World Faiths - An Introduction: Teach Yourself

Paul Oliver

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781444130720
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book is a concise guide to the major religions around the world. Become familiar with the history of each faith, its core beliefs, and how it is practised today. Whether you're studying theology or just want to know more about the faiths that shape our world, this clearly structured guide offers everything you need to get started.
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1

Introduction: relationships between religions

In this chapter you will learn about:

• the wide variety of religious belief systems
• the characteristics of religious belief
• ethical principles within religions
• mystical aspects of world religions.

It seems to be a characteristic feature of human existence to sense that life has a spiritual dimension. This may manifest itself in terms of membership of one of the major world faiths or it may simply be that a person feels vaguely that there is ‘more to life’ than merely acquiring material possessions and meeting the physical requirements of existence. Where people are members of a major faith, then there are often certain expectations of the way in which they will behave. We perhaps assume that they will read certain religious texts; that they may pray to a deity or deities; that they will participate in certain religious rituals; that they will attend certain ceremonies at a place devoted to communal worship; and that they may subscribe to a particular code of ethical conduct. By the same token, those individuals who do not belong to a mainstream religious tradition may still have strong religious or spiritual feelings. They may, for example, have a deep sense of the continuity of life, beyond their own particular span of existence. They may see their own life as being part of a continuum, so that even though it has a definite beginning and end, it exists as part of a broader spectrum of universal existence which is separate from the purely physical, inanimate world. They may also have a sense of sharing a spiritual existence with other human beings. This may be in the sense that they believe that all human beings have certain common experiences as part of the nature of being human.

In short then, many people experience a spiritual dimension to life, whether or not they are part of an organized faith. This spiritual dimension can be contrasted with the secular approach to life, which is characterized in a typical sense by a preoccupation with the material things of life and satisfying the physical requirements of sustaining life. This is not to say, however, that there is a clear dividing line between what we might call the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘secular’. Listening to music, for example, may on one level be purely about physical enjoyment and appear to have no relationship to the spiritual life. Contrariwise, someone who listens to music which s/he really enjoys may experience a lifting of the spirit and an enhanced feeling about life very close to a spiritual experience which we might term ‘religious’.

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Insight

There are many different terms used to describe feelings of religious experience. These include a sense of the ‘mystical’ or a feeling of unity with the divine. Whether we speak of spiritual experience or religious experience, all of these terms may point to a universal need in human beings to understand something of the world beyond our physical existence.

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The distinction between the spiritual and the secular may in fact be a feature of contemporary society, rather than a long-standing historical phenomenon. In present-day society it is perfectly possible for someone to lead their life totally divorced from a sense of the spiritual. Such a person may successfully earn a living, have a house and car and rear well-adjusted children, without having any sense of the spiritual as part of their life. If a person is happy and feels that s/he leads a fulfilled life, then perhaps it is not completely clear why one might assume that they should have a religious dimension to their life. Although today it seems possible to make a decision to lead a purely secular life, in earlier societies this was much less usual.

In Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, there was originally no separate ‘name’ for Shinto. It only later became known as ‘Shinto’ to distinguish it from the newer religion of Buddhism. The fundamental reason for the lack of a distinguishing name originally was that Shinto was so much a part of everyday life there was no reason to distinguish a religious life from a secular life. Kami, or spirits, were seen as part of the natural world of trees, mountains and rivers and also as part of family ancestors. The entire world was a spiritual, religious world. Arguably there are parallels with Christian European society in the Middle Ages, and certainly with traditional Hindu society. One might also argue that there is a similar situation with regard to the world view of indigenous Americans or Australians. Both groups of people had (and have) a sophisticated relationship with the natural world, which was fundamentally spiritual.

The range of religious beliefs

When we consider societies in which the secular and the spiritual are very closely intertwined, it becomes far less easy to define clearly what we mean by the ‘religious’. It is perhaps far easier to achieve this distinction when we consider contemporary society. Certainly as we consider the range of world faiths, it is evident that there are enormous variations in patterns of belief and worship.

There are first of all faiths that have no deity to which people pray or carry out devotions. Perhaps the largest religion which comes into this category is Buddhism. To the uninitiated, Buddhists may appear to be worshipping the Buddha. After all, tourists may visit Buddhist temples in Thailand and see large golden statues of the Buddha at the front of a temple, much as there may be a large statue of the crucifixion in a Christian church. Although appearances may be to the contrary, there is no sense in which the Buddha is ‘worshipped’ as a deity. The Buddha is seen as a spiritually enlightened human being whose teaching is capable, if followed diligently, of helping human beings to reduce the suffering inherent in their lives. In terms of the statue of the Buddha, this is seen as an image of an enlightened person meditating and as such as a reminder of the teaching of the Buddha and of the potential inherent in all human beings to reduce suffering. A Buddhist would not normally, according to the teaching, pray to the Buddha for help in solving problems in life. A Buddhist would not, for example, pray for a miracle or for divine intervention in some form. The Buddhist would reflect upon the teachings of the Buddha, perhaps using the statue as a form of inspiration for what was, in fact, possible in life. Neither the Buddha image nor the historical Buddha himself is seen as any kind of deity. They are merely a reminder of the spiritual achievements of one human being and the way in which today Buddhists may utilize those achievements to improve the quality of their lives.

