Rection Post 1 - What is religion?

Reaction Post 1

In class we talked about how religion surrounds the idea of finding meaning in life and how it is often used as a way to help us survive and transition through our lifetimes in the best possible way. I therefore thought it would be interesting to therefore see how the term “religion” itself is defined by different individuals and have found some web pages that go into greater detail on this issue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A19645167
This page is off the BBC site and tries to answer the question ‘what is religion?’ and goes into greater depth about how the concept itself is understood by many. It compares the viewpoints of psychologists, sociologists and biologists, and compares various groups, sects, superstitions to try and understand what religion really is

The website shows how there are so many different issues involved when thinking about the topic, and it also shows the diversity of beliefs that individuals consider as religious outlooks. Different theorists have different views on the subject and individuals such as Ninian Smart consider there to be 7 different dimensions within the subject such as:
The Practical and Ritual Dimension
The Experiential and Emotional Dimension
The Narrative or Mythic Dimension
The Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension
The Ethical and Legal Dimension
The Social and Institutional Dimension
The Material Dimension
Taken from “In 'The World's Religions' (Cambridge 1989), by Ninian Smart
Overall, the website shows how religion and religious diversity are very controversial subjects and that it is an issue that will be continually explained in a variety of ways depending on the individual in question. I think that it shows how everyone takes something different out of the topic, and that it provides a different meaning to each one of us. The web site says that “Religion addresses the most fundamental questions about what it is to be human” and as it often becomes such a personal issue, it is manipulated by every one of us, so that we take out of it what we want and need to feel better about ourselves which is what we discussed in class today.

The other website I found whilst looking into this issue of what religion is and how it is defined was http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm
This site basically lists the various definitions of the term ‘religion’ and shows how academics, dictionaries and religious groups often have varying opinions about what the term represents. I thought it was very interesting to see how varied the definitions on the site were, and how hard it is to actually pin point what religion really is. From this variation I think we can see why religious beliefs themselves can be so different, and therefore why religious diversity exists not just in America but throughout the whole world.

Overall I think that by seeing how various individuals from a wide range of disciplines all interpret the term differently, we can better understand why such extensive diversity exists. Although we often relate religion to God, I don’t think there needs to be a set way for people to believe and I think that diversity within religion should be viewed as something to learn from, rather than something that creates tension throughout the world. Personally I think that by studying the various factors and issues within the subject we will be able to understand each other better, and I think that we can learn a lot from the topic. Therefore we should accept the various ways of looking at the subject and understand it as a discipline that each one of us treats differently depending on whom we are and what we feel we need in life.