Beliefs and Believers Teleclass Study Guide, Third Edition
Introduction to the Revised Edition
John K. Simmons
Professor
Department of
Philosophy & Religious Studies
Western Illinois
University
For more than a decade, thousands of students at colleges and universities in the United States and, to some extent, around the world have used the “Beliefs and Believers” model to explore religion and religions in an unbiased, open-minded fashion. The success of the teleclass version of this introductory course in religious studies is not really surprising when you consider that first “ingredient” needed in order to create a “religion” is a human being.[1] Beliefs and Believers makes religious studies, human studies. Like it or not, the story of religion is one in which we all have a role to play. Through the numerous video interviews or mini-documentaries interspersed throughout the course, students meet real people with genuine existential needs who are going about the business of living life on the beautiful planet we all share. Their “religion” is an integral part of life’s journey. Students are exposed to real believers who, via video interviews, help them understand what they believe, why they believe it, and how their beliefs guide personal and collective behavior within their respective communities.
As I sit down to write an introduction to a revised edition of the Beliefs and Believers Teleclass Study Guide, never before has it seemed so important that human beings learn to deal with religious differences in a peaceful manner. When it comes to religion, the world has always been a troubled place. However, the terrorist attack on America by religious extremists on September 11, 2001 - forever engraved on our collective memory as “9/11” - raised public awareness regarding religion and violence by teaching the citizens of this planet a lesson that many preferred to ignore; religion is a major if not the major determinant of human behavior. Throughout history, religious systems have drawn from the human creative spirit the most profound philosophy, the grandest architecture, beautiful art and music, and inspired literature. Religion has also stirred the demons lurking in the human heart, unleashing death and destruction on an apocalyptic level. Civilizations rise and fall under the powerful sway of religious transformation and the accompanying social changes.
More than ever, the citizens of Planet Earth need to make a concerted effort to understand the power of religion and appreciate the dynamism present in human worldviews. In that spirit, I would like to use this new, introductory chapter to share several insights that have emerged out of my own ongoing struggle to understand religion. Of course, for me, most of what I learn about religion comes from teaching Beliefs and Believers year in and year out at Western Illinois University. We finished the second edition of the teleclass in 1998, but I have never stopped adding to the course in response to questions, insights, or discussions with my own students, students, I might add, who reflect the diversity and inquisitive nature of students around the country. My classroom, in effect, looks just like your classroom if you find yourself pursuing a college education in a typical, on campus, college setting.
Recently, I have been most concerned about finding ways to begin the course that capture the attention of the students who arrive in my classroom. Let me be honest. When I look out on a classroom of 50 or so students on the first day of class, I know full well that most have arrived on my doorstep in pursuit of general education credits in the humanities. Understanding religion is not high on their priority list of “things I want to do with my life.” This is all well and good in the complex world of higher education. However, I want to get their attention and make religion relevant on the first day of class, so that my students, students just like you, will put full effort into engaging the class material and, more importantly, applying “worldview analysis” skills in their encounters with religious diversity outside the classroom. That is the practical side of taking this class. You will learn worldview analysis skills that you can rely on in dealing with religious difference in the real world.
Most of the following information is part of the “pre-introduction material” I share with students before we begin Class One in the Study Guide. I have also included the PowerPoint graphics I use in class at the end of this introductory chapter to the revised edition. These graphics provide “quick study” references drawn from the major themes I cover in the chapter, similar to the “Videotape Graphics” section found in most chapters of the Study Guide.
What Is “Religion”?
“Religion” is a challenging concept. It evokes strong emotions; it can mean opposite things to different people. It is a word that divides as much as it brings a sense of unity or continuity to our shared human endeavor. For the average person in American society, “religion” is about going to church on Sunday, being a Christian, believing in the Bible, or getting right with God so that you are assured of space in “heaven” when you die. Though America is the most religiously diverse nation on the planet, more than 85% of religious people claim some adherence to Christian beliefs.
