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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn about the beliefs, history, and culture of the world's most popular religions
World Religions All-In-One For Dummies offers an easy starting point for anyone curious to investigate religious and cultural differences. In terms anyone can understand, this book explains the foundations of major world religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Catholicism, and Taoism. You can choose the religions you'd like to focus on or read about them all. You'll learn about beliefs and practices specific to each, develop an understanding of how religion affects people's lives, and become a more informed global citizen. Awareness of different religions and how they function in society helps people develop tolerance and respect for others. World religion is also a fascinating topic, and you'll enjoy expanding your mind with this fun Dummies guide.
- Get an overview of the history, beliefs, and practices of the world's major religions
- Understand the similarities and differences between different sects of each religion
- Expand your horizons and go beyond the common misconceptions and myths about religion
- Gain a better understanding of peers, neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different faiths
This comprehensive guide is the perfect companion for those beginning their exploration into faith, or for those just needing a quick reference tool.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Prelude: In the Beginning: Religion Basics
Defining Religion
Acting It Out: Religion and Rituals
Acting Ethically: Religion and Ethics
Figuring Out Why People Flock to Religion
Comparing Religion with Philosophy and Spirituality
Finding the Proof in the Pudding
Understanding the Nature of the Divine
Searching for Answers
Hanging On to Faith
Book 1: Hinduism
Chapter 1: A Quick Overview of Hinduism
Understanding the Hindu Worldview
Studying Hinduism’s Sacred Texts
Exploring the Key Components of Hindu Worship
Converting to Hinduism
Looking at Societal Structure
Chapter 2: Hinduism’s Core Beliefs and Values
Exploring Truth: The Foundation of Hindu Belief
Understanding Hinduism’s Three Core Beliefs
Believing in the Existence of an Immortal Soul
Contemplating Karma and Its Consequences
Understanding the Goal of Life: Moksha
Translating Beliefs into Core Values
Chapter 3: Major Hindu Denominations
Understanding the Origin of Hindu Denominations
Following Vishnu: The Vaishnavas
Following Shiva: The Shaivas
Integrating Vaishnava and Shaiva Ideas: The Smartas
Worshipping Devi, the Female Power: Shaktas
Chapter 4: Worshipping at Home, at a Temple, and on Holydays and Festivals
Discovering the Components of Hindu Worship
Conducting Mealtime Worship
Praying Morning, Noon, and Night
Formally Worshipping a Deity
Reviewing Temple Ceremonies
Recognizing a Few Festivals Celebrated Throughout India
Chapter 5: Hindu Gods and Goddesses
Starting with the One Supreme Soul
Identifying Gods by Their Portrayals
Brahma, the Creator
Vishnu, the Preserver
Shiva, the Destroyer
The Feminine Divine
Introducing the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu Firmament
Discovering Where the Gods Reside
Book 2: Taoism
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Taoism
Delving into the Evolution of Taoism
Considering Taoist Ideas
Looking at the Practice of Taoism
Encountering Taoism for the First Time
Making Sense of the Chaos: Some Important Distinctions
Knowing that for Every Yin, There is a Yang
Understanding the Concept of
Ch’i:
The Psychophysical Stuff of Existence
Discovering
T’ai-chi Ch’üan:
The Boxing of the Great Ultimate
Chapter 2: What Is the Tao, and What Does It Mean to Follow It?
