Question
What exactly is religion?
Answer
‘Religion’ is the natural corollary of one’s belief in the existence of God. ‘Religion’, in fact, entails the details of our relationship with our Creator. This really implies that the contents of any given ‘religion’ are actually based on and are the extension of the concept and introduction to God, as propounded by that particular religion.
Broadly speaking, ‘religion’ is generally composed of two sets of things: Firstly, the ideas and concepts, which the particular religion wants its adherents to ascribe to. These ideas and concepts are generally termed as ‘beliefs’. Secondly, any ‘practices’ – which may also include worship rituals – promoted by that religion.
The ideas and concepts – beliefs – as well as the practices promoted by a religion, are, in turn, based on the answers provided by the particular religion to a number of questions, relating to the concept of God, the purpose of human life, information regarding ‘good’ and ‘evil’, the basis of our relationship with other human beings etc. For instance:
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What kind of a ‘God’ created us?
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Why did God create us? What is the purpose of our life?
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What is our relationship with God?
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Do we – humans – only have a physical existence or do we have a spiritual existence as well? In other words, does our existence have a spiritual aspect or is it limited only to the physical aspect?
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Why did God give us a sense of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?
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What is the basis of our relationship with our fellow human beings?
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What is the criteria of a ‘successful’ and an ‘unsuccessful’ life?
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Is man ‘free’ to do either good or evil in any given situation?
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Does life permanently end at death?
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What, if anything, happens after death?
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Has God made any arrangements for guiding us to the path of success? What exactly are these arrangements? Are these arrangements coherent with the attributes of God and the purpose of life propounded by that religion?
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If God does provide His guidance to man, can man fully understand God’s guidance?
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What, if any, is the relationship between man’s faculty of reasoning (intellect) and the guidance given by God?
As stated earlier, all the beliefs and practices propounded by a given religion are (or should be) based on the answers given by that religion to these basic questions. In fact, one of the obvious, apparent and primary criteria of judging the correctness of the overall corpus of a ‘religion’ lies in the coherence between the answers given by that religion to these basic questions, on the one hand, and the beliefs and practices propounded by that religion, on the other.
Keeping the foregoing explanation in perspective, we may summarize that ‘Religion is a set of beliefs and practices emanating primarily from the concepts relating to God’s attributes and our relationship with Him and our fellow human beings.’
I hope this helps.
April 28, 2001