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THE
CONCEPT OF RELIGION IN THE WEST
Religion
comes from either relegere (meaning to read or pursue
together; the same root goes to legible and intelligent) or (much
more likely and generally accepted) from relegare (to tie
back, to bind fast); hence a religious man used to mean a monk
tied by his vows; and the words ligament and ligature go back to
the same root. For the Romans it meant being tied back, staying
connected with ancestral customs and beliefs, a kind of loyalty;
for the Christians the word would originally have meant being tied
back, connected to God. However, the word used in Arabic and
therefore in Islamic literature is ‘din’. In its
literal usage, ‘din’ means obedience, being in debt,
restoring one’s rights, adopting as a habit, forcing, calling to
account, managing, rewarding or punishing, serving, lending and so
on. Muslim theologians have described ‘din’ as the set
of principles revealed by God through Prophets so that mankind
should follow by free will in order to acquire happiness in both
worlds.
The
concept of religion may be viewed from two perspectives: the human
or the Divine. The followers of the great world religions take
religion to be God-revealed principles, values and commandments
and therefore do not, in explaining the origin of religion, refer
to man. By contrast, the modern Western imputes the origin of
religion to man and then seeks to explain it away according to the
different science of man — anthropology or sociology or
psychology.
The
reason why the modern Western way of thinking has developed in
favor of a materialistic world-view
The
still dominant attitudes among Westerners do not, unfortunately,
allow them to regard Islam as a revealed religion and therefore
what is understood by religion in the West is usually religion —
the form into which it evolved in Christianity. The Quran
(3.50) affirms that Jesus Christ came to restore the laws of the
Torah, with the exception of making some unlawful things lawful:
"And (I have come) confirming that which was before me of
the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden
unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your
duty to God and obey me." It is possible to find the same
in the Gospels. For example, in Matthew 5.17, Jesus
declares: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the
Law (of Moses — American Bible Society) and the teachings
of the Prophets. I have come not to do abolish them but to fulfill
them (Gideons International) — to make their teachings
come true (American Bible Society); to complete or perfect
them (Bible Society, Turkish edition)." However, St Paul
promoted his mission by separating the message of Jesus from its
relationships and its origins in the religion and the Law of the
Jews — and the Law has the same shaping and containing function
for religion as the skin of a man has for his body — and thereby
paved the way to the wedding of Christianity with Roman laws and
rites and its development as a religion focused on the Kingdom of
God in the next world, relegating nature and this world to a
lesser (eventually seen as a secular) domain. That is part of the
reason why the modern Western way of thinking has developed in
favor of a materialistic world-view, rejecting the Divine origin
of religion.
Western
views of religion
According
to the assumptions of modern Western thinking, humanity is in a
continuous irresistible and irreversible flow or movement toward
what is better. During this ‘progress’, it has gone through
certain stages of intellectual and civilizational development.
Among others also studying the origins of religion,
anthropologists have concentrated on the theory of the evolution
of religion and reached different conclusions. For Frazer
(1854-1941) the origin was magic, for Taylor it was animism, for
Schmidt it was original monotheism, and for others it was
pre-animism, totemism, fetishism, or polytheism. Later
anthropologists concentrated on rather the role of the religion in
society than its origin. While social anthropologists saw religion
as part of society and concentrated on field studies of particular
tribes, or the analysis of myth, ritual and symbol, the cultural
anthropologists saw it as a set of beliefs, rites and
institutions.
In
order to illustrate the differences of opinion that arise among
those who, from within ignorance or other limitations, offer their
definition of a matter, Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, a famous Muslim Sufi
of the 13th century, made this analogy: some blind persons
encounter an elephant and, on touching different parts of the
animal’s body, offer their partial, inept and contradictory
definitions of an elephant: one finds it to be a heavy, thick
column, another a hard, flexible pipe, and so on. This is what
those who try to explain the origin of religion have achieved in
the West. Just as the anthropologists drew different conclusions,
sociologists also put forward different opinions about the origin
of religion.
The
sociology of religion found its leading analysts in Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920). The former stressed the
social functions of religion as a stabilizing factor created by
society as a means of expressing its ideals and unifying itself.
Weber, more dynamic and positive about religion, saw religion’s
prophetic side as an instrument for shaping and changing society
and tried to work out what aspect of Western religious attitudes
or culture shaped the formation of capitalism. Other sociologists
focused more on particular religious groups and institutions.
The
psychology of religion centers upon the individual and his or her
religious experience. One of the main exponents of the psychology
of religion was William James (1842-1910). He described the
religion of the healthy-minded and the sick soul, the religion of
the once-born and the twice-born, and the psychological basis of
prayer, meditation, mysticism, and conversion. Freud, whose
research was based on theories of infantile sexuality and who,
despite opposition from friends, patients and medical colleagues,
continued to develop these theories, emphasized the importance of
childhood sexual experiences and regarded religion as necessary
illusions (delusions) and projections. He also argued that dreams,
like neuroses, were disguised manifestations of repressed sexual
desires. More recent work in the psychology of religion has
centered upon questions about how different religious people or
institutions are, and upon analysis of what mature religious faith
is, what the spiritual potentialities of human nature are, and
what the stages are of religious development in children and
adults.