Understanding the Paradoxical Language of the
Tao
Understanding the
Tao
as the Source of Existence
Seeing Emptiness as the Wellspring of Power
Following, Experiencing, and Harmonizing with the Way
Chapter 3: Doing Everything by Doing Nothing
Considering the Counterintuitive Concept of
Wu-wei
Ruling by Not Doing
Adapting to the Existential Circumstances
Chapter 4: Remembering to Keep Forgetting
Experiencing Return, Reversal, and the Idea of Unlearning
Discovering the Goal of Unlearning and the Task of Forgetting
Understanding the Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting
Contemplating Contemporary Forgetfulness
Chapter 5: Cosmic Renewal and Other Rituals
Untangling the Truth about Taoism and Ritual
Understanding Rituals of Purification and Offering
Observing Taoist Funeral Rituals
Book 3: Buddhism
Chapter 1: Entering the World of Buddhism
Figuring Out Whether Buddhism Is a Religion
Recognizing the Role of the Buddha
Understanding the Function of Philosophy in Buddhism
Appreciating Buddhist Practices
Dedicating Your Life to the Benefit of All Beings
Recognizing How Your Mind Shapes Your Experience
Appreciating the Law of Karmic Cause and Effect
Following the Buddha’s Ethical Guidance
Chapter 2: Surveying the Life and Teachings of the Historical Buddha
Revealing the Buddha’s Early Life
Beginning the Quest
Sitting in the Shade of the Bodhi Tree: The Defeat of Mara
Benefiting Others: The Buddha’s Career in Full Gear
Understanding the Four Noble Truths
Envisioning the Future
Chapter 3: Turning to Buddhism
Proceeding at Your Own Pace
Getting Acquainted with the Teachings of Buddhism
Formally Becoming a Buddhist
Entering the Monastic Way
Chapter 4: A Day in the Life of a Buddhist Practitioner
Surveying the Role of Monasteries in Buddhism
Renouncing Worldly Attachments: A Day in the Life of a Western Buddhist Monk
Growing a Lotus In the Mud: A Day in the Life of a Zen Practitioner
Devoting Yourself to the Three Jewels: A Day in the Life of a Vajrayana Practitioner
Trusting the Mind of Amida: A Day in the Life of a Pure Land Buddhist
Taking Part in Meditation Practices
Chapter 5: What Is Enlightenment, Anyway?
Considering the Many Faces of Spiritual Realization
Reviewing the Theravada Tradition’s Take on Nirvana
Getting a Handle on Two Traditions of Wisdom
Realizing the Mind’s Essential Purity in the Vajrayana Tradition
Standing Nirvana on Its Head with Zen
Finding the Common Threads in Buddhist Enlightenment
Book 4: Judaism
Chapter 1: Finding Out Who’s a Jew and Why
Meeting the Jewish Tribe
Exploring the Major Branches of the Tree
Chapter 2: Judaism’s Deep Roots in History
From Abraham, Judaism Takes the Long Road
Moses, Receiver of God’s Laws
The Days of the Judges
The Time of Kings
Getting Conquered: The Jews Find Themselves in Hot Water
Christianity’s Emergence Puts the Jews on the Defensive (Yet Again)
The Holocaust
Flying the Blue and White Banner of Israel
From Religion to Race: Anti-Semitism in Modern Times
Toward Healing
Chapter 3: Finding God in Everything
A Little of This, A Little of That
Pondering Jewish Beliefs about God
Calling One God Many Names
Looking behind the Name
Embarking on a Quest for Ultimate Reality
Maintaining Daily Practice
Observing Jewish Holidays
Understanding Jewish Rituals
Understanding Jewish Symbols
Chapter 4: A Path of Blessing: Judaism as a Daily Practice
Connecting With God and Community through Practice: The
Mitzvot
Connecting With God and Community through Blessings and Prayers
Going to Synagogue
Purifying the Spirit: Rites and Rituals
The Jewish Home
So Go Now and Live
Chapter 5: A Never-Ending Torah: The Unfolding of a Tradition
Torah: The Light That Never Dims
The TaNaKH: The Hebrew Bible
A Hidden Revolution: The Oral Torah
The Expanding Torah
Book 5: Christianity
Chapter 1: God, Jesus, and the Origins of Christianity
Introducing the Trinity
Examining the Three Parts of God
Studying Jesus’s Life and Death
Meeting the First Believers
Tracking the Growth of a New Religion
Realizing It’s Hard to Keep Everyone Happy
Looking at Christianity Today
Chapter 2: Christian Beliefs and Practices
Packing Christianity into a Nutshell
Recognizing Rituals: Outward Expressions of Faith
Marking the First Noel: Christmas and the Roots of Christianity
Considering Other Christian Holidays
Reading Christianity: The Bible
Discovering the Symbols of Christianity
Chapter 3: Making Sense of Worship
Defining the Christian Tradition: I Worship, You Worship, We All Worship
Examining the Worship Service as a Whole
Exploring Ways to Worship: Liturgical Versus Free Worship
Fellowshipping with a Church
Recognizing Christianity’s Leaders
Chapter 4: What It Means to Be Catholic
What Exactly Is Catholicism?
