What is religion? (with a side-order of how might you discuss that with children?)
luvanddaisies
Shipmate
in Purgatory
I’ve got the opportunity to do a bit of teaching in school this year (see the Prayer Thread for the backstory about why this is exciting for me!), and one of the subject areas that I will be doing is RME (Religious & Moral Education as it’s known in Scotland). As I’ve been letting ideas burble in my brain the question of what religion is is one that looms large, and also made me wonder…
- What is religion?
- What is a religion? (and is this the same question as above?)
- Why do we have religion?
- Why is it on our curriculum here in Scotland to learn about Christianity & other religions? (there is a weighting towards Christianity in our curriculum.)
- How would you answer one, any or all of those questions?
- My class is a composite of year groups, ages 8-11ish; how would you answer them if they asked you one, any or all of those questions?
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The religious impulse, as I would define it, is the impulse to order one's worldview by reference to something beyond the strictly empirically experienceable world. This need not require a belief in a deity which is beyond the physical. Ancestor worship, reincarnation and many other systems of belief which exist in the absence of a deity/deities are equally religious.
This seems to transcend both cultures and times, to an extent which the current western mindset finds deeply embarrassing and tries to handwave away. Well, either that, or turning it into a rigid fundamentalism, which is a different expression of the same impulse.
That's not very helpful though. The following is inspired by the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, but isn't exactly his definition.
I think the best way is to start with a definition of spirituality. I would say spirituality is a set of practices and beliefs about the world, human beings, and humans place in the world, which practices are supposed to help us be the best person we can be, for whatever the practitioner believes is best.
Religion is a formalised and communal spirituality, where the beliefs and practices are to some extent generally accepted and practised together by the community.
It is a method by which people aim to connect with what is spiritual rather than physical.
“What is a religion? (and is this the same question as above?)”
One of such methods.
“Why do we have religion?”
Because without it we are likely to stray into all kinds of superstitious practices, some of which can be harmful.
“Why is it on our curriculum here in Scotland to learn about Christianity & other religions? (there is a weighting towards Christianity in our curriculum.)”
Because it is important that we try to understand how other people see things, as religion is often culturally fostered.
Those push in different directions. Understanding other people is for most Scots - those without a background in another religion - a reason to learn about religions other than Christianity, since Christian Scots and non-practicing Scots tend to be fairly similar. Understanding Scottish history and culture pushes towards concentrating on Christianity.
What can serve them as a religion is a different question.
My own view is that we should avoid promoting the category of 'religion' (alongside other related categories - 'secularity', 'spirituality') in educational contexts. Rather, we should encourage children to learn about the lived experiences of people in many different contexts, and give children the skills to describe, compare and contrast these lived experiences.
One of the roles of the teacher, on this view, is to help children notice when they are using the language and categories of their own context - such as the category of 'religion'. Words like 'religious', 'spiritual' and 'worship' inevitably arise, providing opportunity for discussion (why do you think what they are doing is religious?). This approach is messy and open-ended, which I take to be a good thing in education generally: it encourages curiosity, respect and critical thinking, while preparing children for the actually complex world we live in and how the category of 'religion' is used to organise, simplify and divide up social reality.
1. A religion is the narrative that many people have which gives them a language to navigate the world.
2. Because the world is complicated and people need a way to navigate it.
3. Because it's important to a lot of people therefore it's important to understand something of that.
This is probably what I'd do, if I were tasked (shudder) with explaining it. Because I don't think any decent definitions exist, and the best we can do is try to help the student formulate a working definition of their own, sort of like you might do by showing them a number of bananas, oranges, papayas, etc. and then the word "fruit." And then trying to narrow things down by deciding what else fits in there, or doesn't, and why....
I mean, what do you do with the kind of animistic ancestor-and-spirit-worshipping practices that the Vietnamese people I live among use? They are in some ways as un-numinous as brushing your teeth to ward off cavities, but in others give full value to the ancient terror of "pan-ic". They do help (or hinder) them in navigating the world, but frankly, in most cases a basic guide to health and safety would do a better job. And I rarely meet anyone who isn't glad to give up most of these practices when they find a reason to do so (for example, the need to give your children ugly names to prevent the evil spirits from recognizing, coveting, and taking them; the need to uglify yourself on purpose (via haircutting etc) after a major illness, so the spirits causing illness don't recognize you and come back; and so forth and so on.
It's a religion, but a very disorganized and mostly counter-productive one. About the only good I think it does for them is give them the illusion they have a certain amount of control over what happens to them, in the "warding off evil" way. But then, that's a powerful psychological comfort.
On this, I genuinely don't think that the education system in state funded British schools should be attempting to teach children to critique religion.
For me this is about understanding. We live highly compartmentalised lives, it is possible to go through life without ever getting any kind of understanding about other people who live close by.
It seems entirely reasonable to try to explain to children why people they may see regularly do things and think differently to what they are used to.
That's always going to be challenging in a highly multicultural and mixed religious community. But in a place where ancestor worship was a big thing (I don't know that it would be anywhere in the UK, but I could be wrong) I wouldn't think it bad for children to have the beliefs and practices explained to them.
