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Phil 105 What is Religion?? (from Wikipedia edited by Dr. Gayhart)

• A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. It is not a random collection of insights. Organization helps to transmit the religion to other generations. Many religions have stories and tales, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world. Religion teaches us what to believe and how we should behave.

• Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy--priests, a definition of how is granted membership and those who do not qualify, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of a deity, gods or goddesses), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.

|Five largest religions |2012 (billion)[73] |2012 (%) |2000 (billion)[74][75] |2000 (%) |Demographics |

|Chinese folk religion |0.4 |6% |0.385 |6.4% |Chinese folk religion |

|Christianity |2.2 |32% |2.0 |33% |Christianity by country |

|Hinduism |1.0 |15% |0.811 |13.4% |Hinduism by country |

|Islam |1.6 |23% |1.2 |19.6% |Islam by country |

|Total |6.9 |100% |6.15 |100% | |

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith, belief system or sometimes set of duties; however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social". A global 2012 poll reports 59% of the world's population as "religious" and 36% as not religious, including 13% who are atheists, with a 9% decrease in religious belief from 2005. On average, women are "more religious" than men. Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.

The development of religion has taken different forms in different cultures. Some religions place an emphasis on belief, while others emphasize practice. Some religions focus on the personal experience of the religious individual, while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most important. Some religions claim to be universal, believing their laws and cosmology to be binding for everyone, while others are intended to be practiced only by a closely defined or localized

New Religious Movements

• Shinshūkyō is a general category for a wide variety of religious movements founded in Japan since the 19th century. These movements share almost nothing in common except the place of their founding. The largest religious movements centered in Japan include Soka Gakkai, Tenrikyo, and Seicho-No-Ie among hundreds of smaller groups.

• Cao Đài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, established in Vietnam in 1926.

• Raëlism is a new religious movement founded in 1974 teaching that humans were created by aliens. It is numerically the world's largest UFO religion.

• Hindu reform movements, such as Ayyavazhi, Swaminarayan Faith and Ananda Marga, are examples of new religious movements within Indian religions.

• Unitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning", and has no accepted creed or theology.

• Noahidism is a Biblical-Talmudic and monotheistic ideology for non-Jews based on the Seven Laws of Noah, and on their traditional interpretations within Judaism.

• Scientology teaches that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature. Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counseling known as auditing, in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience and understand painful or traumatic events and decisions in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects.

• Eckankar is a pantheistic religion with the purpose of making God an everyday reality in one's life.

• Wicca is a neo-pagan religion first popularised in 1954 by British civil servant Gerald Gardner, involving the worship of a God and Goddess.

• Druidry is a religion promoting harmony with nature, and drawing on the practices of the druids.

• Satanism is a broad category of religions that, for example, worship Satan as a deity (Theistic Satanism) or use "Satan" as a symbol of carnality and earthly values (LaVeyan Satanism).

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How do I know if I am a spiritual person?

(From St. Laurent Spirituality and World Religions and additional material by Dr. Gayhart) We would ask the following questions:

1. Am I open-minded and unbiased when I deal with others? Or do I quickly form an impression of their views and pigeon-hole them as “friend” or “foe”??

2. How do I respond to those persons who irritate me? Is my first response defensive posturing and retaliation?

3. Is my smile phony or sincere? Do I wear a scowl? Do carry a burden most of the day and am only relaxed after a few drinks? Am I plagued by constant worry and anxiety? Do I possess peace of mind?? When?

4. Is my tone of voice fault-finding? Do I enjoy lecturing others? Do I enjoy “being right” and “a know-it-all.”?

5. Do I tend to be fault-finding? Or do I try to look beyond a person’s weaknesses, including my own? Is my judgment sprinkled with mercy or do I write off people of displease me?

6. Am I generous with my time or am I greedy and self-serving?

7. Do I see life as involving something larger than myself?

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Questions for Class Discussion:

1. Where do rate on the “Spiritual” scale (questions 1-7 above)?

2. Do you think that the New Religious Movements are an advance over the traditional religions?

3. Do you see any dangers in the New Religious Movements?

4. Are Laird Hamilton and fellow surfers Spiritual persons? Or are they merely pleasure-seeking Hedonists who have no spiritual depth at all??

From Film Riding Giants

• Rescue Teams Sacrifice to others even strangers

• Underwater and the Leash A life-line to reach the top but can also keep you pinned to bottom

• Jeff Clark “feel the ocean” “deepest sense of who you are” “have to be confident” “must conquer many obstacles” “constant danger purifies them” “death of Mark Fu humbles them”

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