even require belief in a god. In Hinduism, for example, there are countless deities (gods) – 330,000,000 is the traditional number given. Some people worship one of them, such as Shiva or Vishnu, some worship several, and others turn to specific deities for assistance, depending upon the need at hand. The deities of some traditions may have a number of personas. The Indian god Vishnu, for example, can be worshipped as Vishnu, or as Rama, Krishna, the Buddha, or any of several other personalities. These diverse avatars are considered manifestations of the one god. Moreover, people who are used to conceiving of God in spiritual or non-material terms may be surprised to find gods that are quite physical. A popular god in India is Ganesha, who has the head of an elephant, with one broken tusk, and is variously depicted with two to sixteen arms.

In Western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a central idea is that God has revealed himself and certain truths to human beings, often through messengers called prophets. People who believe in divine revelation typically believe that the information transmitted in this way – or at least the most important parts of it – could not have been obtained in any other way. They also consider the written records (“scripture”) of that revelation to be extremely special (“sacred” or holy) and, in fact, perfect and absolutely true (inerrant, without error). However, if we assume that religions must include divine revelation, we have another surprise coming. Many traditions have texts that they consider sacred, even though these texts come from human sources. The Hindu Upanishads and Zoroastrian Avestas are examples. Moreover, other traditions, those of some Native Americans, for instance, have no sacred texts; they transmit their wisdom in oral form from one generation to the next. The Anishinaabe teachings shared by the Algonquin, Ojibwa, and other tribes of the United States and Canada hold regular meetings to recount, explain, and pass along their Midewiwin teachings in traditional stories (called aadizookaanan) to the next generations.

On a related theme, people who are used to orthodoxy – the idea that there is a single set of truths – will be surprised as well to find that in traditions such as Hinduism it is considered perfectly normal for some people to believe in one God, while others believe in several gods, and some believe in no god at all. Another way to put that is that, while some traditions are exclusivist – believing there is only one true religion, others are pluralist – believing that different people have different traditions and that each of them is legitimate. Religious pluralism can even extend to a single person. Monotheists – people who believe in one God – tend to think of each person as belonging either to one religion or to none, but in Japan, for instance, most people follow both Buddhism and Shinto – an ancient set of Japanese traditions. When Japanese people want to get married, they may go to a Shinto priest; to arrange a funeral they may go to a Buddhist priest. The same temple may house both of them. In China and Taiwan, people participate in Buddhist rituals, Taoist rituals, and rituals dedicated to local gods, and they also visit temples dedicated to Confucius.

FIGURE 1.2 A temple of Ganesha, one of the five most popular gods in India. He is worshipped as the Remover of Obstacles, and also as the Lord of Success. Ganesha is a god of knowledge and wisdom, and so a patron of the arts and sciences. Stuart Forster/Alamy.

As Religious Studies explores how various traditions have developed their worldviews, rituals, and rules, more surprises come to light. For example, we often find that a belief or practice we thought was unique within our own tradition is actually shared by a number of traditions. Christian students, for example, are often surprised to find that Muslims revere Jesus as a great prophet, and honor his mother Mary with an entire chapter of the Qur’an (Islamic scripture) named for her. Islam also shares with Judaism and Christianity the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the history of prophets from the time of Abraham forward.

Who Was Easter?

FIGURE 1.3Ostara, Goddess of the Dawn, by Johannes Gehrts, 1884, from Felix and Therese Dahn, Walhall: Germanische Gotter und Heldensagen…, 1901.SLUB Dresden/Deutsche Fotothek.

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the word “Easter” – the name of the most sacred day in the Christian calendar, the day commemorating Jesus’ resurrection from death – is derived from “Eostre,” the name of an ancient goddess of spring. According to Compton’s Encyclopedia, “Our name Easter comes from Eostre, an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess, originally of the dawn. In pagan times an annual spring festival was held in her honor.” So Eostre was a pre-Christian goddess venerated at the vernal equinox (beginning of spring). The Easter Bunny and the colored eggs at Easter also come from pre-Christian rituals to promote fertility. The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us, “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewal of life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of coloring and eating eggs during their spring festival.”

It is potentially even more stunning, especially for those from religions with divinely revealed scriptures, that a number of their beliefs are found in texts that pre-date those of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Scholars trace the story of Noah and the Flood that appears in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and Qur’an, for example, to the Gilgamesh Epic of Mesopotamia. In that story, the gods flood the earth, one man is told to build a huge boat, and he brings many kinds of animals on board.

Religious Studies also includes careful (or “critical”) study of scripture that often reveals how people’s understanding of their own texts has changed. For example, students are often surprised to find that the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) speaks of a time when there was more than one god, the gods intermarried with humans, and the babies they had were giants:

When mankind began to increase and to spread all over the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of the gods saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; so they took for themselves such women as they chose…. In those days, when the sons of the gods mated with the daughters of men and got children by them, the Nephilim [Giants] were on earth. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:1–4)

Not only does religious people’s understanding of what happened in history change, but their understanding of morality does too. To take a contemporary example, millions of Jews and Christians now work and shop on the Sabbath without giving it a second thought, but the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) condemns work and commerce on the Sabbath. Exodus 31:15 says that “[w]hoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.” In fact, many Jews and Christians took the Sabbath seriously until just a few decades ago, and did not work, or buy or sell things on that day.

