The Role of Religion
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The Role of Religion by W B (Ben) Vosloo 2013 The Role of Religion W B (Ben) Vosloo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX Page Foreword i Introduction 1 Religion Defined 1 Religion’s Origins 2 The World’s Religious Make-up 4 Religion as Source of Values 5 Religion and Art 5 Religion and Cleavage 7 Perceptions of Deity, Heaven and Hell 8 Religiosity, Atheism and Secularism 10 1. The World of Judaism 11 Roots of Monotheism 11 Doctrinal Foundations 12 Impact of Anti-Semitism 20 Judaism and Jews Today 32 2. The World of Christianity 38 Christianity and the Bible 38 Christianity and Western Civilisation 40 Christianity and Islam 41 The Catholic-Protestant Cleavage 43 Major Transformations Since the 16th Century 45 Religious Tolerance in the West 50 Christianity and Science 51 Atheism and Agnosticism 55 Christian Ethics and Political-Economic Life 56 Political-Economic Problem Areas 61 3. The World of Islam 76 The Islamic Religion 76 Trends in Islamic Doctrine 78 20th Century Developments 80 The Arab World in the 21st Century 82 The Non-Arab Muslim World 90 Islamic Statehood 102 Islamic Finance 103 Islamic Politics 105 Islam’s Global Networks 107 Islam and the West 109 Prospects 112 INDEX (continued) Page 4. The World of Hinduism 115 Essence of Hinduism 117 The Mogul Conquest 118 The British Conquest 118 Hindu-Muslim Cleavage and Partitioning 120 Hinduism and Cultural Diversity 122 The Fractious Nature of Hindu Politics 123 Democracy’s Drawbacks 124 Chronic Intergroup Conflict 125 International Perspective 127 Prospects 127 5. The World of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism 129 The Teachings of Buddha 129 Branches of Buddhism 131 Buddhism in China 132 Buddhism in Japan 133 Taoism 134 Confucianism 137 The Growth Momentum of East Asia 142 Effective Business Networking 148 Reconstruction Singapore Style 151 China’s Pragmatic Communism 155 Prospects 168 6. Religion’s Footprints in Retrospect 171 Judaism and Jewry 171 Christianity and the Rise and Decline of Religiosity 176 The Ascendancy of Islam 182 Hinduism’s Renunciation of Worldly Things 185 East Asian Modernisation and Confucian Capitalism 188 7. Key Determinants of Human Affairs 200 Natures Endowments 200 Human Action 202 The Question of Providential or Divine Reality 206 i Foreword Writing about religion is always fraught with pitfalls, because religion does not lend itself to casual rational analysis or discourse. It is based on what people believe about matters on which people hold strong convictions. History has only a few examples of people sacrificing their lives for the sake of a rational conclusion, but millions and millions of people have offered their lives on the altar of the beliefs they have held. The text of this manuscript has been written with careful consideration for the sensibilities and beliefs of the faiths concerned. Despite the caution taken, it is possible that specific depictions are influenced by the convictions of the author. As such it may not always accord with the understanding of each and every reader. No offence is hereby intended. 1 Introduction At the outset it must be clearly understood that in this presentation, religion is regarded as a socio- cultural phenomenon that can be treated as the subject matter of scientific inquiry and objective analysis. This presentation is further based on the assumption that religion can be studied in a dispassionate way. In today’s world there is a huge range of intellectual tools which can be used to better understand the phenomenon of religion, archaeology, history, philosophy, psychology and even neuro-science. Describing and analysing the role of religion is not meant to place religion in general or any specific religious belief under scrutiny. There are many arguments to be had over religions: whether supreme reality is a God, or not; the origins of “sacred texts”; the finer points of scripture interpretation; conceptions of the nature of God; the binding nature of religious commandments; is God’s creation a work in progress?; can a harmony be found between reason and faith?; what are the limitations of naturalism?; are mystical experiences hallucinations?: can practical reason, or scientific reason, or pure reason rule out faith as unreasonable? There are no atheological shortcuts to ending debate about faith. These issues, though important, are better dealt with in philosophy of religion texts. Religion Defined By “religion” is meant any belief system based on the idea that there is an omniscient, supreme (supra-human) deity or intelligence or force equipped with the capability to act as the designer, creator and mover of the entire universe, including everything in it – all natural and moral phenomena. It