As an example, then, in some ways it resembles pest control far more than it does the more organized religions of the world. From what I've seen (and of course this form of animism is going to be different from community to community, let alone nation to nation), it engages different emotions--mainly fear and distrust--and occupies a different place in people's lives, one that other cultures might fill with various warding-off activities such as immunizations and "stranger danger" lectures...
Of course, I may be wrong, having observed this entirely from the outside (none of my family are practicing animist/ancestor worshippers).
Whilst there certainly are some religions which see themselves as competing for truth claims, I don't think I would agree that most people believe them because they think they're true.
Most people believe their religion because it helps give vocabulary and structure to a confusing and complicated world.
I mean if you're putting a lot of weight on "giving" so that it means imposing a structure that isn't actually there independently of their belief then there's a difference - but I doubt many people would say that's what they're doing.
So, for example, most people who are Hindus believe it because they've been brought up in it, they're used to thinking in the ways it advocates, it meets their needs in terms of a mental architecture and language to navigate the world.
I don't think if one asked a Hindu or the majority of people of any given religion why they believe it that the primary reason is truth.
I think there are actually quite a small number of religions which demand that adherrants believe it because everything else is false. I don't believe there are majority of people, even within religions with a truth claim, who primarily believe it because they've thoroughly examined all the other truth claim religions and settled on this one as being the only true one.
And isn’t one way to hear the adherents tell it in their own words?
I hope it isn’t too much of a tangent, but I was perplexed when recently the church school in our parish brought children into church to help them understand The Lord’s Prayer. Lay people were invited to work with small groups of pupils aged 8-11, using set materials, but were instructed they must say “ Christians believe….”. Fine for the teacher to take that approach, but I did not see why members of the church should not say “We believe…” in that context.
I tend to use phrases like "Christians believe" when I'm explaining my faith to people, because I want to be clear about which particular "we" that I belong to I mean. Am I talking about a general statement of Christian faith that most Christians would agree with? Am I talking specifically about the Episcopal Church, of which I am a member? Am I talking about my beliefs, and those of the two specific friends that are standing with me? Am I talking about the entirety of the human species, or at least that subset of humans who have engaged sensibly with the data?
I use "we" in all those contexts.
Believing that your religion is true is not the same as believing that someone else's is false.
There are some places where different faiths make mutually contradictory claims, and at least one of those claims must be false. For example, to Christians, Jesus is God. to Muslims, Jesus is a prophet, but is not God. These claims cannot be simultaneously true, but accepting that one or other group makes an error about who Jesus is doesn't mean that the entire corpus of belief of the "wrong" one has to be wrong.
I'm clearly not able to explain what I mean as it doesn't feel like you are understanding it.
My suspicion is that the truth/false dicotomy doesn't come into it for many. Most believers just accept it as a part of their thinking processes.
I can see that. I still think that means they would think it's true. Even if they just take for granted that it's true/real/etc. without wrestling with it.
I'm not a redundancy theorist, in that I think the concept of truth is used for more than just a verbal convenience; but it does seem to me that your concept of the true/false dichotomy has a lot more about warrant going on in it than most people's conceptions?
Some people change from one organised religion to another, most don't. Most live within the thought processes developed within their religion and are familiar navigating the world in that way.
There's an interesting question about the influence of (say) British culture versus religious upbringing on a person's thought processes, but I still would think that Sikhs think more similarly to each other in general than two British people who happen to be a Sikh and a Muslim.
When my son was getting RME in a Scottish primary, at age 6 or 7, (so slightly younger than your age group, @luvanddaisies ) his teacher was at pains to explain to the Muslim pupils in the class that references to Christianity or Hinduism or whatever, were not part of their religion. She didn't do the same for the Christian pupils, leading my son to conclude there were two religions - Islam and NotIslam.
Things got especially confused when they were taught about the Hindu festival of Holi, which my son thought was Holy.
What happened next was not the teacher's fault. I heard shrieking from my hallway and found my daughter soaking wet. My son had filled a bucket of cold water, lurked on the top landing till she walked underneath and tipped it on her.
As I tried to decide whether the first priority was to
a) comfort my sobbing daughter
b) mop up the water before it started dripping through the ceiling of the flat below
c) strip my daughter off and get her into dry clothes or
d) make my son regret his life choices
he looked me straight in the eye and said I did it for Jesus, Mummy thus catapulting d) to the top of my list.
Once I had calmed down, my son explained. Holi is a NotMuslim festival. As a Christian, he was a NotMuslim. Therefore, as a Christian NotMuslim, he was celebrating Holi. The fact that he had upset his little sister was, apparently, merely an unforeseen bonus.
//End tangent
( I should add, my son wasn't the only confused Christian pupil, but he was the only one whose wee sister suffered as a result. )
Each part of human society has found its own form of Divine Providence and as far as Scotland is concerned that has for many centuries been the teachings of Christianity.
In Scottish schools nowadays it can be difficult to 'teach' Christianity for as with other religions one can really only talk about cultural/religious practices. The commonest form of Christianity in Scotland has relatively few public celebrations. Christmas is a big festival but it is not always connected with Christianity.