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Insight

It is worth recognizing that in many religions there is usually a great diversity of practice. The culture of a country may interact with religious belief to produce a range of practice which may differ from that in a different cultural environment.

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The situation in Christianity is very different from in Buddhism. Christians may pray to Jesus Christ, asking Him to intervene in the world to help them. Buddhists are entirely dependent upon their own efforts to help bring about a change in the world or to reduce their own suffering. Christians, by Contrast, besides their own efforts, would see the possibility that through their faith in God, God would be able, in principle, to intervene and help them in their lives. Christianity shares a clearly monotheistic world view with Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, among others. This is not to say, of course, that members of these different faiths have the same perception of the deity in their particular religion; only that they subscribe to the view that there is a single deity. Some other faiths, such as Taoism, appear to subscribe to the view not that a deity as such exists, but rather that there is a spiritual force influencing the universe and that it is possible, in principle, for Taoists to acquire a close understanding of the nature of that spirit. In other religious systems such as Confucianism, the relationship between the Confucian world view and the existence or otherwise of a deity is perhaps slightly less than clear.

Thus there are faiths that are clearly monotheistic in terms of belief in a single, all-powerful God and there are other faiths which appear not to subscribe to the existence of a deity as such. There are also, however, faiths that appear to combine some elements of both of these positions, having both personal deities to which the individual person may make approaches and also the rather impersonal universal spirit which has a unifying influence over the whole of existence.

Hinduism is perhaps an example of this position. There are many individual deities in Hinduism, so much so that a newcomer to the study of the faith may be rather bewildered at the multiplicity of images of deities found in that religion. Among the more common deities are Krishna, Shiva, Sarasvati and Ganesh, the god with the appearance of an elephant. It is worth noting that the worship of these personal gods is not something which takes place solely on the occasions when someone visits the temple. On the contrary, images of the gods are to be found in all areas of society. A hairdresser who has set up a small stall on the streets of an Indian city may well surround his workplace with framed pictures of his favourite deities. Such pictures are often mass-produced and a common sight in Indian cities. Taxi drivers will also typically have many small images of deities on the fascia of their vehicles, beside the steering wheel. An individual deity is often associated with a particular dimension of life, and prayers will be offered to that god or goddess at appropriate times. The important feature of this approach to deities is that it permeates many facets of life, producing a blurring of the distinction between the religious and the secular.

Although one can view these gods and goddesses as being immanent and very close to the day-to-day lives of people, one can also see them as manifestations of a more general religious force. The universal spirit or Brahman of the Upanishads can be viewed as the spiritual force which influences all of the living and inanimate world. All of the immanent, personal gods can be seen as a part of such a universal spirit. On this rather more philosophical plane, the absolute can be seen as a divine element in everyone. It may well be true that many people in their daily lives are not in a state of regular reflection on Brahman, but the more personal deities of Hinduism offer a straightforward approach to religious experience which is available in daily life.

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Insight

While Hinduism is often thought of as involving belief in many gods and goddesses, on a more philosophical, abstract plane it can be considered as a religion of a single divine entity, Brahman.

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Similarities between world faiths

It is relatively easy to find differences between world faiths and, indeed, such differences are so numerous that such an analysis could proceed for a long time. It is probably a more complex task to look for similarities between religions or at least for shared themes that characterize the spiritual life.

If we are to draw a distinction between the religious life and the secular life, then it is a reasonable assumption that there must be questions and issues that are distinctively ‘religious’, and this certainly seems to be the case. Religions, for example, generally appear to address the possibility of an existence beyond the present, earthly lifespan of a human being. In Christianity, for example, there is the clear promise of a ‘life after death’. For the Christian who has faith in God and makes a sincere attempt to live life according to the example and precepts of Jesus Christ, there is the promise of eternal life, close to God the Father in heaven. In Hinduism and Jainism, the prospect of an existence in a spiritual realm after the earthly existence is linked to concepts of karma, reincarnation and the doctrine of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The assumption of karma is that the deeds of an individual accrue certain consequences which have to be lived through in future existences, until all the consequences have been eliminated. Only then can the individual achieve release from the cycle of reincarnation. In Jainism, the main method for eliminating the results of karma is to lead an ascetic life.