Knowing What the Catholic Church Teaches
Worshipping as a Catholic: The Holy Mass
Behaving Like a Catholic
Praying as a Catholic: Showing Your Devotion
Chapter 5: Back to Basics: The Protestant Church
Exploring the Protestant Reformation
Examining Core Protestant Beliefs
Breaking It Down into Denominations
Looking at More Protestant Labels
Book 6: Islam
Chapter 1: Approaching Islam
Taking In an Overview of Islamic Origins
Summarizing Islamic Beliefs
Affirming the Unity of God: Tawhid
Clarifying the Terminology: Allah Equals God
Understanding the Core of Islam: One God with Muhammad as His Last Prophet
Testifying to God’s Supremacy
Defining the Attributes of God
Going to Heaven or Hell: From Life to Death to Resurrection
Dividing Islam into Branches
Locating Islam on the World Map
Chapter 2: The Birth of Islam: The Prophet Submits to Allah
Islam: Born in the Desert
The Prophet Arrives
Muhammad Takes Command
Breaking Down from the Beginning: Sunnis and Shi`ites
The Ottoman Turks Dominate Islam
Chapter 3: What Muslims Believe
Stating the Essential Beliefs of Islam
Explaining the Faith to Non-Muslims
Expounding the Faith: Dealing with Difficult Faith Issues
Identifying Important Theological Issues
Rejecting Formal Creeds
Reviewing the Starting Points for Islamic Ethics
Applying Ethics to Practical Issues
Chapter 4: Submission of the Faithful
Discovering the Five Pillars of Islam
Observing Muslim Holidays
Carrying Out Common Rituals and Daily Practices
Introducing the Qur’an
Gathering and Organizing the Qur’an
The Style of the Qur’an
Interpreting the Qur’an
Chapter 5: Observing Other Religious Rituals and Customs
Marking Life’s Transitions
Observing Everyday Customs
Looking at Women’s Rituals
Book 7: Mormonism
Chapter 1: A New World Religion
Following the Mormon Worldview
The Head Honcho: God the Father
Second Mate: Christ the Son
God’s Whisperer: The Holy Ghost
Figuring Out What Makes Mormonism Different
Looking at Joseph Smith and Mormonism’s Beginnings
Understanding the Priesthood
Living Your Day-to-Day Life as a Mormon
Considering Missionaries of All Shapes and Sizes
Enlisting in God’s Army
Introducing the Eternal Family Unit
Chapter 2: The Mormon Plan of Salvation
Understanding Mormon Karma: The Premortal Life
Acing the Test of Mortality
Exploring The Afterlife: Eternal Progression
Chapter 3: Welcome to the Meetinghouse and Headquarters!
What’s a Ward?
Participating in the Ward
Participating in the Stake
Touring Church Headquarters
Chapter 4: Sacred, Not Secret: Inside Mormon Temples
Distinguishing the Temple from the Meetinghouse
Understanding Why Mormons Go to the Temple: Temple Ordinances
Becoming Eligible for Temple Ordinances
Receiving Your Own Temple Ordinances
Sealing Families for Eternity
Chapter 5: The Bible, the Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures
Understanding the Bible: True, with a Few Tweaks
Getting Acquainted with the Book of Mormon
Discovering How the Book of Mormon Came to Be
Reading The Pearl of Great Price: A Scriptural Hodgepodge
Examining Modern-Day Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants
Index
About the Authors
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Book 1 Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: The effigies to be burned at the Vijayadashami festival in New Delh...
Book 2 Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: A typical
yin
and
yang
symbol.
Book 3 Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Performing full prostrations in the Tibetan style.
Book 3 Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Shakyamuni Buddha, the classic embodiment of serenity and peace. Ph...
Book 4 Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: Menorahs are typically seen during Hanukkah.
FIGURE 3-2: The six-pointed star is a prominent symbol of Judaism.
Book 4 Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: A traditional Jew performs his morning prayers at the Western Wall ...