In Beliefs and Believers we quickly find that there are many more chapters in the story of religion than the one most familiar in American culture. I want to make it very clear at the beginning of this course that Beliefs and Believers is not about my religion or your religion; it is about religion. There is no need to defend your “religious territory.” We are not here to judge other religions and decide which are “true” and which are “false. Rather, we are here to appreciate and to try and understand different worldviews. During a visit to a reputable art museum, you might express a preference for a Monet over a Van Gogh, but it is highly unlikely that you would end up in an argument over the “truth” of the artistic expression of these great masters. Art is a way of describing or portraying the way the artist sees the world. Can the same be said of religious expressions? We shall see!
On the other hand, art rarely is the cause of pain and oppression on a massive scale. Religion is not so benign. Many people associate religion with cruel and oppressive attitudes and violent behavior. Religion, welded by the tyrannical or egomaniacal, can and does hurt. Religious leaders have been known to use morality, drawn from religious doctrines, to make others feel small or outside the norms of what it means to live a purposeful or meaningful human life. Some of the most disturbing characters in human history have used religion to justify violence against people they hate, all in the name of their God or some concept of the Divine.
The link between religion and oppression has caused many people to discard religion all together. In a modern society like the United States, freedom from religion is the choice of people who dismiss religion as the stuff of ancient superstitions, myths, or fables. This secular, or non-religious view, places scientific inquiry at the forefront of the human quest to understand life. From this perspective, religion is irrational, it causes wars and hatred in the world, and we’d all be better of without it.
Needless to say, “religion” comes with a baggage car filled with presuppositions and misconceptions. Here are a few we hope to “toss off the baggage car” so we can begin the semester with an open mind. While any of the following might be partially true, none stand alone as an accurate or complete statement about religion:
· Religion is a person’s own business; it has no impact on society in general
· Religion is Christianity – “end of story!”
· Religion only happens at a certain time, on a certain day, in unusually shaped buildings that occupy prime real estate in the towns and cities of the world
· Religion and morality are the same thing
· Religion is about “believing” in God
Another presupposition about religion that needs to be addressed is the pervasive idea that your religion or my religion has somehow “always existed.” Of the many reasons sparking the human impulse to create religious systems, the quest for stability in a constantly changing world takes precedence. Thus, religious people, prophets and adherents, almost inevitably describe their religion in terms such as eternal truth, unique revelation, or the final word of the mythic model for unchanging reality, God.
Desire for stability in a life that is often brutal and brief is completely understandable given the endless existential challenges human beings have faced across time and cultural experience. However, in the “real world,” religion is anything but stable. Faith-based systems are always emerging, evolving, and mutating. Mirroring life in a lively springtime country pond, religious institutions interact with other institutions in a given culture; religion changes social experience; social experience changes religion. Every human being carries their own unique spiritual DNA that ever so slightly reshapes “eternal traditions” into new forms. Species of religion – meaning the variegated denominations we name like members of a religious phylum – come and go; those that are not capable of adaptation are sure to die out.
This practical insight into how religion “works’ in people’s lives – a concept we will develop in Class 22 as religious ecology - reveals another misconception about religion; when it comes to religion, you can’t “tell the book by its cover.” Beware of simply accepting labels when it comes to learning about another person’s religion. For example, Roman Catholicism is clearly defined by a set of beliefs and ritual practices. However, it is what the person who professes to be a Roman Catholic brings to the religion that may make all the difference in how Roman Catholicism shapes his or her response to life. This explains why two people who claim adherence to the same religion can be miles apart in their attitude and approach to life; one is kind and loving; the other is mean-spirited and judgmental. And the same can be said of believers in virtually every religion. That is why hearing from real believers, via video interviews, has become such an important part of the Beliefs and Believers approach to religious studies. Is there really any such thing as “religion” apart from the human beings who embrace and practice it? (Now that would make another challenging final exam essay question!)
Part of our intellectual quest in Beliefs and Believers is
to set aside misconceptions and presuppositions about religion so that we can
begin to understand the ways in which religion is common in human
experience!