Some religions, therefore, tend to offer an analysis of the nature of existence after a physical death and also offer a spiritual ‘path’ along which the individual may travel in order to achieve a new spiritual existence after death. Buddhism, however, offers a rather different analysis of this issue. It certainly acknowledges the validity of the question, since it is recorded that the Buddha in his lifetime was asked this question by one of his disciples. He chose not to respond directly to the question of the nature of an afterlife. His answer was that the question itself is unimportant. His argument was that the only truly important issue is the manner in which we live our present lives. This should be our total preoccupation. In other words, human beings should devote themselves to the system of mental training set out by the Buddha and should adopt this in order to try to reduce the suffering in their lives. The principle of mindfulness enunciated by the Buddha exhorted people to concentrate on life in the present and to live each moment in a sensitive and careful manner. One might perhaps summarize the Buddhist view by saying that the only reality is the present.

Nevertheless, one can see that conjectures about the nature of further possible existences are characteristic of religious faiths. Religion also shares much in common with philosophy, and religious and philosophical questions are often fairly similar. Another area which is central to the religious life is the question of the nature of reality. In philosophical terms this can be referred to as an ontological question. If it is applied to spiritual matters, it raises such issues as whether the material, day-to-day world is compatible with the religious life or whether true spirituality may only be found in some ‘otherworldly’ existence which is distinct from the ordinary daily life of, for example, earning a living and raising a family. This is very much connected with questions of religious lifestyles. Some people may argue, for example, that the religious life should really be lived ‘in the world’ as a part of ordinary, daily existence, while others may suggest that the truly religious life is one of contemplation and withdrawal from the world.

The responses to this important question are different in separate religious traditions, but it is an issue which emerges in all faiths. In the Sikh religion, for example, there has always been an emphasis upon the importance of integrating the spiritual life with day-to-day living. This was always emphasized by Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion. In his later years at Kartarpur, he continued to earn his living as a farmer, as if to stress the significance of the importance of daily labour. In addition, at one point in the early history of Sikhism, the Sikhs would not accept converts to the faith from sadhus and sannyasins who were leading a life dependent upon alms given by others.

One might also reflect upon whether the practical approach to life which is characteristic of the Sikh faith was also affected to some degree by the location of Panjab. This area of the Indian subcontinent is situated on the main trade and also invasion route into India from the Asian steppes. The route through the Khyber Pass led directly through Panjab, and this resulted in the Sikhs frequently finding themselves in the centre of a region affected by war and conflict. Perhaps in order for them to survive in such a situation, it was necessary to act in the world, rather than to adopt an ‘otherworldly’ approach.

Other faiths have also to varying degrees seen it as important to respond to the world as they found it. Confucianism was very much an ethical approach to the practical questions of daily life, so much so that after the death of Confucius, his approach was gradually adopted by the political and administrative systems in China. Some traditions such as Zen Buddhism, which are sometimes considered as withdrawing from the world, also have a practical element in their practice. Zen monks are frequently required to do a considerable amount of manual work as part of their training regime, the purpose of this being partly a training in mindfulness, but also in being non-attached to other activities in which perhaps sometimes they would rather be engaged. Judaism is also very much a life-affirming tradition. There is much less of the emphasis upon withdrawal from the world than there is in some other faiths. Judaism emphasizes family life and indeed many of the traditions of Judaism are as much centred on the family as they are on the synagogue.

Nevertheless, there are a number of world faiths which respond to the basic ontological question about the spiritual nature of the world in a broadly different manner. Some faiths, or at least traditions within those faiths, view the material world as fundamentally unsatisfactory in a spiritual sense and consider that the most appropriate means of religious expression is to withdraw from the world in some way.

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Insight

In many religious traditions, there exists the practice of withdrawal from the world. Those who adopt this style of life are often a source of inspiration for lay people who live and work in the everyday world.

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There is, of course, a long monastic tradition within Christianity, which reached its highest development in medieval times in Europe, but whose antecedents may be traced back to those people ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Meet the author
• Only got a minute?
• Only got five minutes?
• Only got ten minutes?
• 1 Introduction: relationships between religions
• 2 Confucianism
• 3 Taoism
• 4 Shinto
• 5 Judaism
• 6 Christianity
• 7 Islam
• 8 The Baha’i faith
• 9 Hinduism
• 10 Buddhism
• 11 Jainism
• 12 The religion of the Parsis
• 13 Sikhism
• 14 New religious movements
• 15 Conclusion: the future of religion
• Glossary
• Taking it further
• Index