Book 4 Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Torah scrolls covered by a richly decorated cloth.
FIGURE 5-2: The Torah scroll is always read with a pointer so that fingers won’...
FIGURE 5-3: A sample page from the Talmud.
Book 5 Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: An equilateral triangle is a helpful illustration of the Trinity.
Book 5 Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: The cross is a universal Christian symbol.
Book 5 Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Protestantism began with one man and evolved into four main strands...
Book 6 Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: This symbol is often associated with Islam, but it’s not an officia...
Book 7 Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: An overview of the Mormon plan of salvation.
Book 7 Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Temple baptismal fonts are patterned after Old Testament fonts.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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World Religions All-in-One For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2024951148
ISBN 978-1-394-29394-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-394-29396-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-394-29395-7 (ebk)
Introduction
Most people have had some contact with religion. Many of us have grown up as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or something else entirely. Our parents or grandparents raised us up in some religion or another. The holidays of some religion were probably our holidays; the beliefs, our beliefs; the foods, our foods. All that raising up makes it easy for us to understand religion because we already know a lot about it from our own lives. Others of us have no religion at all but have run into it, in some form or another, most of our lives.
What makes religion familiar also makes it strange. Many of us grew up doing religious things without really understanding what we were doing. Many of us grew up understanding our own religion but were clueless about the religions of our neighbors. Some of us grew up without any religion and kind of feel left out and maybe even skeptical of the whole religion thing.
Whether you’re a believer or not (or want to be or not), religion affects your life. Your religion, your neighbor’s religion, the religions within your culture, the religions in other cultures that interact with your culture — they all play an important role in how people view the world, their place in it, and how they interact collectively and individually with other people. World Religions All-in-One For Dummies can help you understand what you’ve been doing all your life and what folks in other religions have been doing all of theirs. It will answer questions about how different religions worship, what they believe, and the rituals they perform.
About This Book
This book covers a lot of stuff about seven different major religions, but you don’t need religious training to read it. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about religion at all. This book gives you easy-to-understand information about various religions of the world and makes that information easy to find.
Each chapter is divided into sections, and each section contains information that helps you understand some part of religion, including topics such as:
The basic beliefs of different religions.
The ideas and values that many religions share.
The ways that people express their faith.
You also get all sorts of interesting tidbits about the cultures that religions come from, and to make the content more accessible, we’ve divided it into seven parts, each exploring a single religion. We chose to highlight the seven religions included in this book because they each have a vast following and represent both Eastern and Western religions. (Eastern religions include Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism; Western religions include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism.) We’ve also included a Prelude chapter, examining what religion, faith, spirituality, divinity, salvation, and other religious concepts mean in general terms.
We’ve done our best to refer to each Divine Being/God/god(s) with the words and pronouns the given religion prefers — and with the capitalization they prefer. The same goes for what we call each religion and how we cite holy texts.
If you see the word church with a small letter c, it refers to a church building or parish, but Church with a capital C refers to the broader body of believers of the religion in question.
For dates, we’ve stuck to a consistent timeline, using BCE and CE in place of BC and AD, even though certain faiths favor the use of BC and AD.
When it comes to translations, nothing is harder than taking an ancient text and trying to convert it into modern English. With ancient documents, particularly those seen as holy, some people even object to the concept of translating. Nevertheless, we relied on the best translations we could find. Other writers may translate the words in a different way, but the gist is the same.
Finally, to help you understand new words and concepts relevant to the religions we discuss, we italicize all definitions of new words and important terms. We also use italics for unfamiliar words from languages other than English. And finally, we add shaded boxes of text (called sidebars) to dive deeper into specific subjects relating to a chapter’s theme.
Foolish Assumptions
In writing this book, we made some assumptions about you:
You want to know more about religion, whether you’re a member of a religion or not.
You’re curious about religion the way you’re curious about how penguins live. You’re mildly interested, but it’s not a really big thing in your life. On the other hand, you may want to understand your own religion better.
You know someone who grew up in a religion different from yours and you want to know more about it.
You may want to find a religion to belong to, and you’re not sure which one is right for you or how to get hooked up.
You have a passing knowledge of some religions. But don’t worry, the book will make sense to you even if you don’t.
