What is Religion?

Dear Abbot:

What is a religion? Is Buddhism a religion? Is Atheism?

Perplexed

Dear Perplexed:

Here are the most relevant definitions from the leading dictionaries:

Merriam-Webster: b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural

Oxford: 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
American Heritage: 1. a: Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

I think Buddhism is indeed a religion on this definition. Buddhism does believe in or assume the supernatural and supernatural beings, of many sorts: gods, asuras, gandharvas, souls in hell, souls in various Pure Lands or Buddha Heavens. This is true of all varieties of Buddhism, because these beings feature in the story of Gautama's own life. The real world as Buddhism knows it is not the physical world, but the mental world, and the mental world is itself “supernatural.” As far as I am concerned, the Dalai Lama to the contrary, Buddhism also believes specifically in a superhuman controlling power, Vairocana or Dharma-Kaya-Buddha, who is a creator god in all but precise terminology. All things exist in the mind—but not our mind, his mind. Saint Francis Xavier conveyed the concept of the Christian God in Japan by identifying him with Vairocana.

Not all branches of Buddhism feature Vairocana prominently, mind, though Tibetan Buddhism does. He is a figure in Mahayana Buddhism, but not in the Theravada tradition. But Theravada simply uses some other image to refer to the Creator God; usually the Hindu Brahma. I don't think I've ever been in a Buddhist temple that did not feature a shrine to the Creator God, and either at the core or highest point.

But Atheism fails on both counts: on not believing in a Creator God, and, in all the incarnations I have seen, in not believing in the supernatural itself. For all that I find either of those positions logically impossible. Hence, it is not a religion, by common dictionary definition.

Note too that religion is, literally, etymologically, a “binding”: Jews and Christians refer to it as a “covenant.” This means it is more than just a matter of being moral, being “good.” You have the extra obligations of someone who has signed a contract.

Atheists have not, and cannot, sign such a contract—for with whom would they sign it? Accordingly, they have no special obligations beyond those we all share as human beings.

Subscribing to a religion therefore implies that you are accepting certain specific obligations over and above those imposed by objective morality: ritual obligations, dietary restrictions, clothing requirements, a duty to proselytize, and so forth. Catholics must attend mass and receive the sacraments; Jews must be circumcised and stay kosher; Muslims must visit Mecca. It is, I think, this aspect of religion that laws ensuring religious freedom are needed to and meant to protect--”freedom of conscience,” that is, freedom to do what your conscience obliges you to do. There is an important caveat here: issues of objective morality, if asserted by the church as doctrine, remain “ritual” obligations if they are not accepted as morally necessary by the wider society; so that religious freedom, freedom of conscience, ought to prevent governments from compelling devout citizens in these matters. Examples are Quakers or Jehovah's Witnesses on conscription, Catholics on abortion, perhaps Presbyterians on gambling, and so forth.

None of this applies to atheists; their beliefs put them under no obligations whatsoever, other than those binding on all mankind. They therefore need and deserve no special consideration as a result of their views.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

You comment that "atheism...makes no special demands on their conscience." Yet some atheists seem to me more moral, more ethical, more obedient to some kind of a conscience that some self-professed Christians.

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

There is no prima facie reason why atheists should be any less moral than Christians, because objective morality is binding on all regardless of beliefs. But precisely because it is objective, it is not a matter of religion; it is not a special “binding” or “covenant,” not a special demand on their conscience. That has to do instead with matters like circumcision, attending mass regularly, fasting on Fridays, not eating pork, and so forth.

However, note that, if God exists, it is indeed a part of objective morality to seek to know and follow his will. Atheists had better therefore be fully sincere in their beliefs, or they are, indeed, objectively and demonstrably less moral than Christians. For the converse is not true: if Christians do not really 100% and always believe in God, but continue to act as if he existed, seeking to know and follow his will, they remain objectively morally correct. At worst, they are merely wasting their efforts; and in a noble way.

On these grounds, it is fair to say that “belief” is an intrinsically more moral position than atheism; and even that there is an objective moral obligation to “believe” in this sense.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Does Satanism qualify as a religion? It has a distinct deity being worshipped; it has liturgies and rituals...

