Essay On Religion: Why Care About Religion?

Religion and humankind have been intertwined since the beginning of written history: ~5,500 years ago. It plays a large role in individuals’ lives, being something so personal that many lives have been lost when these beliefs conflict. Religious beliefs all have the nature of being the fundamental truth, a truth that nothing else can undermine. Religion lays the foundation for an individual to construct the rest of their beliefs on top of. Because of this, studying a culture's religion (or religions) can provide valuable insight into why a culture lives a particular way.

Religion has, and continues to play a sizable role in the development of humankind. There is seldom a society where religious thought is absent. This natural proclivity for humans across the globe to participate in religions is a testament to the usefulness of such beliefs. Religion tends to address fundamental questions regarding reality, such as “Where did we come from?” and “Where do we go?”. The answers to these questions serve as a basis for which an individual uses to navigate the world. Like mathematical axioms, these answers form the foundation for an individual's more complex interactions with the world. Fundamentally, the purpose of all religions is to provide us a framework in which we can interact with the world. This framework shapes our everyday behaviors. For instance, a Muslim with the belief that they could potentially be subject to eternal damnation in the afterlife will conduct themselves differently than a Buddhist who believes that we have countless lives, and we learn more and more with each cycle. Such a frightening penalty for failure to act properly is certainly going to shape the manner in which one behaves.

Despite the surface differences in the many forms of religious expression, there are some general recurring themes between them. One such theme is the practice of mysticism, or union with the Deity. Seemingly all religions practice rituals that allow them to get closer to the divine. Whether that be through meditation in the Hindu faith, prayer in the Christian faith, or ingesting a psychoactive compound in Peyotism. Furthermore, the dissolution of the ego, or sense of self, is a central component to all these rituals. It is the explicit goal of meditation, and a well known effect of a psychedelic experience. With prayer, the same phenomenon is happening as one is acknowledging the existence of a greater truth, outside the scope of one's being. Another recurring theme is the concept of dualism. Good and evil, light and dark, chaos and order are all examples of fundamental dichotomies often addressed by religion. Many beliefs place a stress on the union of these seemingly opposite forces, with such an idea being prominently displayed with the Taoist yin and yang symbol. This same idea is acknowledged in Zen Buddhism, where the ideal way to live life is through the middle path, i.e., making choices that strike a balance between the varied aspects of life. With the many similarities between religions, some, such as the Baháʼí, have made an effort to unify the world's religions by centering their faith on these recurring principles.

Cultural relativism is a concept I was initially skeptical of adhering to. I’ve learned about practices in other cultures that I fundamentally disagree with. I found it difficult to want to learn more about a seemingly “backwards” or “simplistic” culture. With my own personal quest for the truth, I had dismissed cultures immediately after disagreeing with them on a single facet, never having the interest or time to understand the greater picture, i.e., I was judging books by their covers. Over this course, I’ve learned that the truth is not solely contained in one single religion, but rather various aspects of the truth are revealed between the different religions. The varied religions of humankind, past, present, and future, all contain equally valid expressions of the greater human condition. This acknowledgement is crucial to the field of anthropology as without this appreciation, you run the risk of identifying the different as savages, in need of either being civilized or eradicated. Only when you set aside your own religious lens, can you begin to comprehend the unique and complex worldviews that other cultures are operating within. This ability to uphold cultural relativism is a necessary trait for anyone with the aim of understanding a culture different from one’s own. This could be an ethnographer working towards a resolution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict or it could simply be someone searching for the truth cross culturally.

For the foreseeable future, religion is going to be with us, and will continue to influence our behaviors and the greater culture around us. Due to the foundational nature of religious thought, understanding other cultures’ religions will always yield otherwise unobtainable insight on the reasoning and meaning behind the many.