Here are some categories similar to the category “religion”:
- Faith
- Spirituality
- Philosophy
- Ideology
You may read on the subject of “Defining Religions” by visiting the following site that says, religion is “notoriously difficult to define”: http://www.studyreligion.org/why/index.html
Definitions, we may note, direct the approach of the study! Some classical definitions of Religion you find it below, not in any particular order.
a. “Religion is what the individual does with his solitariness …” (Alfred North Whitehead)
b.“Religion is a sense of the numinous, the ‘wholly other’ …” (Rudolff Otto)
c. “Religion is a ‘feeling of absolute dependence’. Religion is the ‘consciousness that the whole of our spontaneous activity comes from a source outside of us’”. (Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
d. “A religion is 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 community called a church, all those who adhere to them.” (Emile Durkheim)
e. “Religion is ‘a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence’”. (Robert Bellah)
f. “A religion is a seven-dimensional organism, ritual, doctrinal, mythical or narrative, experimental or emotional, ethical or legal, organisational or social, material or artistic.” (Ninian Smart)
Many religionists, those who promote religions, including Pat Fisher, believe that in religion there is “the human recognition that there is an ultimate order and meaning, within the mystery of our lives.” (Ring and et al, Introduction to the Study of Religions, p. 4). What we may learn from all these is: “Religions … are systems of symbols in which the ideals, the aspirations, and the experiences of a community are represented.” Ring, p. 13.
P.D. Devanandan, an Indian scholar of Hinduism, died in 60’s, used to say every religion (somewhat interchangeable with “faith”) has three basic parts and they are “cultus, culture, and creed”. Cf. M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance, Madras: CLS, 1976. p. 287. Some scholars debate the order or the priority of the three. For example Peter Munz, Problems of Religious Knowledge, 1959 or R.H.L. Slater, World Religions and World Community, 1963. Which of the three is more important?
Cultus: “Cultus includes the liturgy, the sacramental and other rites and festivals involving religious symbols and myths, and the community bound by them. Through them, we express our faith-response in worship and devotion and in our apprehension of God in imagery. Here we are dealing with the levels of feeling and imagination.” M.M Thomas.
Culture: “Culture deals with the patterns of human existence, the ethics and ethos characteristic of a faith. This is the sphere of values and structures of personal and social behaviour, expressing the faith in human relations.” M.M. Thomas.
Creed: “Creed is faith in search of understanding. It formulates faith and its cultic and cultural manifestations in terms of intelligible concepts and beliefs.” M.M. Thomas.
The three above “Cultus, Culture, and Creed” may suggest what is that we need to look when we explore the phenomenon called “religion”!
Here is another paper – http://www.geocities.com/mikkon463/exoteric.html - written by an American Agnostic person. You may read this to clarify between “religion” and “spirituality” that the author calls “exoteric” and “esoteric” religions! This essay may give you a clue why some protest, vehemently, organized or institutional religions.
Question to Explore:
Explain the importance of “worship, symbols, and myths” for a follower of any religion. For this you may read LR, pp. 14-18.
- Faith
- Spirituality
- Philosophy
- Ideology
You may read on the subject of “Defining Religions” by visiting the following site that says, religion is “notoriously difficult to define”: http://www.studyreligion.org/why/index.html
Definitions, we may note, direct the approach of the study! Some classical definitions of Religion you find it below, not in any particular order.
a. “Religion is what the individual does with his solitariness …” (Alfred North Whitehead)
b.“Religion is a sense of the numinous, the ‘wholly other’ …” (Rudolff Otto)
c. “Religion is a ‘feeling of absolute dependence’. Religion is the ‘consciousness that the whole of our spontaneous activity comes from a source outside of us’”. (Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
d. “A religion is 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 community called a church, all those who adhere to them.” (Emile Durkheim)
e. “Religion is ‘a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence’”. (Robert Bellah)
f. “A religion is a seven-dimensional organism, ritual, doctrinal, mythical or narrative, experimental or emotional, ethical or legal, organisational or social, material or artistic.” (Ninian Smart)
Many religionists, those who promote religions, including Pat Fisher, believe that in religion there is “the human recognition that there is an ultimate order and meaning, within the mystery of our lives.” (Ring and et al, Introduction to the Study of Religions, p. 4). What we may learn from all these is: “Religions … are systems of symbols in which the ideals, the aspirations, and the experiences of a community are represented.” Ring, p. 13.
P.D. Devanandan, an Indian scholar of Hinduism, died in 60’s, used to say every religion (somewhat interchangeable with “faith”) has three basic parts and they are “cultus, culture, and creed”. Cf. M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance, Madras: CLS, 1976. p. 287. Some scholars debate the order or the priority of the three. For example Peter Munz, Problems of Religious Knowledge, 1959 or R.H.L. Slater, World Religions and World Community, 1963. Which of the three is more important?
Cultus: “Cultus includes the liturgy, the sacramental and other rites and festivals involving religious symbols and myths, and the community bound by them. Through them, we express our faith-response in worship and devotion and in our apprehension of God in imagery. Here we are dealing with the levels of feeling and imagination.” M.M Thomas.
Culture: “Culture deals with the patterns of human existence, the ethics and ethos characteristic of a faith. This is the sphere of values and structures of personal and social behaviour, expressing the faith in human relations.” M.M. Thomas.
Creed: “Creed is faith in search of understanding. It formulates faith and its cultic and cultural manifestations in terms of intelligible concepts and beliefs.” M.M. Thomas.
The three above “Cultus, Culture, and Creed” may suggest what is that we need to look when we explore the phenomenon called “religion”!
Here is another paper – http://www.geocities.com/mikkon463/exoteric.html - written by an American Agnostic person. You may read this to clarify between “religion” and “spirituality” that the author calls “exoteric” and “esoteric” religions! This essay may give you a clue why some protest, vehemently, organized or institutional religions.
Question to Explore:
Explain the importance of “worship, symbols, and myths” for a follower of any religion. For this you may read LR, pp. 14-18.