Icons Used in This Book
To help you find information you’re interested in or to highlight information that’s particularly helpful, we’ve used the following icons throughout the text:
You find this icon next to important information that you’ll want to remember. It highlights the key takeaways within each chapter.
This icon appears next to information that you may find interesting but can skip without impairing your understanding of the topic, such as when we explore the reasoning behind a religious practice or discuss a topic that’s good to know about but not essential.
This icon highlights suggestions or comparisons included to help you understand the current topic or an idea that may be unfamiliar to you. Often we use it to share practical advice when exploring religion.
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Beyond the Book
In addition to the abundance of information and guidance related to religions provided in this book, you get access to even more help and information online at Dummies.com. Check out this book’s online Cheat Sheet. Just go to www.dummies.com and search for “World Religions All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet.”
Where to Go from Here
World Religions All-in-One For Dummies is like a spiritual buffet. You can sample faiths from all over the world. Just jump in where you want, read as much (or as little) as you want, and jump back out. This book is designed so that you can use it as a reference, flipping here and there willy-nilly. Of course, if you prefer, you can start at the beginning and read through to the end. We can’t promise you much of a plot, but we can promise you a lot of good information.
Just decide what you want to know and head to that place using the Table of Contents and Index as your guide. If you’re not sure where to begin — or want a general overview before you delve into specific topics — why not start at the beginning? It’s as good a place as any. Thumb your way straight to the Prelude.
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 help them consecrate these special dates.
Prayers from the faithful
All religions include prayer. People pray to express thankfulness for life’s blessings, to repent for sins, and to grant forgiveness to other people. They pray to clear and focus their minds. They pray so that they can achieve calmness and wisdom. They pray to express awe and wonder at the mystery of life and at the beauty of the world around them. They pray to find release from suffering. They pray while kneeling, while standing, with eyes downcast or lifted heavenward. They pray alone and they pray as a community. They pray at proscribed times and in proscribed ways, or they pray whenever the mood hits them:
The Catholic Mass (see Book 5,
Chapter 4
) is a prayer service that includes the most important Christian ritual, the Eucharist, and defines the community that prays together.
Many Hindu and Buddhist (see Books 1 and 3, respectively) sects pray for many hours at a time. They find solace and release from stress by looking inside themselves in order to experience the great void or emptiness. This emptiness quiets them and frees them from the constraints of their own lives.
Five times a day, Muslims (see
Book 6
) remember Allah and their relationship with him. The content of their prayer includes praise, gratitude, and supplication. The prayer’s purpose is to keep life — and their place in it (submissive to God) — in perspective.
Regular Jewish (see
Book 4
) prayer must be said three times a day (although afternoon and evening prayers are often combined), with special prayers added for the Sabbath and holidays. A formal Jewish prayer service requires a
minyan,
which is a group of ten Jewish male adults. For more liberal Jews, a minyan consists of ten Jewish adults of any gender.
Regardless of how they do it or when they do it or what they’re praying for, people pray to communicate with what their religion considers sacred or holy.
Understanding prayer
Prayer is by far the most important and common form of communal ritual in the religions of the world. For some, prayer is a way of repeating the stories of tradition; for others, it’s a way of thanking God for blessings and for asking for divine help in life. Others use it as a way of showing submission to the will of God. Others use it as a way of sharing in communion the mystery of God’s gifts to humankind.
The communal form of prayer is necessary in some religions and optional in others. Although the structure and guidelines for prayer vary, the desired result is still the same: When someone prays, they are seeking to make contact with the holy and the sacred. In essence, prayer is a relationship for the person of faith who tries to touch on the transcendent in life while binding themselves to a community.
From the earliest times, people have been preoccupied with understanding the forces behind nature. People found the presence of something supernatural in the wind, rain, sky, and earth. These natural instincts gave way to fear and awe. In time, religionists developed prayers and rituals to respond to their gods or God in many and elementary ways. Prayer became linked to sacrifice. People sacrificed animals, possessions, and time to make their gods happy. They tried to gain the attention and the good will of the deity of supernatural powers. Some chose magic as a way of manipulating the divine favor. They created formulas and rituals that had to be adhered to in a strict sense. Some religions, on the other hand, offered not magic, but rituals that connected the prayer to the force of the supernatural. Literatures explained the stories of creation, destruction, redemption, and faith. Armed with these new stories, people began to build altars, churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and shrines. People went to these places to give homage to the supernatural. In prayer, people sought not only to connect with the divine but also to transform the human.
