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Religion: A 21st Century Perspective

By John K. Simmons, PhD
Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies
Western Illinois University

Introduction

More than ever, the citizens of Planet Earth need to make a concerted effort to understand the power of religion and appreciate the dynamism present in human worldviews.  The purpose of this essay is to look at religion from an awakened perspective so that we may approach the new millennium of spirituality with hope and love—not despair and mistrust.


What Is "Religion"?  

In a course I teach, Beliefs and Believers, we quickly find that there are many more chapters in the story of religion than the one most familiar in American culture.  We do not judge other religions and decide which are "true" and which are "false."  Rather, we appreciate and try to understand different worldviews.  During a visit to a reputable art museum, you might express a preference for a Monet over a Van Gogh, but it is highly unlikely that you would end up in an argument over the "truth" of the artistic expression of these great masters.  Art is a way of describing or portraying the way the artist sees the world.  Can not the same be said of religious expressions?

On the other hand, art rarely is the cause of pain and oppression on a massive scale. Religion is not so benign.  Many people associate religion with cruel and oppressive attitudes and violent behavior. Religion, welded by the tyrannical or egomaniacal, can and does hurt.  Religious leaders have been known to use morality, drawn from religious doctrines, to make others feel small or outside the norms of what it means to live a purposeful or meaningful human life.  Some of the most disturbing characters in human history have used religion to justify violence against people they hate, all in the name of their God or some concept of the Divine.

The link between religion and oppression has caused many people to discard religion all together. In a modern society like the United States, freedom from religion is the choice of people who dismiss religion as the stuff of ancient superstitions, myths, or fables.  This secular, or non-religious view, places scientific inquiry at the forefront of the human quest to understand life.  From this perspective, religion is irrational, it causes wars and hatred in the world, and we'd all be better off without it. 

Needless to say, "religion" comes with a baggage car filled with presuppositions and misconceptions.  Here are a few we need to "toss off the baggage car" so we can begin anew with an open mind.  While any of the following might be partially true, none stand alone as an accurate or complete statement about religion:

Another presupposition about religion that needs to be addressed is the pervasive idea that your religion or my religion has somehow "always existed."   Of the many reasons sparking the human impulse to create religious systems, the quest for stability in a constantly changing world takes precedence.  Thus, religious people, prophets and adherents, almost inevitably describe their religion in terms such as eternal truth, unique revelation, or the final word of the mythic model for unchanging reality, God.

Desire for stability in a life that is often brutal and brief is completely understandable given the endless existential challenges human beings have faced across time and cultural experience. However, in the "real world," religion is anything but stable.  Faith-based systems are always emerging, evolving, and mutating.  Mirroring life in a lively springtime country pond, religious institutions interact with other institutions in a given culture; religion changes social experience; social experience changes religion.  Every human being carries their own unique spiritual DNA that ever so slightly reshapes "eternal traditions" into new forms. Species of religion – meaning the variegated denominations we name like members of a religious phylum – come and go; those that are not capable of adaptation are sure to die out.

This practical insight into how religion "works' in people's lives reveals another misconception about religion; when it comes to religion, you can't "tell the book by its cover."  Beware of simply accepting labels when it comes to learning about another person's religion. For example, Roman Catholicism is clearly defined by a set of beliefs and ritual practices. However, it is what the person who professes to be a Roman Catholic brings to the religion that may make all the difference in how Roman Catholicism shapes his or her response to life.  This explains why two people who claim adherence to the same religion can be miles apart in their attitude and approach to life; one is kind and loving; the other is mean-spirited and judgmental.  And the same can be said of believers in virtually every religion. 

Common Human Experience 

Everybody has a worldview.  You have a worldview.  It might be religious, it might be secular (non-religious), it might be a combination of both, but if you are reading this sentence, you have a worldview.  Sorting out the relationship between "religion" and the fundamental human practice of "seeing the world" a certain way, i.e., a worldview, is the first step towards accepting religion as an integral part of the lives of all peoples, in all cultures, in all times. 

