No announcements found.
No announcements found.
Good points from John which I think conclusively answer beliefs some (not myself) Christians may have that moral ideas and equality were absent pre 30-33AD.I've appreciate both standpoints in this Blog! I think the source of Jesus' & Paul's beliefs has to be founded in OT theology due to their context which was most certainly Jewish?

(James Thompson, on "Atheism and the Good Life")


Ontological (Greek. ontos ‘being’) definition

The fundamental nature of reality gives shape to a set of ideas and practices. Hence, Michael Peterson of Asbury College in the U.S. writes:

  Religion is constituted by a set of beliefs, actions and emotions, both personal and corporate, organized around the concept of an Ultimate Reality.
 
 
This definition has received wide approval. However, some have criticized it on the grounds that ‘atheism’ or ‘science’ could be described as a religion on this wording. Science, after all, has beliefs about ultimate reality and these things in some measure organize the beliefs, actions and emotions of many scientists.

Ontological imperative definition

A modified version of Michael Peterson’s ontological definition might avoid this particular criticism, however. We might revise the definition and call it the ontological imperative definition of religion. This is similar to the Ontological definition with one significant difference. The fundamental nature of things is thought not only to organize beliefs, habits, etc., but to make them necessary or obligatory. Reality impinges upon human life, calls on it to conform to that reality. Hence, to give you a revised definition:

  Religion is constituted by a set of beliefs, actions and emotions, both personal and corporate, deemed necessary on account of some concept of an Ultimate Reality.
 

There are I think four important elements to this definition:

(1) Religions make claims about ultimate reality or the nature of existence. This may take a theistic form (Islam), a philosophical form (Buddhism), or a mythical form (Aboriginal Dreaming concerning the land and ancestors).

(2) Religion entails a ‘set’ of beliefs and actions. That is, it produces a pattern or shape of conduct and thought governed by its claims about ultimate reality. Hence, religious life is coherent within the worldview of the adherent. It does not involve a random set of rules and dogmas; it rather offers practices and habits that are connected both to each other and to ultimate reality. Hence, Aboriginal religion has a set of beliefs and actions—reverencing the earth, honoring ancestors and regulating community life, all based on a concept of the fundamental nature of things. Again, Buddhism produces a pattern of life characterised by tranquility and peace, the regular practice of meditation, and so on.

(3) This way of life, as I’ve just said, is deemed necessary. Here, then, the root meaning of the word ‘religion’ (obligation, bound) is given some weight in the definition. This would probably rule out some of the secular ‘isms’ which are often compared to religion. Science probably wouldn’t be defined as a religion in these terms because scientists, even committed atheistic materialists among them, would not regard their view of ultimate reality as in any way binding on human beings.

(4) I think Michael Peterson’s inclusion of the ‘corporate’ dimension of religion is important. Religion is more than the views and actions of individuals; it involves community. It entails some degree of connectedness with other adherents—a shared vision, a degree of accountability and mutual care—all of course premised on the concept of Ultimate Reality which is thought to impinge on human life.
  Religion is more than the views and actions of individuals; it involves community.
 
 

Descriptive definition

Sometimes religion is defined by the characteristics that are shared by all the religions. Here one seeks to uncover the common denominators in the world’s Faiths; these common traits are then said to provide the substance of our definition. Hence, Ninian Smart (of the universities of Lancaster and California, Santa Barbara) argues that seven shared characteristics describe religion at its core: mythic (stories that give shape), doctrinal (the themes and ideas that underpin and emerge from the myths), experiential (the encounter in prayer or meditation with some larger reality), ethical ( the moral or legal requirements), ritual (the formalized habits, whether prayers, liturgies, dances, prostrations), social (the organizational structures and leadership), and material (the artifacts left by adherents, church buildings, art, statues, etc.).  

Sociologist Keith Roberts offers a similarly descriptive definition revised slightly in the direction of the ontological definition. For Roberts,

  Beyond being just a social phenomenon, religion has to do with that assortment of phenomena that communicates, celebrates, internalizes, interprets, and extrapolates a faith. The phenomena include beliefs (myths), rites (worship), an ethos (moods and moral values of the group), a worldview (the cognitive perspective by which the experiences of life are viewed as part of a larger and ultimately meaningful cosmology), and a system of symbols (which serve to encapsulate the deepest feelings and emotion-packed beliefs). 
 

You can see in this definition many similarities with Ninian Smart’s analysis of what constitutes religion. Questions have been raised about such descriptive definitions, particularly with respect to the ritual, material and symbolic aspects of the definition. Many forms of Protestant Christianity, for instance, are self-consciously lacking in rites, symbols and materials.

Paradigm case definition

Charles Taliaferro (Prof. of Philosophy St. Olaf College Northfield Minnesota, U.S., Lutheran University) in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion argues that a definition of religion is so elusive that one must embrace what is called a ‘paradigm case definition’ wherein an object is defined by particular examples of the object and by things that resemble those objects. So, he insists:

  Religions include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and those traditions that resemble one or more of them (21).
 

This definition demarcates religion simply by appealing to the examples commonly accepted to be religions. Such a definition thus provides the main ‘terrain’ of study (the five major religions) while offering the flexibility required in a field as diverse as this one (including any system of thought that ‘resembles’ one or more of the religions).

One thing becomes clear as we explore how philosophers of religion have attempted to define the subject of their specialty: religion eludes exact definition. Like love, art or consciousness itself, religion is a feature of human existence that defies definition. Such realities stand over us and within us to such a degree that objective analysis is perhaps impossible. And, yet, when one is truly touched by love, art or religion, one knows it. It is a thing to be experienced as much as assessed.
  Like love, art or consciousness itself, religion defies definition.
 
 

Dr. John Dickson
Director of the Centre for Public Christianity
Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University (Australia)