9.1 Human beings, the cosmos, divinity, good and evil

Religions all over the world have felt a need to address issues of meaning, life and death. From their thinking and debating, religions have developed a surprisingly small number of basic patterns. These patterns give us a sort of checklist: If we find one of these patterns, then what we are looking at is definitely religion. If not, then it probably is not a religion, but may still be a world view that plays a similar role in people's lives.

Fact File: Varieties of religious thought concerning divinity and the cosmos

1. Theism: There are one or more gods, who created the world and look after people. Theism exists in two major varieties:

1a. Polytheism: There are many gods. One should try to serve them all. This can be difficult, because sometimes they want us to do different things . Polytheism is not common these days, but can still be found, for example, among the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It was much more common in ancient times, for example among the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

1b. Monotheism: There is one god, who created the world. People were created specifically to serve God. Most religious people in the world today follow one of the main monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i.

2. Monism: Everything is part of one great reality, of a single Whole. Divisions among people are an illusion. Human existence is miserable, and we should try to escape from it. This kind of thinking is found in some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. A different kind of monism is sometimes called animism: Everything in the world is alive, everything, even a rock, has a soul. Human beings are nothing special, they just form part of this great network of living existence . Here the network plays the same function as the single whole of monism. This notion is found in Taoism, Shinto and in New Age thinking.

You will have noted that we did not mention Hinduism in the list above. Why not? Because Hinduism includes them all. Hindus can be staunch monotheists, worshipping one god alone. They can worship various gods, which they understand to be, really, aspects of the one god. And they can be monists, seeing everything as part of a single reality. Even the animist idea that everything is somehow alive and conscious is not unknown in Hinduism.

Which one of these types of religion one belongs to will make a great difference to what one regards as good and beautiful. If you are a monotheist, then what is good and beautiful is to serve God. Knowledge is good, because it helps us to serve God even better.

But if you are a monist, then what is good and beautiful is to see through the illusion of being separate from the Whole. In that case, knowledge is even more important, because without knowledge of the Whole, we cannot reunite with it.

What about people? Are we good or evil? Religions disagree with each other on this, and even within religions, they disagree. Within Christianity, for example, Catholicism would say that people are basically good, but flawed. Some forms of Protestantism, however, say that people were created good, but that since their disobedience to God they have changed a great deal. Now they are largely evil, and only religion can make them good. Buddhism and Hinduism would say that people are basically good, but are deluded and so unable to see clearly what is good and beautiful.

Do people have free will? Can we decide anything for ourselves or have the choices been made for us? According to Islam and the Calvinist branch of Protestant Christianity (the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches), we do not have a great deal of free will. Everything we do has been predetermined by God, or at least God already knows what we are going to decide, which amounts to the same thing.

Other religious traditions believe that we do have a considerable degree of free will. No matter how we have been influenced by matters beyond our control, they say, we still have a limited amount of choice, especially the choice to accept or reject the teachings of religion.

Below are a number of statements from various religions, and from non–religious sources. For each one, decide whether it reflects monotheism, polytheism, monism or whether it is not a religious statement at all.

All that exists is One, but sages call it by different names. – The Rigveda

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant. – Hippocratic Oath

In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth – The Bible

There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. – The Qur'an

The answers are monism, polytheism, monotheism and monotheism again. How did you do?