I worked for many years with severely handicapped children in a school where many religions were present. In a way it was easier for the staff to deal with Hindu,Islamic and Bhuddist festivals as for the most part people only felt culturally involved. Christmas was a big festival which all could join in with out feeling that one had to be too involved in it specifically religious understanding.. Easter was only skated over as ,apart from those who go fairly regularly to church it is not a big festival here but there was always a feeling that a good number of the staff were somewhat unwilling to take part.
The good thing about Christianity in Scottish schools is that,traditionally the 'teaching' consists of Bible stories. There are many parables of Jesus the Teacher which can be used to stimulate thoughts about the morality of our actions. These can be used without really running the risk of 'indoctrinating' children.
I should add that it is equally difficult to teach about Christianity in specifically faith based schools such as the 20% of state Scottish Catholic schools. It is indeed relatively easy to teach about certain cultural practices such as baptism,confirmation ,communion but unless the meaning behind these practices is understood it remains only as an outer form.
This is where the part which society plays in 'enforcing' religious norms is of great importance. Following the Reformation in the 16th century ( and before) it was important in Europe that all of society followed the religious norms imposed by the ruler and these would vary from kingdom to kingdom.
Even today in a much more secular society there are those who are looked on as outsiders
and who draw a certain strength from following closely the religion of the society which they believe they are most closely identified with.
It is easy for those of us who find ourselves in one particular religion to listen to stories from other religions when in most cases we have no real interest in engaging with them.
We reserve our engagement with the meaning for the stories we have from our own religious culture - at least I would say that that is what most of us do.
There are problematic ways of doing so to be sure.
Problematic ways of doing so:
we know these stories are true;
we know these stories aren't true;
nobody believes these stories are true;
those odd people not like us (for better or worse) believe these stories are true.
I hope not to lose as we investigate together, and to remind the children that faith & beliefs are important to millions (billions?) around the world, and the right to practise them is a Human Right, so respect is important. This is as good a starter definition as I’ve seen, Dafyd
I hope to present & treat any religions we look at with as much equity as I can manage, so all my things will be “x religionees believe…”. I like your point about being clear about which “we” you mean. Maybe especially important in discussion of religions that might be all to one person and nothing to their friend beside them.
I apologise for how much I chuckled at this unfortunate incident, but it’s a really good illustration of how easily things can get miscommunicated when presumably the teacher’s intention was to not offend one group (who are often stereotyped as easily offended, and how much this has potential to perpetrate future lack of understanding & perpetuate a stereotype. This tale of watery woe should be in a training somewhere! No wonder you’re a Purg host, Dafyd, you’ve got a habit of putting things very clearly. I like your highlighting the now and the past in the why of teaching RME, a good reminder to include both & touch on cultures that came from religions a bit (as it it’s not a huge enough topic anyway!). Those things are often really interesting to lots of kids (and adults)too.
You’ve got so many useful points here, thank you! I know on my PGDE course that lots of people felt resentment (and a couple felt actual rage) at religion in general being a subject on our Curriculum- but most particularly at the emphasis on Christianity over other faiths. It wasn’t really a thing that some felt they could actually stomach teaching. I’m not sure how that would play out in the actual job…
I’ve got so many ideas, thoughts and things to engage with here - it’s got me excited to see where the children take it.
the teacher’s intention was to not offend one group (who are often stereotyped as easily offended, and how much this has potential to perpetrate future lack of understanding & perpetuate a stereotype.
The Muslim family the teacher was most concerned about were a lovely family who invited my son and I round for playdates, and who were very interested in our Christianity. Their main worry was atheism and godlessness, and they were keen to foster friendships between their son and his church-going Christian classmates. (Their son was the only Muslim boy in the class).
They did take a keen interest - they proof read the Nativity play, and Jesus was described as a "very special baby" rather than the "son of God" at their request - and I think this made the teacher ultra-cautious.
Take what Christ did with Judaism.
A simple example would be in the tanakh, especially Torah, we see Jews claiming the god wants them to conquer another nation, enslave them, force them into concubines and slay them.
Jesus said the kingdom is in our hearts. It’s not a kingdom for us to conquer. It’s not some land. It’s a community. We don’t slay our enemies, we pray for them and stick their ear back on their heads. We don’t throw stones at them. We forgive them in endlessly. We don’t please God by offering up sacrifices but offering up mercy and compassion and giving water to the thirsty is giving water to our god.
Some other religions pick up on other things. As our ancestors evolved, part of our progress of natural selection was consuming the fats and proteins of corpses. We killed animals, even caused some to go extinct like the mammoth and giant ground sloth. Then Vishnu spoke through Indian prophets and eventually the spiritual messages evolved into Buddhism. We see a greater respect for animals. Just because we are permitted to eat them, they chose not too. It’s an even greater message of love than how Christ treated animals or how indigenous populations ate their “cousins” in regard to animism.
As time goes by, as the spirit guides us more and more towards an Eden like mindset, we will more more towards everyone eating in ways to respect life.
To me that’s religion. Humanity growing in love by sharing stories that get reimagined through lenses of greater love.