[Back to Religion and Spirituality]
When talking about a religion or belief system, please be particularly careful to ensure that any comments are fair and helpful.
There is a common assumption in many Western countries that if you are religious, then you 'believe in God', and that your choice of religion is all about believing in the 'right' God. However, while you will find a God or multiple gods in many religions, there are also religions without any gods, and religions where belief in a God or gods is optional.
People constantly talk about God, and whether they believe in God or not: they clearly have something in mind when they do so. But, when you move beyond the beliefs of a specific group, there is almost no agreement about what a 'God' (or 'god') is.
So religion, on this site, is not limited to belief systems which talk about a God or gods. As we say on the page about Spirituality, talk about spirituality can be about an individual, internal reality, it can be about how the individual engages with and expresses this reality, and it can be about how the individual engages with a wider 'spiritual' reality outside themselves; and shared spirituality is what we call 'religion'.
Many people are dismissive - or suspicious - of what they call 'organized religion', but religion must always be organized to some extent. If you want to talk with someone else about spiritual matters, you have to organize a time and place to meet, even if it is your local pub. If you want to talk in a meaningful way, you have to agree some shared terminology. If you want to share with someone else practices you find helpful, you need to agree what and how and where, and you are on your way to establishing some kind of ritual.
We need to talk about the important things we believe, and share the important things we do, and this inevitably leads people - not everyone, but many people - into participating in some form of religion. Religion is a fact of life - but, like politics, how we do it makes a big difference. What we believe and what we do as a result plays a massive part in shaping our lives and creating the world we live in.
Of course, some people are simply born into a religion, and accept it as a given. Most people avoid asking awkward questions, especially when they might raise questions about the people, community and practices which you belong to and which enable you to make sense of the world. Because religion touches every aspect of life, everything is connected: explicit beliefs, doctrines and assumptions; rituals, traditions and practices, cultural norms, social structures, economic frameworks, and much more, Some religions focus more on some of these aspects and consider them important, but some important things are not always recognized or acknowledged as important; some religions are concerned about reaching outsiders with their truth, but not all.
We can group religions into the different foundations they rest upon. Some rest on local traditions and stories, some rest on philosophical truth, some rest on prophetic revelation, and a very few rest upon historic events. But from these very different origins, human nature takes most religions into familiar territories; as human institutions, most of them are strong on respecting authority, and most of them have divided into multiple competing sects. But, of course, the fact that people disagree doesn't mean there is no such thing as truth.
Any religion, or substantial philosophical movement, can be tested in a few obvious ways: how far does it address the big questions of life; how consistent is it; how well does it deliver what is claimed; how far can the principles be expressed in everyday life, and what is the consequence of doing this; to what extent could it be applied universally? Of course, some religions may consider some of these questions invalid or inappropriate.
- Gods, Ancient and Modern is an attempt to clarify the language we use when talking about 'God' or 'gods', to help us talk both clearly and helpfully about the subject.
- Talking About Religion describes how the usual principles of good practice on this site apply when we come to talk about religion.
- Wonder, Mystery and Awe points out that questions of faith and religion cannot be adequately addressed purely from an intellectual perspective.
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