Everybody has a worldview. You have a worldview. It might be religious, it might be secular (non-religious), it might be a combination of both, but if you are reading this sentence, you have a worldview. Sorting out the relationship between “religion” and the fundamental human practice of “seeing the world” a certain way, i.e., a worldview, is the first step towards accepting religion as an integral part of the lives of all peoples, in all cultures, in all times.
To paraphrase a famous philosopher, “I exist, therefore I ask questions.” Commonality begins by recognizing the fact that all human beings in all cultures and in all eras of human history have pondered the same existential questions: Here is just a short list:
What we will find in our study of religion is that what is fundamental, common in human experience quite naturally finds its way into the world’s religions. Religious answers to these questions are unique and often extraordinary, but the process of asking these questions is the common thread that connects you to religious people, secular people, all people who now or ever have wandered about this planet. Religion is one expression of the ongoing quest for answers, for “wholeness,” for peace and security, for justice, equality, and fairness. The world’s great religions – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and other East Asian religious expressions – all emerge in a relatively short period of human history, roughly 2,500 to 3,000 years, and each religion presents a unique set of answers to profound life questions. However, archaeological evidence from the ruins of ancient civilizations tell us that earlier people had different answers. What will future answers be like for people who live on this planet long after we are gone?
Because human beings are “wired” for pondering the nature and meaning of life, everyone has a worldview. You might think of your consciousness as the hard drive on a computer. Your worldview is the program you download. The program you run interprets life’s data according to the parameters of that program. What you “put in” your biochemical computer is what you “get out” of life, your worldview.
More than one sociologist of religion has recognized that death, an “all-humanity rite of passage,” is a common experience that binds human beings together in a quest for meaning and purpose in life. Emerging fields of study such as neuro-psychology are providing scientific proof that different parts of the brain, an incredibly complex, biochemical organ, provide “mixed messages” about our existence; we experience, at the same time, the sense of being apart – an individual struggling to survive in an often hostile world where survival resources are scarce – and the sense of being a part; interconnected with countless other smaller and larger entities.
Human religious activity represents the often-desperate attempt to experientially bridge the cognitive, perceptual chasm between the unitive sense of being a part of everything that exists and the harsh dualistic “reality” of apartness. On the journey across the bridge from apart to a part, religions function rather like computer programs for meaning used by humans to interpret, best they can, the information stored on the hard drive of common human experience. Asking questions may simply be an inevitable function of human consciousness.
Nevertheless, human beings are compelled to form a worldview. A quick definition of a worldview would be:
· Worldview = your identity, or sense of self + your relationship with the world around you + your interpretation of life’s circumstances + your behavior.
Try as you might, you cannot escape your worldview because it speaks about what you really value. You know a person’s worldview by their behavior; all else is window dressing. People we know, even love, often seem hypocritical because what they say does not really correspond to what they do – a primary indicator of a person’s worldview.
With tongue somewhat in cheek, I like to use this list of “real world” worldviews to get my students thinking about commonality in human experience:
· “Bling-ism” – The person who dies with the most toys wins the game of life!
· “Whannabe-ism” – I want to be somebody else who is “better” than me (richer, more famous, more beautiful, more accomplished, etc.).
· “Never enough-ism” – I never have enough security, stuff, recognition, attention, love, food, sex, etc., etc.
· “Permanent Victim-ism” – Poor me! The world is out to get me.
· “I, Me, Mine-ism” – I’m the center of the universe; get out of my way!
· “Control Freak-ism” – I’ll steal your energy if you let me. I’m more powerful than you!
· “Sooo Cooool-ism” – I am so above it all; you can’t touch me!
· “Just Get By-ism” – I get through life by doing as little as possible
· “Bad Habit-ism” – addiction as avoidance of real living; may be to drugs, alcohol, gambling, abusive relationships, or other destructive behavior or life style
· “If Only-ism” – if only I was richer, more physically attractive, more talented; if only _____ liked me more, I had my college degree, etc.,etc.