Congregations gather together to pray to God or gods for four reasons:
Adoration:
They offer praise to the Divine, surrender to the Divine, while offering a life of love and devotion in return.
Penance:
They ask for forgiveness of their sins and the means to overcome their faults, eliminate the evil side of their lives, and make amends to the Divine and to people for their failures.
Petition:
They come to ask a divine favor and for healing in times of illness, pain, tragedy, and human need. They ask for food, for a good life, for health, and for courage, amongst others.
Thanksgiving:
They acknowledge that the Divine is the source of blessings. They come to thank the Divine for those blessings and ask the Divine to watch over them as a special favor.
Prayers in these four contexts are sometimes vocal and sometimes nonverbal.
Acting Ethically: Religion and Ethics
If beliefs give religions their distinctive wisdom and rituals give religions their distinctive form, then ethics give religions their distinctive virtue. The ethics of a religion are both personal and communal. Some ethical teachings direct followers how to live their own lives, while other ethical teachings of a religion explain how to order society.
Ethics compose the moral code of life — the way people should live with one another and with nature. By following an ethical or moral code (we think ethics and morals refer to the same thing), any person can live a good, decent, compassionate, just, and loving life. Ethics give religion its moral force and universal message. And it all comes down to deciding on the right thing to do.
I’ve heard that before: Universal ethics
The beliefs and rituals of the world’s religions are very different, so you may be surprised to discover that the ethics of the world’s religions are almost identical. This similarity even holds for religions that haven’t had much (or any) contact with the rest of the world. For example, in Talmud, a post-biblical commentary on Jewish law and legend (see Book 4), you can find the saying “sticks in a bundle are unbreakable, but sticks alone can be broken by a child.” This ethical teaching about the value of community is found in exactly the same language in the Masai tribe of sub-Saharan Africa. The golden rule, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you,” appears in almost the same words in many different and geographically separated faiths. For some reason, religions that don’t share a single common belief or ritual may share the same vision of human virtue.
Some theologians explain the common ethical teachings of the world’s religions by a concept called natural law. The idea is that human life produces common ethical laws for the same reason that physical laws (like the law of gravity) are the same in any part of the universe. Natural law imagines a kind of universal law of human goodness. Somehow, the nature of human existence leads all people to derive the same ethical norms. Perhaps natural law is real; maybe it’s some kind of divine revelation to all people; or maybe it’s something we don’t understand yet. What’s important is that many of these teachings don’t vary much from religion to religion. That similarity is a mystery to us, but a very wonderful mystery.
Hand in hand in hand: Ethics, beliefs, and rituals
Some folks say that because the ethics of the world’s religions are similar, we should just throw out all the different beliefs and rituals and stick with the ethical teachings. A religion called Ethical Culture, founded in 1876, tries to do just that.
One reason this approach probably wouldn’t work in the long run is that many religious ethics are part of religious rituals. The Passover meal in Judaism is both a ritual and an ethical commentary on the importance of freedom. The Hindu practice of meditation is part of the ethical teaching of tranquility and patience. The tea ceremony in Zen Buddhism is both ritual and a way to teach the value of hospitality. Rituals that may seem to be nothing more than tribal rites end up containing tribal ethical wisdom when you look more closely.
Another reason that separating religious ethics from religious ritual and belief wouldn’t work is because ethics are taught through sacred texts and stories that are particular to a religion — even though the ethic itself is universal. Some of the Jataka legends of the Buddha, for example, teach compassion by linking this particular ethic to a related story in the Buddha’s life. Although you can make the same point — be compassionate to others — without the story, you rob it of the power of narrative. The tone of a parable (the short religious stories found in the Old and New Testaments), for example, is deliberately intended to be mysterious and suggestive, the better to drive home the moral or spiritual truths.
