1.1 What is religion?

What is religion? If we are going to talk about religion, it might be a good idea to start out with a clear idea of what we are looking at. It is only too obvious today that there are different religions, churches, denominations and sects. And it is equally obvious that they don't agree with each other very much. So let us ask ourselves, what is "religion", what does it mean when we say that a person is "religious" and don't all the religions worship the same God in their own way, in any case?

One could argue that it is obvious what religion is. After all, I am religious, I believe this and that and I do such and such, therefore that is what makes something a religion and therefore what constitutes RELIGION itself. It may be so. But let us try an analogy: Suppose you are a capitalist, and someone asks you what "economics" means. You might then define "economics" as "the interchange of goods and services in a free market." That would be an answer of sorts, but an answer that simply ignores Marx's analysis of class exploitation, Keynes's advocacy of state involvement in the economy, the experience of millions of people in rigidly-controlled command economies ... the list is endless. You are free to argue that economics as you understand it is the best kind, but you cannot claim that it is the only kind. And the same is true for religion. There are many religions, and what they teach differs.

Even so, might it not be possible to take one's own experience and beliefs, strip it down to its most basic essentials, see whether those same essentials also apply to other religions and create a workable understanding of religion from that? Many have tried this approach, and have come up with answers such as "religion is the worship of a divine being or beings" or, more broadly, "religion is the human response to that which is considered sacred".

However, if we dig a little deeper in the various religions of the world, we come up with a number of problems. Let us first tackle some basic beliefs. Christians, Jews, Muslims and many others all claim to believe in the existence of a single god who created the world and everything in it (this is called monotheism). But they disagree strongly with each other (and among themselves) about the details, not to mention what He or She might require of humans. Hindus respond that, in their view, a monotheistic setup is fair enough, but there is also something to be said for incorporating some aspects of polytheism, at least on a subordinate level. In the final analysis some of them might also agree with the Buddhists that the ultimate nature of reality is devoid of personality and that its beginning and end, if such things were to exist, are lost in the mists of time. And that marvelously humanist Chinese sage Confucius once replied to this whole debate by saying, "You do not yet know how to serve people, why then worry about serving the gods?" One cannot regard basic beliefs as the common denominator of all things religious - to say that all religions worship the same God is just too simplistic, too easy. If we take religious people seriously, we have to learn to listen to what they are saying about their beliefs and recognise their uniqueness.