Dhammananda_Why_Religion.pdf

WHY RELIGION?

K. SRI DHAMMANANDA

WHY RELIGION?

Before we discuss whether we need a religion or not, let us try to understand

what we mean by religion.

Leaving aside the dictionary and sophisticated meanings, according to common

understanding and parlance, religion is our belief of a purpose in life, and our

actions in pursuit of that purpose. This belief or beliefs as we notice them today

to be of different kinds, must have evolved to what they are today from a very

primitive stage when man believed and lived no better than other animals

observing the jungle law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and eating,

sleeping and dying. He lived in mortal fear of natural phenomena such as the

thunder, lightning, winds, the sun and the moon.

According to some thinkers, the conception of religion or religious ideas in man

had its origin in the feeling of terror, resulting in nature worship. According to

others, it originated out of the feeling of wonder or awe.

With the development of his reasoning powers, he began to discover nature’s

laws and learnt the rudiments of various sciences such as cooking, implements

making, animal husbandry and agriculture. This was the pastoral age, and we

learn man then came to live in communities, and he began to contrive rules of

behaviour for his own well-being and towards each other in the community. Man

at this stage had not as yet lost his intuition – a power in man just as in animals

to know what is good for it and what is not. It is intuition that makes the new-born

baby to yearn for milk. Religion must have dawned on the mind of man in the

same way. Some have held that religion or anything worthy of that name

originated in man with the thought of a second existence beyond this existence

which they sensed as a temporary world. Animism, spiritualism and ancestor-

worship originated in man with this thought of a second existence beyond the

grave. If we examine closely the sources of the different religious systems of the

world, we will notice that they have for source any one or two or all three namely

the feeling of terror, the feeling of wonder or awe and the conception of a second

existence as the impetus for their respective evolution and development. In the

thought of a second existence, he hopes to have everlasting happiness.

Reason came to play its part in the wake of intuition just as in all other scientific

discoveries of man, and he began to analyse his beliefs. Seers and prophets

appeared on the scene in helping man to put his facts right in respect of his life

on earth and the hereafter.

And when man had attained to be a fully reasoned animal we find various

schools of thought in religion manifesting themselves. Some religions announce

a belief in the existence of many Gods or aspects of God or Saints to be invoked

for help in our distress, while others proclaim one and only God as the creator of

the world and man. Some of these religions claim to have been revealed by God

himself to prophets or incarnations of God. Agnostic schools of thought proclaim

that we can know no more than what is evident in our senses in this world. The

unseen God or Gods are therefore to be rejected. The belief put forward in the

religion known as Buddhism is unique. It believes in a past life as the cause for

this existence, and man that himself creates his hereafter without the aid of a

Creator.

Every religion consists of a theory and practice just as any other art subject.

(The higher reaches of the theory of religion dabbles in philosophy which is the

knowledge of the causes and laws of all phenomena in the physical plane and in

some religions in the metaphysical plane as well). When we delve into the

philosophical phase of religion, for the most part it is our reasoning faculty that

comes into play and not the intuition or emotion, although some think that

intuition is the fulfilment of reason. It should be plain to anyone that it should be

the other way round. Our reason or rationality is the fulfillment of intuition and

we, especially of this age, should expect our religion to appeal to our reason in all

respects and not so much to traditional beliefs based on intuition or emotion or

superstition.

A study of comparative religions will show that the major living religions of today

namely, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are all teaching men to go in

search of real happiness and in order to realize same, we have to do good and to

eschew evil. All of them show the conditions of life in this world are more or less

unsatisfactory and therefore we ought to strive for a better state or place of life in

a heaven, or nirvana.

The ways and means to get to this better state or place of life as shown in the

different religions differ one from the other, the explanations given for our present

existence also differ from each religion. The teachings of one religion may be

appealing to some while the teachings of another may be appealing to others. It

seems as if the different religions are of different standards to suit different

stages of development of the mind and therefore the great need for tolerance of

each other’s religion.

By now one should be able to realize that religion is a biological necessity just as

much as food for the stomach. If we have all our material needs satisfied, we still

hunger for knowledge of our present existence and the hereafter. If we wantonly

refuse to have a religion we still shall be forced to fill the vacuum with an ideology

of a materialistic nature such as communism or free thinking. Even if one claims

to be a communist or a free-thinker it is to be conjectured today when religious

thoughts or ideas have permeated nearly all fields of knowledge, whether he

does not unconsciously succumb to such. The very fact that barbarism which

was rife before is scarcely evident in any part of the world today is a clear

indication that religion is abroad.

We talk of civilization and picture a civilized man or nation. What is it that has

lifted man from barbarism to civilization? Surely we have to agree that it is

religion that has been chiefly instrumental in recovering man from his animal

nature. Within living memory we have seen how pockets of rabid cannibalism

that existed in some parts of the world have been changed to peaceful and

civilized areas with the advent of religion.

Man needs a religion as an anchorage as ships in a harbour. Human nature as

we know is frail. How easily we can be lured away from a correct path in life, and

therefore the need for aids to keep us steadfast and firm in our resolutions in

pursuit of our ideals. When we have taken a religion, we more or less bind

ourselves to its teachings and precepts and observances, thereby we are

enabled to steer a straight course than otherwise as a free-thinker or a lone wolf.