Figuring Out Why People Flock to Religion
In a world of high-pressure sales and a prove-to-me-I-need-it mentality, it’s normal that some people expect religion to sell itself to them with promises of money, problem-free lives, and miracle cures. But for people of faith, religion generally offers something deeper. Some of these things are tangible; most aren’t. For example, one of the main beliefs of religions is hope — the hope that tomorrow will be better than today; the hope that death is not the end of us; the hope that good will win. In essence, think of religion as offering people a way to navigate a broken world full of cruelty and disappointment.
Dealing with problems, big and small
Most religions maintain that one primary hurdle stops people from realizing their potential. By being able to overcome this hurdle, people can achieve whatever the ultimate reward in their religion is.
The hurdle is different for different religions, as is the goal:
In Buddhism, the biggest problem is suffering,
and Buddhism solves that problem by offering a path to enlightenment, where suffering is no more.
For the Abrahamic faiths, sin is the problem;
and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam offer a path to salvation from sin. The three paths to salvation are different, but the goal is the same.
For Hinduism, the problem is being repeatedly reincarnated.
Hinduism offers a solution to the problem of rebirth by offering a way to release, moksha
,
from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
For Taoists (see
Book 2
), the problem is living in harmony with the universe, with nature, with the
Tao
itself.
But by being in tune with “the way” this balance can be found.
Suffering, sin, and rebirth are cosmic problems affecting all people, and the solutions that a religion offers are solutions that apply to all people.
Religion also provides answers to the big problems that confound people: What is the meaning of life? What happens after death? Why do the innocent suffer? How can we live a decent life in a crummy world? These and other questions have vexed humans from time immemorial. To the faithful, religion provides the answers to questions like these, too.
Religions don’t generally promise solutions to daily personal problems. Instead, they help people deal with the problems and accept the suffering the problems cause. Many people use religious faith as a way to maintain (or tap into) courage and patience as they work their way from sorrow or hardship into a time of joy and happiness. For many, living a life of faith is a way to deal with problems, not a way to magically sweep them away.
Finding joy
Many people find joy in religion. Hindus call the ultimate happiness moksha, the term that refers to finally having attained perfection and being released from the constant cycle of birth-death-rebirth. Christians call this state ecstasy, the time when the believer, through faith, experiences an inner vision or union with God. Jews call it simha, the joy they feel when they experience the Torah. This joy comes from immersing oneself in the divine and, from that immersion, being able to appreciate the beauty and wonder of life in all its forms and rejoicing at being alive to share that wonder.
This type of happiness is far different from the happiness that advertisers try to convince people will come if they just buy some new thing. Religious happiness points believers to lasting joy — to the joy of family and friends, the joy of rituals, and the joys of life’s passages — by challenging them to examine the happiness that comes from selfishness and replace it with selfless acts of kindness and generosity. Religious people believe that the greatest happiness comes from helping others, seeking wisdom, and doing God’s works.
Being responsible
Many people find in religion a guide that leads them to do good works by challenging and goading them to do their part to fix the broken world. This guide reminds people of their duty to the poor, the widowed and orphaned, and the homeless. This source impels them to accept duty as a way of serving the Divine, even when that duty is burdensome or exhausting.
In Islam, the link between a devout life and one of service is particularly notable. Humans, the noblest of God’s creatures according to the Qur’an, have a tendency to fall into arrogance. Humans see themselves as self-sufficient, and, in their pride (the gravest sin in Islam), consider themselves God’s partners. To help them remember the purpose of their existence (complete submission to God), Muslims must struggle against their pride. One way to do that is to go beyond themselves and serve people who are less fortunate. So important is this obligation to help others that the third of the Five Pillars (or duties) of Islam is to give to charity. (For more on the Five Pillars of Islam, see Book 6, Chapter 4.)
A great nineteenth-century preacher once said, “Happiness is the natural fruit of duty,” which suggests that religions can make you happy, but only if doing the right thing makes you happy. For example, if walking out on the people who love you and need you makes you happy, chances are you are going to be miserable in your religion.
Accepting suffering
Suffering is a part of life. The illness of someone we love, the death of a child, and a hundred other defeats we suffer every day are often not caused by our choices and are not within our power to solve. If you didn’t cause the suffering and you can’t do anything about it, what lesson can you possibly learn from it — except to duck and run?
