Religions

Religions

Introduction

Some writers have compared religions to different roads along which groups of people are traveling. The roads aren't alike, so the trip is different on each road. Some people seem to think that these different roads all lead to the same place - a good place. Many religions call this “place” God.

The study of history shows that each of the major religions of the world today has been developing for a thousand or more years. History also shows that there have been religions that existed in the past but are no longer followed. Newspapers tell of new religions and “cults” that have formed in recent times. Will any of the major religions eventually cease to have followers? Will any of the new religions or “cults” develop into major religions - roads traveled by millions of people for thousands of years?

These questions really cannot be answered now, but they do indicate a common characteristic of religions. Religions deal with mystery in life. They try to provide answers to or insights into some of the unanswerable questions that have interested people as long as there have been people on earth. Religions provide a necessary element in the lives of individuals and societies.

Discussion

Studying present and past societies has shown that religion has been an important element of most cultures. It appears that every society needs to consider the many unanswerable questions that humans have found in the mystery of life. In most societies, the religion or religions of the society try to develop meaningful answers out of the mystery. In other societies, philosophies may fill this need more than religion. An example of this was the Soviet Union. The government tried to replace religious writing and answers with the writings of Marx and Lenin and the answers found in their philosophies. It is interesting to note, also, that 71 years after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia which brought communists to power, the Soviet Union allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to celebrate the 1000 year anniversary of Christianity in Russia. With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of Communism there in the early 1990s, church attendance and the sales of religious literature increased very noticeably there.

The purpose of the readings about major religions in this course is not to decide whether religion or philosophy provides better answers or to decide whether one religion or denomination is “better” than another. The purpose is to show that a need exists in all societies to obtain answers or insights into many unanswerable questions. They are unanswerable because the answers provided by religions and philosophies are theories or ideas that cannot be proven or disproven. Some people accept the answers and other so not.

Some people claim that humans invented God to fill this need. They say that religions are the lived testimonies of these societies' understandings of the gods they have created. When studying the major religions of the world, it is not necessary to decide whether humans created God or God created humans - this ...