When we belong to a religion, we are influenced by crowd psychology to restrain

from doing anything that goes against that religion. In other words, we are

encouraged in our belief and practice by the presence of so many others holding

to the same belief and practice. As ships moored in a harbour are able to

weather strong winds and storms, we are also enabled to keep from the strong

temptations that come to us to break away from the path we have set ourselves.

The whole of nature as we observe is composed of opposites – good-bad; rise-

fall; joy-sorrow; birth-death; health-sickness; riches-poverty; prosperity-adversity

etc. and we observe too that we are never free from the effects of these

opposites. Life becomes trying at a time when we are experiencing an adverse

condition in life like sickness or failure in our business or enterprise. It is at such

time mostly that our religion is of greatest benefit. It gives us solace and acts as

a balm in soothing our ruffled emotions. The philosophical teachings in religion

then come to our help in bearing with the hardships we are encountering.

Persons who have no religion to prop up their spirit at such times crack up often

times and are admitted to lunatic asylums or they do some rash acts such as

committing suicide.

If one is not unfortunate enough to end up this life in a sudden and tragic death,

but lives to a good old age and dies a natural death, in the last moments he

encounters an agony. Religion then comes to his aid in alleviating the pain of

passing away. It comforts him and prepare his mind to realize the body to the

world of matter. He, so to say, dies with a smile on his face.

Religion plays a great part in the governance of countries. There is less crime to

control and greater loyalty is built up for the state. It offers a rallying force in

times of emergency such as during natural calamities or in times of invasion by

aggressors. Even when certain countries had to give up religion owing to the

growth of a distaste for it by the malpractices done in its name, by adopting

communism, the vacuum still had to be filled up by spiritual ideology.

In history we find that very often with the deterioration of religion, nations have

declined. As soon as the tenets of a religion are found to be not in keeping with

advancing knowledge, a decline sets in blunting the intelligence of its adherents

concurrently bringing about a decline of the nation.

Students in quest of knowledge will find the study of religion to be interesting

even from an academical point of view, especially so if the religion under study is

full of rich lore of the workings of the body and mind and the universe that

conforms with the latest discoveries of science. Such a study offers fresh vistas

for exploration. The study of comparative religion helps to broaden one’s outlook

and to break down barriers of caste, colour and race and to build a common

brotherhood of all nations of the world.

In recent years we have noticed the growth of multi-religions in many countries.

This is undoubtedly a break away from the past when every country took pride in

a State religion and zealously guarded it, even fighting fanatical wars in defence

of it or to propagate it. This tendency of the modern age to tolerate various

religions in a nation or country is a happy sign of the maturing of religious thought

in man. This should help each religion to be put on its feet for the well-being of

man. We should expect as a result of this move an advancement in the practice

of the religious fundamentals of love, tolerance and compassion amongst all

peoples of the world.

DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION

What is religion? How often has the question been asked. Its import conceived

of in different ways, and, accordingly, variously answered: opinions of its nature

and meaning are so numerous and conflicting that one despairs of arriving at any

tangible agreement. Here are a few definitions given by various scholars.

OXFORD DICTIONARY: “System of faith and worship; human recognition of

superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to

obedience, effect of such recognition on conduct etc,”

BUTLER: “Religion implies a future state.”

MATTHEW ARNOLD: “Religion is morality touched with emotion.”

COMTE: “The worship of Humanity.”

CARLYLE: “The thing a man does practically believe, the thing a man does lay

practically to heart and knows for certain, concerning his vital relations to this

mysterious universe and his duty and destiny therein.”

RUSKIN: “Our national religion is the performance of Church ceremonies and

preaching of soporific truths or untruths to keep the mob quietly at work while we

amuse ourselves.”

J. S. MILL: “The essence of religion is the strong and earnest direction of the

emotions and desires towards an ideal object recognized as of the highest

excellence, and as rightly paramount over all selfish objects of desire.”

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS: “Goodness rendering to God the honour due to Him.”

VOLTAIRE: “An absurdity to keep the multitude in subjection.”

ENGELS: “Religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of

those external forces which control their early life.”

SIR E. RAY LANKESTER: “Religion means the knowledge of our destiny and

of the means of fulfilling it. We can say no more and no less of science.”

PROF. WHITEHEAD: “Religion is what the individual does with his own

solitude. If you are never solitary, you are never religious.”

ALDOUS HUXLEY: “Religion is, among many other things, a system of

education, by means of which human beings may train themselves, first to make

desirable changes in their own personalities and, at one remove, in society, and,

in the second place, to heighten consciousness and so establish more adequate

relations between themselves and the universe of which they are part

Modern Indian philosophers, like Dr. Radhakrishnan, have expounded eloquently

the theme that religion is not a set of doctrines, but that it is an experience. And

religious experience is based on the realization of the “Presence of the divine of

man.”

One might easily quote a whole volume of definitions but each addition would

serve only to make the issue more confused and uncertain. It is computed that

there are about 1,580,000,000 people professing some kind of religion or other

yet it is exceedingly questionable whether five per cent of that vast number could

agree as to what fundamentally constitutes “Religion”.

In spite of the juxtaposition of ideas, the noblest and most comprehensive ideas

on the matter were uttered by one whom the vulgar termed “Atheist” and “Infidel”

– Thomas Paine. When almost hounded to death by his persecutors, he valiantly

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