Every religious tradition answers the question of suffering differently:
Christianity (see
Book 5
) teaches that the deepest help God gives people
is in suffering with them. Knowing that God is with them during the most difficult times of their lives is an immense comfort, but the lesson goes beyond that. Christians believe that God is compassionate, and Christianity teaches its followers to be compassionate to others. In this way, personal suffering can produce positive outcomes. Although accepting God when things are bad is difficult to do, Christians believe that this acceptance is essential if they are to acquire a mature faith.
At the end of a Jewish (see
Book 4
) funeral service,
the last words spoken at the grave are,
Adonai natan, adonai lakach, y’hi shem adonai m’vorach.
(God has given and God has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.) This simple phrase contains a spiritual truth: It is far easier to bless God when God is giving to us than it is to bless God when God is taking from us, but it is spiritually important to understand that the giving and the taking are both from God — that everything we have is just a gift, just a loan, from God and that it must be surrendered some day.
Theravada Buddhism (see Book 3) teaches that suffering is an illusion that comes from our desires. We make ourselves unhappy because we won’t accept the pain that comes from being attached to the things, people, and feelings in our lives. We crave things that make us miserable when we don’t get them. We love people whose death causes us pain when they die. According to Theravada Buddhism, the only way we can find peace is to abandon our attachment to our desires, hopes, and dreams. In this release of attachment, we will find the happiness we are looking for in our lives.
The Buddha once helped solve the problem of grief for a woman who had just buried her child. She came to the Buddha and asked him to comfort her. He put a tiny mustard seed in her hand and told her to go and collect one mustard seed from every one of her neighbors who had never lost a loved one to death. She returned with just the same one mustard seed and with the comforting awareness that every person has been touched by death.
Many who practice within the Hindu (see
Book 1
) faiths
view suffering as having a purpose. The goal of Hindus is to find release from the cycle of birth-death-rebirth that continues until a person can finally free themselves from desires, which keeps the cycle going. The suffering people experience in this life is a result of their actions (karma) in a former life. By acting to relieve suffering (or by having the suffering taken away by someone else), a person cannot escape the birth-death cycle. In addition, many Hindus believe that by taking away the suffering, a person may be reborn in a lower life form. So, although things may be easier in this life, they could be that much worse in the next.
For Taoists (see
Book 2
), they believe that the
Tao
is “the way.”
So if you’re not following “the way” then that could lead to suffering. But if you live in harmony with the
Tao
, then you could potentially end your suffering.
Comparing Religion with Philosophy and Spirituality
Questions we hear a lot have to do with the differences between philosophy and religion. Many philosophies, for example, wrestle with the question “What is good?” and try to solve what it means to live a “good” life. Other philosophies try to explain the nature and meaning of existence — topics that fall well within the sphere of religion.
Spirituality is another area that ties into (but in some cases is separate from) religion. Religion is about spirituality, so when people say they’re spiritual but not religious, what does that mean? What distinction are they making? This section helps you find out.
Philosophy and religion
Many philosophies take up the questions of what is good and how people should act. In providing guidelines on living, philosophies have ethics just as religions do.
Religions differ from philosophies in several ways:
Only a religion has rituals. Only a religion has holy days. Only a religion has ceremonies to consecrate birth, marriage, and death. Rituals are the clearest way of differentiating religions from philosophies.
Some religions, such as Buddhism or Confucianism, however, have often been termed philosophies because Westerners looked in these religions for an image of a transcendent God and didn’t find it. Some Buddhist sects, such as Zen, don’t teach a belief in a god or supreme being; their goal is to find enlightenment or happiness within themselves. Other Buddhist sects, such as Pure Land, do believe in a transcendent God, similar to Christianity, which leads to a rebirth in paradise. But because of their rituals, Buddhism and Confucianism are both clearly religions.
Philosophies use reason to figure out what is true, and religions use both reason and revelation.
Reason depends solely upon the use of unaided human rational thinking to determine what is true. Reason doesn’t appeal to the authority of God or tradition to establish the truth. By contrast, religion often depends on
revelation,