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

Very important point: no, Satanism is not a religion, and should not be allowed the same religious freedoms. While it believes in a spiritual realm, it believes that the physical realm and its demands are prior to the spiritual. This is the reverse of the religious view. It does not involve a binding of the self to any kind of obligation, but a binding of the spiritual to do the self's bidding. It is not a religion, but an anti-religion.

Since it imposes no obligations on the individual's conscience, it deserves and requires no legal recognition or accommodation, whatever one might think of it otherwise. There is no issue of “freedom of conscience.” There may, indeed, be a contract with the devil, but a contract the breaking of which would not be a moral issue, even in the eyes of the Satanist.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Does animism qualify, with gods of the rocks, the wind, the storm, etc.?

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

I personally doubt that anyone outside the modern New Age really believes in “animism,” in the sense of thinking that all physical things have individual self-conscious spirits. I think that's simply a misconception.

I'd prefer the term “shamanism.” But I think we mean the same set of real practices and beliefs.

Does shamanism qualify as a religion? Good question. It is quite a different thing from the great universalist faiths. In Korea, where there are still many shamanists, they will insist that this is not a religion, “except perhaps to the shaman.” By that they mean, I think, expressly that it imposes no special moral obligations on its believers. It is distinct from religion as we understand it in exactly this way. If specific acts are required, they are done either out of fear or to achieve a specific desired goal, not as a matter of conscience.

In fact, it is a peculiar feature of shamanism that it often calls for acts of objective immorality: human sacrifice, cannibalism, self-mutilation, theft, and so forth. This makes it an obvious problem to extend full religious freedom to shamanists. But this is also unnecessary, as shamanism is not a matter of conscience.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Does pantheism qualify? If it does, is David Suzuki a deeply religious man?

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

Pantheism certainly qualifies; pantheism is the common view in the East. But David Suzuki is not just a pantheist. He is a materialist; a pantheist includes the spiritual in his concept of the universe, and sees it as morally and ontologically surpassing the material appearance. Suzuki sees the material world itself as divine. The deification of the material world is not a religion. It's more a form of insanity.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

If religion is about belief in God, what sort of God? Isn't the concept of God very different in the East? The eastern religions tend to deify the individual.

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

That's not quite right. In fact, in missing the mark by a mite, it ends up as the opposite of the case. Buddhists, for example, believe in “anatta”--i.e., there is no such thing as the individual “self.” The “atman” of the Hindu, though the same word is used, is understood not as the individual, but the cosmic, soul or self.

It is not, therefore, the individual who is deified. The individual loses all individuality and is lost in the deity.

It is the West that is more “individualistic,” just as the West is more “materialistic.” East believes that the divine is everything and the individual nothing. West believes that the divine is more important, but the individual is also real, and immortal.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

OK, but can we say, at least, that Eastern creeds seek God within, while the Western religions
tend to find God without?

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

Not so for Christians as a whole, although it might be true for your own tradition. “The kingdom of heaven is within [albeit some translate this as 'among'] you.” Jesus is always knocking at the door of your heart. St. Theresa's “The Interior Castle.” The Catholic mystical tradition very much finds God within. So does the Evangelical tradition, when it speaks of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

But I think the fundamental problem is in using the terms “within” and “without,” because they are philosophically meaningless. I think you mean “spiritual” and “physical.” But the spiritual is not “within” the physical, any more than the physical is “within” the spiritual. Both East and West see God as spirit, but they differ on the reality of the physical world. Because the West believes in the physical world, it also believes that God is present in some sense there as well: a God who works through history.

Abbot:


Dear Abbot:

Does religion have qualities other than belief?

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

That's a very Protestant question: it assumes Luther's “sola fides.” For those of us who are not Lutherans in the broad sense, religion has lots of qualities other than belief. Ritual, ethics, art, philosophy, emotional attitudes, spiritual experiences, spiritual techniques. Buddhism even professes no need to believe in anything in particular.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Could a religion exist independent of any belief at all?

Perplexed


Dear Perplexed:

Buddhism is the test case. It insists you do not have to believe you exist, or that anything else exists, or that the Buddha ever existed. All you have to do is try the techniques, upaya, for yourself and see what happens.

But, I would counter, doesn't this involve, at a minimum, a belief in cause and effect?

So I'd say, no, religion cannot exist independent of any beliefs at all.

But neither can man.

Abbot