is necessary to realise that belief systems sometimes hold tenets which contradict one another. In addition, divisions within and between religious groups often lead to violent conflict and bloodshed. Most religions are characterised by both dogmatic and ritualistic aspects. The dogmatic refers to perceptions of divine revelations and the ritualistic to the rites or ceremonies embedded in historical tradition but symbolically related to the beliefs held. Religions the world over show great dogmatic variation in the beliefs held and in the relative emphasis upon the ritual. The dogmatic and ritualistic elements of religion normally find expression in organisational structures such as churches, shrines and priesthoods. The interaction of followers and priesthoods normally become the conduit of the revelations of the founder. The priesthoods pass it on by some process of ritualistically sanctioned endowment involving training both of character and mind. Because the priesthood is a holy estate, it is characterised by certain taboos, such as the celibacy rule of Catholic priesthood and other monkish orders and by rituals such as sacramental worshipping ceremonies. The major religions still active in today’s world made their appearance during the past 3000 years. Judaism became monotheistic; Zoroastrianism enveloped the Persian empire; Hinduism penetrated India; Buddhism arose to challenge Hinduism; Taoism and Confucianism was founded in China; Christianity spread from the Roman Empire into Europe; and Islam took root in the Middle East, North Africa and South East Asia. We know that since ancient times, religion has played a prominent role in the formation and development of communities and societies. The most important of these roles are the following: 2 - offering an account of the origins and nature of reality and humanity’s relationship with it; - offering a basis for communal identity, social affiliation, cultural cohesion and territorial attachment; - offering a foundation for moral values such as thinking and feeling about what is right, just, fair, preferable, true and universally compelling; - offering a sense of sacred mission exerting a profound hold upon people’s emotions and imagination while providing a fertile source of social and political cleavage driven by assumptions of a divine or supernatural imperative. Religion’s Origins Speculative curiosity is a universal characteristic of human nature. Since ancient times human beings have tended to speculate about things unknown to them. But the methods of inquiry and the body of accumulated knowledge only advanced slowly and ambiguously. The scientific method of inquiry only emerged in the middle of the second millennium of the Christian era. Before that time, people had to rely on other sources of knowledge: their imaginations or illusions, their observations or experiences and the utterings or teachings of persuasive individuals among them. Edward Tylor, a pioneer of social anthropology claims that the primordial form of religion was “animism” – the attribution of life to the inanimate. It means considering rivers, clouds or stars as living things and seeing living and “non-living” things alike as inhabited by (animated by) a soul or spirit. This “ghost-soul” or vaporous force infuses everything – rivers, clouds, birds, animals and people too – with animated life. Tylor’s theory rested on the view that the primitive mind is imbued with the “psychic unity of mankind” which is embedded in the universal human nature. He saw animism not as bizarrely inconsistent with modern thoughts, but as a natural early product of the same speculative curiosity that had led modern thought. Animism had been the “infant philosophy of mankind” assembled by “ancient savage philosophers”. It did what good theories are supposed to do: explain otherwise mysterious facts adequately. In Tylor’s view, the hypothesis that humans have a “ghost-soul” handily answers some questions that must have occurred to early humans, such as: what happens when you dream? In many primitive societies people still believe that when people sleep, a dreamer’s “ghost-soul” wanders and has adventures the dreamer later recalls. The idea that the souls of dead people return to visit via dreams is widespread in primitive societies, even today. Animism also handles another enigma that confronts human beings: death. Death is what happens when the soul leaves the body permanently. Tylor claimed that once early humans had conceived the idea of the soul, extending it beyond our species was a short logical step. They recognised the phenomena of life and death, health and sickness, will and judgment in plants and animals and, not unnaturally, ascribed some kind of soul to them. Once a broad animistic worldview had taken shape, Tylor