Do people have a strong understanding of what 'Religion' is?

[Azihayya]

A little background information: I myself grew up with a Christian Grandmother who wanted to teach the Bible to me. She frequently attends church, and after moving away from her throughout my childhood I began to develop (on my own) the idea that 'there is no God' - which ultimately turned into my affiliation with Atheism throughout highschool; however, after re-visiting her later in my life and having read some of the quotes that she had put up on her wall, in addition to studying the music of Bach and hearing the music of Hildegard von Bingen, and upon doing my own research, I've become what I like to consider 'highly passionate' about Religion.

It seems everywhere I look there are self-proclaimed Pragmatists making wild accusations about the nature and origin of Religion without really addressing it as a nominal affiliation (etymology) or taking into consideration the vast amount of people who have ever affiliated with Religious ideas as a whole and what they may think or have believed, and without ever having lived in those times. Many people have arrived at the conclusion that without Religion, humanity as a whole would have been far more developed now, and many others only seem to be subjected to a side of 'Religion' that displays corruption within the world, and most usually within a political context. Others see it fit to pigeon-hole Religion into the idea of fairy tales or a supernatural delusional belief or a belief in a figmentive creator, and always as a lower form of intelligence.

Religion as a word is exclusive to the Western world, and the root word Religio from Latin was exclusive to Greek and Roman gods. Many of our beliefs about 'Religion' though I feel are mistaken or misguided; often times it feels as though Religion is confused with Politics, or in the example of Religion as a debilitation to the growth of civilization it is often left unmentioned of what Religions role in the increase of literacy and education were, while hyperboles are used to compare ancient forms of technology with those found in the Early Middle Ages, and without taking into consideration the discrepancy in intelligence networks of the modern day. Another kind of misunderstanding that I often see states that Religions are used to, meant to, or only create conflict between other Religions when historically Christians and Muslims have collaborated within the realms of education. Lastly, the idea that Religion is intended to brainwash doesn't coincide with my personal observations, which generally have people uniting under particular Religions because of the specific ideas that they represent; in the case of estranged citizens of Communist China filing into basements to read from the Bible so that they can hold on to a hope in communion together, or that they may have hope in a future where they may get to know their neighbors, for example.

For me it is easy to draw lines to ideas such as that God is a derivative form of Good and ultimately represents an inevitable prevailing form of goodness in the universe, or it is easy for me to think that Religion represents a great mystery and provides us with our most profound connection to the past that directly shapes us into who we are and gives us the greatest insight into who our ancestors were and where we came from.

What generally strikes me as being hypocrisy or arrogance from what I observe on a day-to-day basis is the idea that we can proclaim what we think Religion is for everyone when we're working from such a narrow perspective, and then have the tenacity to stand as staunch antagonists of 'Religion' as an idea, that we often times claim 'has no place in this world', that Faith and Antiquity are unreasonable, then tout ourselves as 'non-believers' and simultaneously as 'rationalists', 'pragmatists', or people who are generally 'right/correct' - and in spite of Dogma.

 

[LuisDantas]

We do in fact often find people talking about "religion" as if it were a word with just one, single, well-defined meaning, when in truth it is anything but.

Ironically perhaps, there isn't even a single meaning implied by those who do so. We all should strive to either qualify or define the term when we use it, or avoid it entirely.

 

[Sunstone]

The etymology of a word, such as "religion", is not necessarily a solid basis for its current definition(s).

While it may be true that religions have promoted education and learning, that is something of a gloss. Many religions have only promoted a very narrow kind of learning, and then, only for an elite class of people. Moreover, the kind of learning they've promoted has often enough been at odds with scientific inquiry.

 

[Azihayya]

To actually have lived in such a time is a matter all to itself; even within your own life at the present moment, looking around you, what kinds of inventions and discoveries can you make? What ambitions can you have to strive towards the kind of greatness that we sometimes unreasonably expect from our ancestors? Even within the realms of what we consent to consider modern science today, theoretical physicists have come up with a wide array of what seem to be contradicting views on the nature of reality and the definitions that we use to describe them; for example, some scientists would say that Space & Time are a fabric, where as others would merely say that these are metaphors for phenomenon that we observe in energy. Some highly acclaimed physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, even promote ideas such as multidimensionism, which is literally interpreted as invisible and/or inaccessible dimensions overlapping ours, where such events take place as ourselves living out an infinite series of possibilities where our lives branch off into different directions throughout time.

From my perspective, Religion is largely about language, as a developing species that went from saying nothing to saying many things, it is unrealistic to suppose that people can be entirely clear in the purpose of their message from the very beginning, so to suppose that our interpretations of many of these ideas is entirely accurate, and then to suppose that what they were saying was fallacious in nature, is an inaccurate picture of what is an entirely existential and human reality.

Religious authorities throughout time have gone to great lengths to make formal apologies on behalf of the affiliation for the mistakes that it has made in the past, or to reconcile older ideas with newer ones. If there's one thing to learn from the errors that we find inherent within Religion throughout time, it's not to repeat those mistakes ourselves - among these, I would specifically place an interest on dogma and spitefulness.

We do in fact often find people talking about "religion" as if it were a word with just one, single, well-defined meaning, when in truth it is anything but.

Ironically perhaps, there isn't even a single meaning implied by those who do so. We all should strive to either qualify or define the term when we use it, or avoid it entirely.

Should we feel the same amount of apprehension for using words like science, which feels similarly broad in its scope of definition; where it sometimes is related to a 'process' and at other times defines a sort of ideology?

The etymology of a word, such as "religion", is not necessarily a solid basis for its current definition(s).

While it may be true that religions have promoted education and learning, that is something of a gloss. Many religions have only promoted a very narrow kind of learning, and then, only for an elite class of people. Moreover, the kind of learning they've promoted has often enough been at odds with scientific inquiry.

Necessarily, perhaps no, but it would be foolish to not be devoted to pursuing the origins of the word that we use in all of its uses throughout history.

I haven't glossed anything here; what I have stated is that the negative perspectives of Religion are often made a point of while its positive perspectives are overlooked. For many scribes of early literacy writing was an extraordinary chore and those monks felt obligated to practice extreme discipline or else be disregarded by the monastery -- for many, it was a passion for their work that drove them to copy and translate a broad collection of scientific and philosophical texts.

Much of Western science from the Late Middle Ages as generally being overseen by Christianity was founded on principles set forth by Aristotle who believed that "science is the sure and evident knowledge obtained from demonstrations" and while Giordano Bruno was burned and Galileo sentenced to house arrest, Copernicus theories of Heliocentrism themselves were highly acclaimed by Pope Clement VII himself. So, while there are some who used the momentum of Religion to attempt to reign over people, there were perhaps equally many who retained modesty in their approach, although, keep in mind that at this time telescopes were just being invented and were not widely circulated.