I purposely point out negative, self-serving worldviews because religion, ideally, is about recognizing the limitations of these common worldviews and setting out on a search for something more to life. In the meantime, we have a host of socially constructed worldviews that come and go but all, to some degree, supply those who “see the world through that lens” with a sense of meaning or purpose in life. Consider, for example, hip-hop culture, grunge culture, punk culture, sports fanatics, country music culture, NASCAR culture, fashion, and so forth. The point is, for good or ill, all human beings have a worldview. It is a “way of thinking” about the world that, at some level, provides structure, meaning, a sense of purpose (or lack thereof), guidance, or some level of belief that it’s worthwhile to “get up in the morning.”
Besides the self-serving worldviews listed above, there are numerous secular worldviews that define a person’s identity and guide relationships in a more expansive manner. Consider, for instance, environmentalism, feminism, humanism, or even, patriotism. Communism, Democracy, Socialism, Nazism, and Theocracy are political worldviews that, quite literally, have changed world history.
And then, of course, we have religious worldviews, the subject of our exploration. Is there such a thing as a spiritual impulse that compels human beings to create religious worldviews? In our set of chapters on the experiential dimension, we will attempt to answer this question, but for now, we might say that a religious worldview can be sparked by any or all of the following insights:
· the human “intuition” that there “has to be something more” to this thing called life
· the search for wholeness, unity, completeness, love, peace, fulfillment
· doing all of this in relationship to the transcendent
· transcendent = God, a higher reality or consciousness, a “better way of being,” and so forth
· experiencing the transcendent, the sacred, the holy in life
Religion and Spirituality
Is there a difference between religion and spirituality? Judging by the numerous books and articles on the subject, this question has captured the attention of many people who are trying to sort out their perspective on religion. If spirituality is the direct experience of God or the transcendent, then why do human beings create religious institutions to express this profound experience? Obviously, they do, or we wouldn’t be entering into this study of religion. This course uses the six dimensions of religion – experiential, mythic, ritual, doctrinal, ethical, and social – primarily to study religious institutions. But we can never get away from the fact that without some kind of spiritual motivation, the experiential dimension, we don’t get the other five dimensions.
I use what I call the “fire analogy” to try to explain the relationship between spirituality and religion in the context of higher education. Education is to knowledge as religion is to spirituality. Spirituality and knowledge are like fire. Both are incredibly powerful, transformative, and also potentially dangerous. Human beings create education institutions to control the fire of knowledge; in the same way, people also create religious institutions to control the fire of spirituality. Spirituality and knowledge are about crossing boundaries, stepping outside the lines, transcendence and transformation; religious and educational institutions are about control and stability. Something has to give, or better yet, balance has to be found.
As a student taking this class, you are immersed in a highly complex educational institution. Ideally, universities and colleges exist for the love of learning; in a perfect world, the quest for knowledge would guide the entire process, from the first day of classes as an entering student to graduation day. Yet this noble quest can be restricted and limited by the structure of educational institutions, the very institutions that are supposed to aid in the creation and promulgation of knowledge.
A rewarding learning experience is also dependent on the student’s attitude towards education. As a student, you either learn to learn because you love knowledge or you learn to manipulate the system to earn grades. Ultimately, you make that decision. It is quite possible to pass through four years of higher education, get reasonably decent grades, graduate, and completely miss the experience of learning as living knowledge. Your commitment to learning determines the “worth” of your degree, regardless of your class standing or the authorizing signatures on your diploma.
Religious institutions face a similar dilemma. How do you “control” the fire of spirituality without snuffing out the flame? Believers learn the doctrines, follow the rituals by rote, put money in the coffers, but are they really in touch with the deep spiritual yearning that should be a part of any authentic religious undertaking? To bring out the inherent spiritual dimension in adherents, a religious institution needs to be spiritually authentic and socially relevant just as the best educational institutions inspire the search for knowledge in ways that lead to practical application of knowledge, evidenced in the successful and productive lives of alumni.