The
common denominator Western analysis of religion is that religion
was invented by man as a result of either projecting repressed
desires or weaknesses or of individual or collective efforts to
systematize the beliefs and rites of particular communities. The
corollary is that, as science develops, man will no longer have
any need for religion and religion, which is, according to
Feuerbach, a dogma contradicted by fire and life insurance
policies, by railways and steam-ships, by modern military and
industrial schools, by the theatres and science museums of modern
society, and, according to Marx (1818-1883), is the opiate of the
masses, will inevitably become a thing of the past. Auguste Comte
(1798-1857) divides human history into three eras. The first era
is the period of religion, when man lived a primitive life, in
fear of natural events and forces, and needed to believe in a
supreme being. The second era is the period of metaphysics, when
man reached a considerable level of intellectual maturity. And the
last era is the period of science, when there is no room (or need)
for religion, because reason and science will solve all the
problems of man. Some people may well continue to follow a reduced
religion, comprising very basic moral and spiritual principles, in
order to satisfy their emotional and spiritual needs and lead an
upright life. But religion should not transgress its limits, and
must not interfere in the collective, especially political, life
of society. According to Ferdinand Buisson, the 19th
century-French thinker, the secular approach to life will not wipe
out religion altogether but will considerably diminish it, and
destroy the force of its dogmas and the basis of its doctrines.
Before
proceeding to criticize Western views of religion, we should give
a summary of some other definitions of religion by Western
thinkers or philosophers:
According
to Hegel (1770-1830), religion is a certain view of the universe.
Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), one of the Italian followers of
Hegel, defines religion as a philosophy that is incomplete. Kant
(1724-1804) deals with religion from the viewpoint of social
morality and thinks that religion in practice is seeing all of our
responsibilities as if Divine ordinances. Schleiermacher
(1768-1834) sees religion is no more than a feeling or excitement,
an emotion or noble sentiment, felt for eternity. While rejecting
the social and political role of religion, Schleiermacher
describes the spirit or essence of religion as an intuitive
knowledge of the highest values in life and of the metaphysical
dimension of existence. According to Ralph Otto, a contemporary
theologian, religion is a mysterious fear combined with awe which
both causes man to tremble and yet attracts him to itself. The
definition of Emile Boutroux is one of the most complete: Religion
is that faith and feelings demand their right besides the
scientific view.
The
critics of Western views of religion
The
positivistic view of religion adhered to by modern Western
attitudes, directed by the dogmas of science and technology, is
highly questionable. The positivist line which regards the
sociological, economic, military and political level of the West
as the final level mankind can attain has been severely criticized
by even Western thinkers. In addition to the existentialistic
tension and anxiety, Auguste Comte’s attempt, toward the end of
his life — despite his view of religion as a mode of thinking or
being that belongs to the second (long past) era of human history
— to establish a humanistic religion shows that religion is not
something to be denied or dismissed as belonging to some long past
phase of human development. Also, despite the huge recent advances
in science and technology, the extreme sexual freedom, the high
standard of living and the high levels of education, there is a
growing interest in and turning towards religion throughout the
world. We have seen the emergence of new, primitive religions such
as devil worship, the seeking of contentment through authentic or
false supernormal phenomena such as telepathy, necromancy, sorcery
and fortune-telling. Moreover, as Erich Fromm puts it, we still
see the pursuit of security and guarantees for the future through
increased association with insurance companies, trade unions,
mighty governments, holdings and pacts. We have seen the collapse
of Communist systems and return to religion in once Communist
countries. All these show that the theories that religion was the
product or projection or delusion of primitive men or infantile
sexuality or regressed sexual desires, that people first created
primitive, polytheistic religions and then evolved them into
monotheism, that religion has been replaced (or contradicted) by
fire and life insurances, by the reliability of railways,
steam-ships, etc., and expelled from the galleries of he modern
arts and sciences, etc, and that there would no longer be any need
for religion, and that religion is the opium of people — have
been proved false. And these events and trends also demonstrate
that, whether sociological or anthropological or psychological,
the studies of religion in the West are based on wrong premises.
Whereas
religion is a rising value in the world and more and more people
turn to it everyday, modern Western civilization is severely
questioned and shows signs of inward decay, while outwardly at the
peak of its dominion. Having lived through the first quarter of
the century, Oswald Spengler, a famous German sociologist,
prophesied the collapse of this civilization with all its
skyscrapers, huge metropolises and railways and foretold that it
would be an ethnographic museum. ‘Refined’ Western
intellectuals and scientists such as Rene Guenon, Alexis Carrel,
Max Planck, Pasternak, James Jeans and Schwartz, have argued that
by means of religion humanity would live another era of happiness.
Also, as stated above, the re-emergence of missionary churches in
increasing numbers in Christendom and the return to Islamic values
all over the Muslim world despite the stern measures taken against
Islam by native governments for several decades, demonstrate that
it is almost impossible to defeat religion. |
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