Another issue that shows how a tradition can change over time is the morality of war. A book by John Driver is aptly titled How Christians Made Peace with War. He explains how, for the first three centuries, Christians followed Jesus’ injunction “Do not resist the evildoer. But if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other as well…. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:39–44). In the Roman Empire, Christians were well known for their pacifism, and they did not accept soldiers into their group. But then in the fourth century, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, and soon Christian leaders were talking about “just wars.” The 4th- to 5th-century Christian thinker Augustine developed a rationale for wars in order to justify attacking the Donatists, a group of fellow Christians who disagreed with him on some theological issues, and since then Christian scholars have elaborated justifications for war under certain conditions. Similarly, there is lively debate among modern Muslim scholars over whether war may be legally declared at all, and if so, under what conditions.

Is Slavery Wrong?

FIGURE 1.4 Slave.MPI/Getty Images.

All major traditions, including Christianity, now condemn slavery and consider it immoral, but before 1770 none did. John Newton (1725–1807), the Anglican priest who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” had earlier been the captain of a ship that transported newly enslaved Africans to slave markets in the Americas. He thought that the job of slave ship captain was spiritually enriching because of the long periods at sea. There was, he wrote, no profession that provided “greater advantages to an awakened mind, for promoting the life of God in the soul.”

In the Bible, God not only permits slavery but regulates it. In Exodus 21, right after God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, he says, “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free [after seven years] as male slaves do.” In the Christian New Testament, too, Paul says, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ” (Ephesians 6:5).

Actually, the whole history of religious traditions includes a lot of killing. Five hundred years ago, the rituals of the Aztecs included the sacrifice of thousands of people, followed by the eating of the corpses. Most of those killed were captives taken in battle. Here is anthropologist Marvin Harris’ account of an Aztec religious ritual:

Forced to ascend the flat-topped pyramids that dominated the city’s ceremonial precincts, the victim was seized by four priests, one for each limb, and bent backward face up, over a stone altar. A fifth priest then opened the victim’s chest with an obsidian knife, wrenched out the heart, and while it was still beating, smeared it over the nearby statue of the presiding deity. Attendants then rolled the body down the steps. Other attendants cut off the head, pushed a wooden shaft through it from side to side, and placed it on a tall latticework structure or skull rack alongside the heads of previous victims. (Harris 1989, 432)

After they had decapitated the corpse, they cut up the body and distributed it for eating. If these rituals seem brutal, consider the treatment of religious heretics and suspected witches in Europe at the same time: burning at the stake. Again, the point is that in Religious Studies we study not just what people currently believe and practice but also how beliefs and practices change over time.

As these examples show, Religious Studies is about far more than right and wrong, true and false – which are the main concerns when people learn about their own religions. Religious Studies also looks at what people actually do, and so it is not just about the holy and the noble. It is about religion as it is lived, including “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” In 1978, for example, a religious group of over 900 people from the United States who had established themselves in Jonestown, Guyana, committed mass suicide at the insistence of their founder, Jim Jones. In an article that has become widely known, leading Religious Studies scholar Jonathan Z. Smith criticized those who felt that Mr. Jones was too far out of the norm to require serious scholarly attention. Some even refused to talk about the event, Smith claimed derisively, “because it revealed what had been concealed from public, academic discussion for a century – that religion has rarely been a positive, liberal force. Religion is not nice; it has been responsible for more death and suffering than any other human activity” (Smith 1982, 104).

Some students taking their first course in Religious Studies may find this objective approach disturbing at first. They may feel that it is too relativistic because it treats every tradition as equally valid. Just as a zoology course might compare lions, tigers, and leopards, say, without asking “Which is best?” a major university offers a course called “God/s: a Cross-Cultural Gallery” that compares Yahweh, the God of the Bible, with dozens of other gods, without ranking them. Similarly, the British Library has an online gallery of sacred texts in which the Bible appears alongside dozens of other scriptures: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/sacred/homepage.html. While it is perfectly natural to feel uneasy when you first see your own religion treated as one among many, it is important to remember that Religious Studies does not preclude the belief that there is really only one true religion. Religious Studies only precludes teaching that any given religious tradition is the correct or incorrect one. These are personal convictions that may be described in the classroom, but not advocated in the classroom.

FIGURE 1.5 Pope John Paul II. © Rene Leveque/Sygma/Corbis.

