Introduction to World Religion

Introduction to World Religion

• Worldwide more than 8-in-10 people identify with a religious group
• As of 2015/2020 there are:
  • 2.3 billion Christians (31%)
  • 1.8 billion Muslims (24%) – fastest growing
  • 1 billion Hindus (15%)
  • Nearly 500 million Buddhists (7%)
  • Over 400 million people (6%) practice various folk/traditional religions, including African, Chinese, Native American and Australian Aboriginal traditional religions
  • 14 million Jews (0.2%)
  • An estimated 58 million people (1%) belong to “Other” religions, including the Baha’i faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Wicca and Zoroastrianism, to mention just a few.
• Roughly 1 in 6 people around the globe (1.2 billion, or 16%) have NO religious affiliation. This makes the “unaffiliated” the third-largest group worldwide.
• Note: Many of the “unaffiliated” hold some religious/spiritual beliefs (such as belief in God or a universal spirit) even though they do not identify with a particular faith

Religious Study

• The study of religion is not “religious” per se – we don’t study religion from any particular religiousperspective.

• Rather, RS is about the academic study of religion- exploring and interpreting various religious beliefs, ideas, texts, practices and institutions from a variety of scholarly perspectives —comparative, historical, anthropological, literary, psychological, cognitive, philosophical, scientific, etc.

• The academic discipline of Religious Studies is relatively new – originating in Europe towards the end of the 19th century and officially established in the U.S. since the 1960’s 
• The formation of the discipline occurred in an atmosphere which was partial to current/living and textual-based religions –  preferring religions most like Christianity – thus elevating religions they deemed “global” from their own Eurocentric perspective.
• Throughout most of recent European history, the European religious universe consisted of basically two religions: Christianity and Paganism (i.e. every other
  religion of the world)
• However, the growing interest and respect for traditions like Hinduism and Judaism in the early 1800’s challenged the primacy of Christianity – and soon there were
  deemed to be 5 Great Religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism 
• 1893 Parliament of World Religions: first worldwide formal interreligious dialogue held at a World’s Fair in Chicago 
• Zen Buddhism and Jainism became included at the fair and subsequent conferences began to include other religions. Absent, however, were most indigenous traditions (e.g. African, Native American etc.), among others.
• In short, it was Europe that defined what a “world religion” was and what was not – Western-style universities live with this legacy to this day, one we are trying to correct
• In teaching with this schema, huge portions of the globe are omitted from religious history, oral cultures are ignored in favor of literate/textual ones, and religious borrowings and processes of syncretism are largely disregarded (e.g. Santeria or Bahai)

The Problem with Religion

• We now understand that the category “religion” has developed out of a Christian, largely Protestant, understanding, which generally defines religion in terms of belief.
• This is indicated by the frequent use of the term “faith” as a synonym for “religion”
• However, when looking at most traditions, belief alone is clearly inadequate and should be modified to include practices (praxis)
• Also implicit in this Western understanding was that “religion” was a completely separate sphere from culture, society, politics, etc.
• However “religion” does not designate a specific, cross–culturally stable thing that we can reliably look for on the ground.
• Any specification of “religious” excludes phenomena that some people sometimes deem religious and includes other things that most would
  not consider religious
• Definitions of religion tend to suffer from one of two problems.
  • 1. Too narrow and exclude many belief systems which most agree are religious (e.g. belief in God), or
  • 2. Too vague and ambiguous, suggesting that just about anything and everything is a religion.

Definition of Religion According to Scholars

• Sigmund Freud – “Religion is comparable to childhood neurosis.”
• Karl Marx – ”Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature… a protest against real suffering… it is the opium of the people….”
• Rudolph Otto – “Religion is that which grows out of, and gives expression to, experience of the holy in its various aspects.”
• James G. Frazer: Religion is “a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of
  Nature and of human life.”
• Emile Durkheim – “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and 
  practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church all those who adhere to them.”
• Ellwood & McGraw – “All religions believe that certain teachings, practices, and modes of ethical behavior best express or fit in with the nature of ultimate reality.”
• Patrick H. McNamara – “Try to define religion and you invite an argument.”

Why Is There Religion

• Serves many human psychological needs (e.g. how to deal with our mortality and cope with death).
•  Helps us to respond to our natural wonder about ourselves, the cosmos, and our place within it
•  An attempt to feel more secure in a seemingly insecure universe.
• A way of life founded upon the apprehension of sacredness in existence
• Asks the “big” questions, science may not have answers for (at this time)

Conditioned vs. Unconditioned Reality

• In most religions, a delineation is made between the ordinary and the extraordinary, or between the sacred and the profane.
• Much of religious ritual, practice, art, etc. tries to portray or connect us with this “extraordinary” (or “religious” or “spiritual”, etc.) dimension of reality.
• Conditioned (or Relative) Reality: limited, restricted or filtered reality – limited by time, space, habitual mind, our senses, etc.
• Unconditioned (or Absolute/Ultimate) Reality: the world as it actually is – unfiltered and unlimited.
• When speaking of the Divine, for example, we use terms like omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc. to define God or other supernatural beings

The Porous Border

• This porous borderline between these two realms is sometimes said to be the sphere of religion.
• Through religious practice, ritual, ethics, knowledge, texts, charismatic leaders, art, music, etc. religious traditions
  often believe they can pass through or access these realms 
• In some traditions this “border” is ultimately illusory and can be transcended

Forms of Religious Expression

• Joachim Wach (1898–1955) – sociologist of religion who stated that religion expresses itself in human three
  ways:
  • The Theoretical: “what is said” (e.g. beliefs, myth, doctrine, values, etc.)
  • The Practical: “what is done” (e.g. worship, prayer, meditation, pilgrimage, ritual, asceticism, yoga, etc.)
  • The Sociological: the kinds of groups and how they organize (e.g. social institutions, leadership, sects, cults, etc.)

Other Forms of Religious Expression

• Ethics: How do you Respond? –religion often provides ethical guidance and answers to moral questions
• Religion has often been the impetus for global ethical movements (e.g. Civil Rights movement)
• Religious Experience: mystical experiences and its ability to fundamentally transform people
  • Eg. Shamanism, divine possession or mediumship, born–again conversion, prayer/meditation
• Art: as an expression of the Divine or Unconditioned Reality
• Art makes the invisible visible, and shows a religion’s view of human nature and society