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Religion has been defined as belief in supernatural beings that can influence, benefit and harm human beings and can control natural events and worshiping them to propitiate them. |
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Men have looked in awe and wonder at the mysterious forces that generate them (life). They have wondered about a kind of Being (or beings) far greater than themselves. As a result, they have, since the dawn of human consciousness, believed in the role of invisible and supernatural Force or Forces.
Evidence of history is categorical in this regard and the archaeological remains show beyond any doubt the early association of the man (human -societies) with religious belief. In this respect the statue of Woman from Willendorf, Austria, can be cited, which probably is the oldest relic of art we have. It was discovered in Austria and is dated to be around 30,000- 25,000 BC. You can visit the following link to read more about it
http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Prehistory/Willendorf.html
Similarly the paintings and drawings found on the walls of caves in Lascaux, France, are particularly illuminating. These cave paintings were discovered in the year 1940 and are understood to be about 20,000 years old. You can visit the following link to see the pictures about the caves of Lascaux
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/
Most of the experts believe that the statue of the Woman of Willendorf means fertility cult and that of Lascaux painting are essentially religious in the nature.
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Defining Religion From The Eyes Of Great Philosophers |
1. Religion is an invention to frighten men into adhering to morality and justice.
Critias the Sophist
2. Religion is an extension of human aspiration.
Ludwig Feuerbach
3. Any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal and against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of conviction of tits general and enduring value is religious in quality.
John Dewey
4. Religion is man’s ultimate concern for the Ultimate.
Paul Tillich
5. Religion is a belief in an ultimate meaning of the universe.
Alferd R. Wallace
6. Religion, as a minimum, is the belief in the spiritual beings.
E. B. Taylor
7. Religion is the one's attitude towards whatever he considers to be the determiner of destiny.
James Bissett Pratt
8. Religion is the theory of man's relation to the universe.
S.P. Hayness
9.Religion is (subjectively regarded)the organization of all duties as divine commands.
Immanuel Kant
10 Religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man.
Max Miller
11. Religion is propitiation of, and dependency on, superior powers, which are believed to control and direct the course of nature and human life.
Sir James G. Frayzer
12. The essence of religion is the feeling of utter dependence upon the infinite reality, that is, upon God.
F. Schleiermacher
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Begining And Degeneration of the Religion |
All primitive and modern societies are believed to have had some form of the religion. This universal quest for religios truth reflects the human instinct for the spirtual, though it is one of the concealed instincts and not the basic instincts like urge to survive and reproduce.
Begining Of Religion -- Monotheism:
Judaism, Christianity and Islam have categoriacl views on the genesis of religion. They hold that the first human beings were monotheist. This is true for the number of other religions also. However the Renaisssance shholars raised questions about the validty of this view.
Anthropological evidence shows that all primitive societies were "monothesists"(believed in one supreme God) in the begining. This has been shown by the extensive work of western anthropologists. specially, Carl Gustav Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, has madfe a lot of evidence available on the subject.
Of paticular importance is the history of the religion belief of the Semites
( semite,from Shem or Sem one of the surviving sons of Naoah after the Great Deluge, according to the Holy Bible. Judaism, Christianity and Islam having born in places by the
race )
and the tribe of Israel as narrated in the Old Testament and corroborated by independent sources. It shows that the man was aware of the monotheistic belif, since the day he started thinking.
Among the French philoshers and Encyclopedists, Voltaire (1694-1778) espoused an anticlerical religious belief, which viewed the origion of "Polytheism" in the work of priests - a point also developed by another encyclopedist Denis Diderot
(1713-1784). That the vested interest of clergy (professional priests) could have played a role in the development of polythestic innovations and appearence of other occult disciplines is even demonstrable in the known history of monothestic religions. If you want to know more about this stuff you can visit the following link
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/view_monotheism.html
or if you want to know about the "Islamic Tawheed" you can visit the following link
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1408/tawheed.htm
Degeneration Of monothesim into Polytheism:
Later on these socities degenerated into various forms of "POLYTHESIM" (shirk - in Muslim terminology). Polytheism Is belief in a "Supereme Being" who has delegated his supernatural powers to other beings. These other beings may be angels, human beings, celestical bodies, animals or even non-living things such as stones, rivers or sea etc. Examining the process of this degeneration is an interesting study. It appears that, broadly, this degeneration was affected through three stages - animism, magic and ancestor worship. If you want to know more about the "Polytheism" you can visit the following link
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/polythei.htm
or
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0839611.html
Animism:
The primitive man first discovered that he had a soul. Historian of religions attribute this discovery to the phenomenon of dreaming. The primitive man found that while he was asleep, he dreamet of far off places ad some times met his relatives who had died long ago. He conclude that while his body lying in his hut, there is another part of existece that moves out and travel far off places. This part was termed as soul. He therefore began in beleiving in duality of body and soul. He therefore assumed that the spirit was immortal. The belief that every thing in the world has a spirit dwelling in it is known as animism. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor invented this term in 1871. He took the word from the Latin anima, which means spirit or soul. Tylor based his theory on his study of various societies and how people of those societies regarded a wide variety of natural objects as sacred. If you want to know more about the animism you can consult the following link in this regard
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/animism.htm
Magic:
Once the ancient man has discovered spirits, and found them to be more powerful than his mortal body, he realized that he needed their help. He also realized that the powers of spirits could be harnessed for a broad variety of purpose. The human instinct to wield powers motivated him to delve into the world of spirits and establish some sort of communication with them. Also i order to control them he started practicing magic. Magic can be defined as an art to enable man to manage spirits. If you want to know more anout this stuff you can visit the following link
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/3-04-01/mbs.cgi.28.html
Ancestor Worship:
Of all the spirits, the spirits of dead ancestors and, specially, of those who were pious or celebrated due to their outstanding qualities or achievements, had more attention to him. With the passage of time, his belief and dependence of ancestral spirits increased and so did his efforts to gain command over them. If you want to know more about this stuff you can visit the following link
http://www.asatru.de/banchest.htm
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Forms Of Religious Belief |
The way it has been presented by its believers aroud the world, religion has been made to appear a complex matter, which is indeed is in case of some of primative religions such as "Buddhism" or "Jainism". But it is much simplified in the Semitic religions such as "Judaism" and "Christianity"; and finally in "Islam", it comes to us as a set of simple and logical ideas. Unfortunately, all the people in the world do not agree on the form or content of religious faith. They have had different ideas on religion, and as a result there are a number of approaches to religion.