To paraphrase a famous philosopher, "I exist, therefore I ask questions."  Commonality begins by recognizing the fact that all human beings in all cultures and in all eras of human history have pondered the same existential questions: Here is just a short list:

What we find in the study of religion is that what is fundamental, common in human experience quite naturally finds its way into the world's religions.  Religious answers to these questions are unique and often extraordinary, but the process of asking these questions is the common thread that connects you to religious people, secular people, all people who now or ever have wandered about this planet.  Religion is one expression of the ongoing quest for answers, for "wholeness," for peace and security, for justice, equality, and fairness.  The world's great religions – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and other East Asian religious expressions – all emerge in a relatively short period of human history, roughly 2,500 to 3,000 years, and each religion presents a unique set of answers to profound life questions.  However, archaeological evidence from the ruins of ancient civilizations tell us that earlier people had different answers.  What will future answers be like for people who live on this planet long after we are gone?

Everyone Has A Worldview

Because human beings are "wired" for pondering the nature and meaning of life, everyone has a worldview.  You might think of your consciousness as the hard drive on a computer.  Your worldview is the program you download.  The program you run interprets life's data according to the parameters of that program.  What you "put in" your biochemical computer is what you "get out" of life, your worldview.

More than one sociologist of religion has recognized that death, an "all-humanity rite of passage," is a common experience that binds human beings together in a quest for meaning and purpose in life.  Emerging fields of study such as neuro-psychology are providing scientific proof that different parts of the brain, an incredibly complex, biochemical organ, provide "mixed messages" about our existence; we experience, at the same time, the sense of being apart – an individual struggling to survive in an often hostile world where survival resources are scarce – and the sense of being a part; interconnected with countless other smaller and larger entities.

Human religious activity represents the often-desperate attempt to experientially bridge the cognitive, perceptual chasm between the unitive sense of being a part of everything that exists and the harsh dualistic "reality" of apartness.  On the journey across the bridge from apart to a part, religions function rather like computer programs for meaning used by humans to interpret, best they can, the information stored on the hard drive of common human experience.   Asking questions may simply be an inevitable function of human consciousness.

Nevertheless, human beings are compelled to form a worldview.  A quick definition of a worldview would be:

Try as you might, you cannot escape your worldview because it speaks about what you really value.  You know a person's worldview by their behavior; all else is window dressing.   People we know, even love, often seem hypocritical because what they say does not really correspond to what they do — a primary indicator of a person's worldview.

With tongue somewhat in cheek, I like to use this list of "real world" worldviews to get people thinking about commonality in human experience:

I purposely point out negative, self-serving worldviews because religion, ideally, is about recognizing the limitations of these common worldviews and setting out on a search for something more to life.  In the meantime, we have a host of socially constructed worldviews that come and go but all, to some degree, supply those who "see the world through that lens" with a sense of meaning or purpose in life.  Consider, for example, hip-hop culture, grunge culture, punk culture, sports fanatics, country music culture, NASCAR culture, fashion, and so forth.  The point is, for good or ill, all human beings have a worldview.  It is a "way of thinking" about the world that, at some level, provides structure, meaning, a sense of purpose (or lack thereof), guidance, or some level of belief that it's worthwhile to "get up in the morning."

Besides the self-serving worldviews listed above, there are numerous secular worldviews that define a person's identity and guide relationships in a more expansive manner.  Consider, for instance, environmentalism, feminism, humanism, or even, patriotism.  Communism, Democracy, Socialism, Nazism, and Theocracy are political worldviews that, quite literally, have changed world history.

And then, of course, we have religious worldviews.

Religion, Spirituality, and The Future

Is there a difference between religion and spirituality?  Judging by the numerous books and articles on the subject, this question has captured the attention of many people who are trying to sort out their perspective on religion.  If spirituality is the direct experience of God or the transcendent, then why do human beings create religious institutions to express this profound experience?   Obviously, they do, or we wouldn't have seminaries emphasizing the study of religion.  The telecourse I teach (Beliefs and Believers) uses the six dimensions of religion – experiential, mythic, ritual, doctrinal, ethical, and social – primarily to study religious institutions.  But we can never get away from the fact that without some kind of spiritual motivation, the experiential dimension, we don't get the other five dimensions. 

As we embark on our third millennia in the so-called "common era," the time has come for us not only to "experience" our unique spiritual dimension(s) but to also ensure that others are able to do likewise—even those whose paths may not coincide with our own.

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