The Sunday Mail
Shingai Rukwata Ndoro ChiselingtheDebris —
IN the last two weeks, the column submitted that religion is incompatible with truth and science. This means that by its nature, religion is made up of assumptions rather facts and evidence.
For an organisation to qualify to be a religion, its core assumes that there is a deity that exists and such a deity is humanoid or anthropological. This means the deity is assumed to have, “an appearance, character and attributes resembling that of a human being.”
Such a deity is further assumed that it’s located somewhere in the universe and ready to benevolently reward or harshly punish unless if fervently supplicated and unquestionably submitted to.
There are common cultural universals of all religions and they are not scientific. That is, what makes a religion qualify as such? Using the thinking of Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917), an anthropologist developed the earliest recorded understanding of the anthropomorphic study of religion. These are:
First, a sense of the metaphysical – the relationship between the material and non-material worlds is the original and universal basis of religion. It is at the metaphysical (non-material) level, that humanity is at its worst insecure and therefore weakest, or secure and thus strongest.
When insecure, humanity is prone to fatalism, submissiveness and chronic surrender of its own agency and power of causation. If it is at the strongest and enlightened level, it is about imaginative insights and aspirational visioning using the grand powers or faculties of reasoning, discernment and causation.
It is these mental faculties that make humanity boldly confront three poisons of life made up of ignorance, self-indulgence and malice. A fatalistic understanding of the metaphysical is then the measure of one’s religiosity.
Second, supernatural powers, all religions are of a belief and without facts that there are non-material entities within the metaphysical realm that have superior powers and abilities over the environment and humanity. These entities are said to have powers and abilities that defy laws of nature and choose to be thinking humanoids at whim.
Third, communication techniques – humanity developed ways and means of supplication (fervent pleadings), ritual sacrifices and spells to invoke and invite the assumed superior powers and abilities of the metaphysical entities through language and symbolic objects, for example the Christian cross, water and oil.
Fourth, benevolent and malevolent characteristics–human beings attribute superior powers to deistic entities and whose powers, “include powers to help and to harm, to reward and to punish.
These beliefs (or assumptions) find their expression in religious practices whose intention is to promote the beneficial effects of (deistic entities) and to ward off malevolent effects or protect people against them.
Every religious organisation has practices that provide protection from the humanoid deistic entities and attempt to influence their actions; these actions may involve submission as well as dominance behaviours. All (religions) have social rituals for acquiring power, protection, and information from the deities.”
Fifth, community rituals — “all (religions) have collective rituals for interacting with deistic entities. Some of these involve the entire community, while others focus on smaller groups, such as a clan or a family…Religious leaders are also social leaders and may rise to power because of their perceived connection with the spirit world, because of their heritage within a special clan, or because of power acquired through other spiritual interactions.”
Sixth, divination — “all (religions) have practices for acquiring information from the spirit world.
A variety of procedures, including altered states of consciousness, are used to acquire information needed for subsistence, group movement, and protection.”
Seventh, dealing with vulnerability of health “in most (religions), the central healing practices take place in a religious context, and there are always religious practitioners who have a responsibility for healing members of the group.
One universal belief, manifested as the “spirit aggression” theory of illness, is that spirits can attack people and cause illness. There are also universal beliefs regarding the ability of humans to cause supernatural illness, manifested in sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices.
Although found in all religions, these cultural universals of religion are expressed in distinct ways within each religion.
Cultures differ with regard to the specific spirits in which they believe, the characteristics they attribute to these spirits, the rituals and magical techniques they utilise to interact with the spirits.”
Finally, according to Taylor, “every society progressively and unilineally evolved from savagery to barbarism and ultimately to civilization, on the basis of their technology, marriage and family forms, and political structures.”
It is therefore imperative to consider “the social determinants of different forms of religiosity.”
Resources:
Ivan Strenski. “The Shock of the ‘Savage’: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits.” Thinking About Religion: A Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion (2006). Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff , “What is religion and how is it explainable?” (2014).
Feedback: [email protected] or Twitter @shingaiRndoro. A gallery of previous articles is found at www.sundaymail.co.zw/author/shingairukwata