ATHEISM:
Atheism can be defined as the refusal to acknowledge God/Gods. It is the situation of negation. To know more about the stuff you can visit the following link
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ATHEISM.html
AGNOSTICISM:
Agnosticism is the view that the proposition of God, its meaning and proof, is not known and cannot be known to be true or false. It is in the state of ambivalance. It is said that an agnostic is some one who did not live long to become an atheist or theist. To know about more on this stuff you can visit the following link
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/agnostic.htm
DEISM:
Desim is a belief in one God but the revelation, dogma, prophethood and supernatural communication are all excluded. In Islamic terms, a deist believe in God but does not believe in Heavens, Prophets, Angels, Religious Scriptures, hereafter, and Hell. This is a situation of partial affirmation of religion. To learn more about the stuff visit the folowing link
http://www.credo.ndirect.co.uk/deism.html
THEISM:
Theism is a belief in God and that he is concerned about the moral conduct in this world and that he sends His messages through his chosen ones and will reward and punish man according to his deeds. This is a situation of complete affirmation of religion. To learn more about the stuff visit the following link
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/index.shtml
HENOTHEISM:
It is belief in one God who created the world but then gradually distanced Himself from the world. It consists of Monolatry(worship of one God) while the existence of other Gods is addmitted or quuetioned.
POLYTHEISM:
It is the belief in one God who delegated His supernatural authority to lesser Gods.If you want to know more about "Polytheism" you can visit the following link
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/polythei.htm
PANTHEISM:
The belief in one God who has permeates through every existence or believing that everything has emanated from Him. It is the view that God is everyhthing, or that God and the universe are one. To know more about "Pantheism" visit the following link
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/
MONOTHEISM:
Belief in only one God who has not delegated any of His supernatural powers to others. This is the belief held uncomprisingly by the "Muslims" and also professed by the "Jews" and "Christians".
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By analyzing these schools of religious thoughts, we immediately realize that their differences cannot be resolved without first answering the question that whether God exists or not? If He doesnot exist, the 'THEIST" is right and all other can safely dumped. On the other hand if he exists, we can forget "ATHEISM" and "AGNOSTICISM", and then only resolve the question whether there is one God or more than one God. This is relatively an easy taks to do.
The quest for knowledge about God continues to be the one of the most significant engagment of the thinkers from the begining of the world. The myraid of arguments andvanced for the God's existence is on epiece of evidence for the centuries long attemt to determine the extent to which humans can have rational knowledge of God. Now we have to turn to the most famous of these arguments.
In all palces and at all times men have believed in the existence of the supreme spiritual being or being and in the great tradition of which Judaism, Christianity and Islam are a part, men have believed in the existence of a single supreme and infinite God. But it is one thing to believe and the other to know. For the rationalists of Middle Ages belief alone was not enough. As theologians and philosphers, they desired proofs of reasons.
Ancient Greek philosophy contained a number of demonstrations of the existence of a "Supreme Being". Some appealed to the other and the purpose of nature, some to the necessities of a first cause to which the universe could be traced. Aristotle, in particular, had attempted a formal demonstration of a "First Cause of Motion" in a work devoted to the study of matter and motion (The Physics). Impressed by Aristotle, the early Christian theologioans borrowed heavily from the "Graeco Roman Tradition". They attempted to develop a philosopical frame-work for the revealed truth of the Old and New Testaments. Their efforts focused on the claim that Christians theology was not at odds with the Greek thinking. We can see these influences clearly in the writing of "Saint Thomas Aquinas" (1225-1274). Saint Thomas's respect for "Aristotle" was so great that that he referred to him simply as "Philospher", as though there were no other. Among Aquinas's five proofs are several which can be traced to Aristotle, and all of them, in one way or another, rely upon Aristotle's notions of form and matter, actuality and potentiality.
For getting more information about this topic visit the following link
http://www.doesgodexist.org/ |
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