Needless to say, it is not easy striking a balance between control and freedom, stability and transformation. But that is the dilemma faced by educational and religious institutions. When educational institutions become overly restrictive and lose the fire of knowledge, the worst that can happen is a kind of dark ages in culture when genuine learning dies out. When religious institutions become obsessed with correct belief and behavior and are no longer empowered by spiritual insight, blood flows in the streets. Violence is not far away in situations where religious institutions attempt to control the fire of human spirituality by creating and sustaining an atmosphere of fear. Absolute truth claims, rigid doctrines, oppressive morality, exclusivity, ends justifying means, and the willingness to commit violent acts in the name of God are symptoms of a religious institution that has snuffed out the fires of spirituality. And religion without authentic spirituality may be the most dangerous force on the planet. Welcome to Planet Terrorism!
In times of worldwide cultural transformation – what we are experiencing in the beginning years of the 21st century – more than ever humanity needs spiritual guidance, if by “spirituality” we mean the ethical gems embedded in all religious systems that call for compassion, caring, community, and consensus. Unfortunately, when “religious answers” to profound life questions are institutionalized in a given culture, the religion will express the very best in that culture but also can be infected by the worst concepts and practices; repression of women in the name of God being just one glaring example.
More than ever, religion needs to be part of the solution; not part of the problem. And it can be. Using the emerging technology of brain imagining, scientists are recognizing that time-honored religious rituals – prayer, chanting, meditation, hymn-singing, and so forth – actually stimulate parts of the brain that produce emotions of love, peace, and interconnectedness. Healing has been always been a central focus of religion. If religious institutions are to contribute to a more peaceful world, then balance needs to be found between the preservation of tradition and openness to new ideas. Most of all, religious leaders in all the world religions need to recognize and root out the symptoms of evil and violence that motivate terrorists within their respective communities. A first step towards retrieving religion from the hands of those who would hate and hurt is learning to appreciate religious diversity.
Great spiritual leaders, including Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, Muhammad, and others, were fully aware that the natural world has much to teach us about the nature of God or the transcendent world. Many mystics have seen and described the Divine as present in nature. Jesus, the predominant spiritual guide for Western culture, regularly taught using down-to-earth parables drawn from nature in his teaching about the “kingdom of heaven.” “Consider the lilies of the field,” he said, or “…the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.” Legend has it that one of the Buddha’s most profound “sermons” consisted of him simply holding up a flower…no words were needed.
If, indeed, the natural word is an expression or reflection of the Divine, then it hardly takes a profound mystical experience to see the lesson Mother Earth teaches us – diversity abounds, and it is good! Innumerable differences create a unified celebration that is life. No two DNA strands, snowflakes, flowers, or galaxies are exactly the same, yet together, they form a seamless tapestry of life. So how could it be desirable, much less possible, for one religious path to “fit” the spiritual needs of billions of human beings?
Continuing the fire analogy, let’s return to the previous comparison of educational and religious institutions. Most students eventually hope to graduate from college. Graduation is an exciting and noteworthy rite of passage. Now, imagine your college president finishing up her remarks by informing graduates that they can never study, never learn anything on their own unless they do their learning at Western Illinois University (or whatever college you happen to attend). That would seem absurd, and yet that is one of the most prevalent and restrictive notions put forward by religious institutions. It is also a concept that is refuted by the entire history of world religions.
Every religion we will encounter this semester exists only because of the transformative fire of spirituality. Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and so forth all “arrived” on the wings of spiritual visionaries who rose above the religious institutions of their time and place and created new spiritual expressions. It is all part of the process. When it comes to religion, change and transformation are not to be feared; they are the very qualities that make religion such an integral part of human experience. In a small way, Beliefs and Believers hopes to contribute to a more peaceful world in which religious diversity is not a cause for hatred or violence but is seen as a dynamic quality of our shared human experience worthy of our understanding and appreciation. Welcome to the journey!
[1] Many readers might take issue with this assertion. Isn’t religion fundamentally about God? Hold that question until the end of the semester. It would make a provocative final exam essay question!