The major lesson of this chapter, then, is that studying religions is like studying any other subject – with one exception. As with the study of any other subject, we have to be willing to look at surprising facts. We have to be ready to imagine what the world looks like to people who think quite differently from the way we do. The 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said that appreciating some literature required a “willing suspension of disbelief.” One could say that understanding other people’s religions requires a temporary suspension of belief – our own beliefs. This certainly does not mean that scholars of religion must abandon their own beliefs. It only means that we must not make them the standards by which to judge others’ beliefs and practices. As one of the greatest scholars of religion in the 20th century, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, said,

We have not understood any action or any saying in another century or another culture until we have realized that we ourselves, had we been in that situation, might well have done or said exactly that. Not that we would have done it; that would mean denying human freedom. We must simply appreciate, must feel and make our readers feel, that of the various possibilities open to us at that point, this particular thought or move or comment would have seemed attractive to us, and perceive the reasons why that would be so. (Smith, unpublished paper)

But note that Smith does not use the word “religion” here. He speaks of people’s actions and words; that is what we are really trying to understand in the study of religions. And that is the “one exception.” Unlike the study of other subjects, in the study of religion we are not sure exactly what the topic is. We are still trying to understand what religion is – a question to which we shall return in the final chapter.

REFERENCES

Marvin Harris, Our Kind. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Devil in Mr. Jones,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “The Christ of History and the Jesus of the Historians,” unpublished paper.

FURTHER READING

Talal Asad, Formation of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1991.

Rodney Stark and William Simms Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18 (June 1979).

J. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1970.

PART I

THE TOOLS

2 AN OVERVIEW OF RELIGION

Making Sense of Life

FIGURE 2.1 Published in the New Yorker, December 15, 1997. © Lee Lorenz 1997/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com

Explaining Suffering and Evil

Explaining Death

Ghosts

Resurrection

Souls

Reincarnation

The Importance of Order

Order Out of Chaos

Order and Predictability: Eschatology, Prophecy, Divination

Social Order

The Role of Ritual

Conclusion

If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.

VOLTAIRE

Overview

Humans are the only religious animals. Some scholars think that this is because they are the only ones who have self-awareness, especially of the fact that they suffer and are going to die. Religious traditions help people make sense of suffering and death.

The Problem of Evil is a philosophical puzzle based on standard Western ideas about God. How can there be evil in the world if God is all-powerful and all-good?

A theodicy is an explanation for how there can be evil in a world created by an all-powerful, all-good God.The Punishment Theodicy says that human suffering is God’s punishment for sin.The Warning Theodicy says that human suffering is God’s warning to people to live as he wants them to live.The Free Will Theodicy says that God had to allow for the possibility that humans would do evil in order to give them Free Will.Soul-Building Theodicy says that by suffering humans grow in goodness and strength of character.The Best Possible World Theodicy says that any complex world would have some evil in it, and that the world we have has a minimum amount of evil.The Contrast Theodicy says that without evil “good” would be meaningless.

Another way to explain suffering is to attribute it to an evil force other than God.

Religious traditions explain death, and often make it seem less frightening. This is usually done by saying that death is not the permanent end of human existence.

Four standard ideas about humans surviving death are that they do so as ghosts, as resurrected persons, as non-physical souls, and as reincarnated persons.

Religious traditions are concerned with order and chaos.

They usually portray order as good and chaos as evil.Some traditions foresee an apocalypse – a cataclysmic end to this world, followed by a good and orderly world.Some traditions practice divination to reveal future events or hidden aspects of the world.Religious traditions are especially concerned with social order. To foster social order, they provide a sense of group identity, rules to live by, and a system of governance.

Religious traditions also make sense of life through their rituals – actions, often symbolic, that are repeated systematically for specific purposes.

Explaining Suffering and Evil

Scholars may not agree on a definition of religion, but they are pretty sure that only human beings are religious. Other animals share many features with human beings. Some have even developed complex social patterns, including communication. However, none appears to have developed anything similar to what humans call religion. Essayist Arthur Koestler (d. 1983) wondered why. He suggested that it is because only human beings have consciousness. Like other animals, he argued, human beings suffer and die, but unlike other animals humans know that they suffer and die. They think about it and worry about it. Religion developed as a way of dealing with our major fears. Or, more simply, “I worry, therefore I am religious.”

Religious Studies scholars agree that dealing with suffering – our own or that of others – is a significant aspect of religion. According to American theologian Forrest Church, “Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.”

The challenge of suffering and death is often associated with “the problem of evil.” For religions based on belief in a God who is both all-powerful (“omnipotent”) and all-good, the existence of evil can be particularly vexing. If God is all-good and all-powerful, then where does evil come from? Either God cannot stop evil and so is not all-powerful, or God could stop evil but does not, in which case God is not all-good. Neither alternative is attractive to most believers, so many thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have come up with explanations for how God can be both all-powerful and all-good, and there can be evil at the same time. These explanations are called theodicies, and they can be quite sophisticated, as we shall see. The fact that people need to explain suffering and death in such detail shows that, as a species, we want to understand what happens to us. We want there to be reasons for things. We want to make sense of our lives. Religions help us do that.

Theodicy and the Problem of Evil

Theodicy is a term used by monotheists – people who believe in one God – to discuss the challenge of reconciling divine benevolence and justice. It is more specific than the problem of suffering. Suffering of various kinds can be explained without having to justify it as somehow part of a divine plan. Theodicies try to explain evil in terms of divine justice. The term is taken from the Greek words theos, meaning god, and dikaios