Why Do Religions Exist Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Why Do Religions Exist - Essay Example In Sri Lanka, a Buddhist Monk walks effortlessly along a pebbled pathway meditating in a Monastery garden. At the same time, a prophet in Israel announces the coming of the ‘Day of the Lord.’ Such activities have been going on for many years, and they are likely to continue for longer (Houtman, 2010). Scholars have been trying to explore and comprehend the idea about religion, Nevertheless, for a long time, they have not been able to state precisely what religion is. They have always tried to define religion but always come up with less satisfying results. Regardless of how carefully they define the concept of religion, others will always indicate what the definition has left out (Evans, 1985). When someone poses a question, what religion is, one may point to a church, a mosque, a temple, a Sikh Gurdwara or any other sacred place of worship and claim that people who go to this places are religious. He will draw attention to the places of worship and the people who go the re. He will also site sacred texts such as the Bible and the Koran. Many have tried to understand religion based on its effect on society and individual persons. Scholars have been trying to explain the universal existence of religion in all cultures. Every culture has some system of supernatural beliefs; however, it is not possible to prove beyond doubt that any supernatural powers such as gods, witches, angels or devils exist. Moreover, these supernatural powers do not always work as effectively as practitioners want. For instance, praying to God for the recovery of a sick person but the person dies, a ritual specialist conducts a rain dance, but it still does not rain: or relatives sacrificing a goat at the gravesite of the ancestor-god, but drought still destroys them (James, 2008). Nonetheless, disengaging certain characteristics from the totality of human life and labeling it as religion receives considerable support by the fact that such gestures are clearly different from or dinary ways of behaving. Religious activities often take place in an artificially contrived time, space or a certain mode of consciousness. Liturgical calendars’, Sacred places, meditative moods, extraordinary fasting, exceptional communal or private actions, meditating, sacrificing, prophesying, praying, self-denial are some of the gestures that give a notion of being a stylized divergence from normality. They all have a quality of caricature, play-acting, and sometimes unnaturalness. They stand out so obviously from every day such that they are difficult to avoid. They have a special name, and that is ‘religion’. However, there is no single anniversary accepted definition of religion (Evans, 1985). Experts disagree with regard to the definition so much that religion is one thing to Anthropologist, another to the Sociologist and Another to the psychologist. Consequently, there is a great variety of religious theories of the nature of religion. Definition of reli gion can be too broad and may include what dominates or appear to be the ultimate concern in the human life; Children, Home, Work Entertainment among others. Religion can also mean to bid worshippers to the deity by observance of cultish ceremonies and acts of devotion. Max Weber argues that trying to define religion as a scholar of religion at the start is a mistake.