What are the purposes of religion?

I think that one of the purposes that religion serves is to give its adherents a sense of community. There are many people who need the companionship of like minded individuals.

Going to the same church enables people to have a lot in common, from church politics, to events and religious festivals, that they share. It also gives people a sense of belonging to something larger than their immediate family and friends.

In many houses of worship, members assist one another in times of need, and form a cohesive support system. It also frees people from some of the sense of loneliness that is common in many areas.

I think one of the most important purposes is to assist people in dealing with death. Death of others as well as their own inevitable end. Death of children would have to be the most difficult of all. I can't think of many religions that do not offer some kind of comfort and re-assurance on this level.

One twist on this is the concept of the balance of fairness...that the unfairness of life will be redressed after death with the "good" rewarded and the "bad" punished accordingly.

Personally, I find it hard to face that I will just rot in a box, but I find it harder to pretend or imagine otherwise, but in this I imagine I'm in the minority.

I think religion is that aspect of humankind's social consciousness which strives to explain that unaccountable by contemporary technology, provide basis for authority, and foster sense of community. Over the millenia, most strikingly within the past two centuries, technology, politics, and social structure have evolved and advanced, while the relevance of religion has diminished accordingly.

Wow! What an interesting questions !

Personally, I think that all religions generally serve only one purpose - to help mankind live in harmony, and "prepare" them for death, and encourage them to progress to the highest level of "consciousness". That highest level could be named differently according to his own belief/religion. (e.g. heaven, brahma, nirvana...) :wink:

All different religions are like different means of transportation that take one to his "final destination." We just have to choose carefully, so that the vehicle that takes us won't break down in the middle of nowhere, or drop us off at the wrong station...

I think religion is to scare people into behaving themselves.

Theres nothing more powerful than the unknown.If Im told im gona go to eternal hell when I die because i didnt behave myself in life, its gona work.

Tradition. I can quote Fiddler on the Roof if you want...

Religion grew out of primitive man's desire to explain and give meaning to the inexplicable. As man moved from hunter gatherer to farmer and settled in agricultural communities, he had to hope for a good harvest, and he must have wondered about the natural cycles and rhythms in life. As food and hence the community was totally dependent on environmental forces over which they had no control, its hardly surprising they invented supernatural entities with whom they could have a dialogue about such things.

e.g. pray for rain. Pray for it to stop raining. Give thanks for the rain. Make sacrifice to make sure it rained next year...Come to think of it how many different Rain Gods/Rain festivals are there around the world?

Any old how, this went on for quite a while when someone, and I think his name was Abraham, had a Really Bad Idea. This was called monotheism. It suddenly meant that the adherents to the One True God were Correct, that the rest were therefore wrong and infidels and inferior and basically had no right to share the planet, expecially when they were competing for scarce resources such as fertile land. I don't think its necessary to spell out what exclusivity in religion has done to the course of human history over the last 2000 years. (It is something of an irony that there are several types of monotheism, all worshipping the One True God, and all with different ideas about what that means).

The religious glue that held societies together became politics. But politics has (at least in the developed world) moved on from religion and has a life of its own. Countries round the world are careful to maintain the distinction between church and state. (Or should be).

And the rise of science and technology allows us to perform miracles beyond the power of prayer.

So what's organised religion for? It can't of itself contribute to scientific progress, and its increasingly being shut out of political debate.

So I would say the only purpose of organised religion is self preservation.

[But ask me if I believe in God....]

I think that tradition fits into my idea about people belonging to something larger than a person's immediate, everyday world. Tradition creates a thread through the ages, of shared ideas, practices and beliefs. It is a means whereby people are granted an immediate connection with many others, by reason of their shared faith, and common frames of reference.

I agree. Religion is also a powerful tool for the churches to control its people. Through guilt and fear, people are "brought into line" by the powers-that-be of the various religions. Like other political groups, the "executive branch" of religious groups are assured of a willing group of people, who will enable them to a maintain lucrative power base.

When I say "lucrative", I am referring not only to money, which for many religious groups, is not inconsiderable. This power base enables religious groups often to have a great impact on the secular life of a community, or nation.

It seems there is some interest in discussing the purposes of religion. Here, it seems to me, is the essence of the resonses over night:

1. To instill a sense of community. Such communities perpetuate themselves by developing traditions, and traditions in turn strengthen the community.
2. To explain the mysterious. To explain and give meaning to the inexplicable forces of nature. Religions help us all deal with death, the ultimate mystery.
3. To influence the forces of nature.
4. To establish a basis for authority within the community.
4a. To scare people into good behavior, and encourage people to live in harmony with one another.
5. To help individuals move toward higher consciousness.

Should 4a. be listed as a separte purpose? Or does "good" behavior flow primarily from authority? If 4a is a separate purpose shouldn't the terms be altered from "scare" and "encourage" to "define" and "define how people might live in harmony"?

As we progress, I expect that finding additional puposes will become more difficult, but that there will be further elaberation on purposes already listed. Lets see how many more purposes can be identified.

To my way of thinkin', I'd re-order that list a bit. I think the primary function of religion is render the unexplainable less frighteningly mysterious. Right behind that would come basis for authority, out of which procedes sense of community. I'd say your point 3 is incorporated within the concept of explainin' the unexplainable, and I really see your points 4 and 4a pretty much as concommitant, one-and-the-same.

Now, your point 5 - there's a whole different deal - one worthy, ImO, of in-depth examination all by itself. Such cerainly would seem to be prime in the foundation of several oriental faith/belief systems. Intriguin' to say the least.

Timber,

The points aren't really in any particular priority order ... just yet. If they were, I agree that point 5 should probably be first and it is by far the most interesting to me personally. I distinguish between points 2 and 3 as 2 is "expaining" and 3 is "influencing". Those are quite different concepts, and so should be separate. I also saw, obviously, 4a as a subset of 4 as it was posted. However, the group may see it as separate if the terms were refined as suggested above.

I'm being dragged out now to meet with contractors and to make the final decision on which new floor should be installed in our kitchen. See you all later in the day.

Asherman,

6. As psychological insurance or palliative against the potential meaningless of existence.

7, As a rationalization of the innate tendency to tribalism and pecking orders as displayed by primates.

8. As an absolute boundary condition of "control" for the major need of cognitive beings to predict and control.

Fresco,

Each of your three purposes seems to echo those already talked about. For instance your 6 seems very like our 2 above (explain the mysterious). Our "To establish a basis for authority within the community" and "instill a sense of community" are related, and similar to your number 7. Finally, your number 8 appears very similar to "influencing the forces of nature". Perhaps I misunderstand. Please elaborate to either distinguish your points from those already listed, or to expand upon one or more of them.

Asherman,

6. ...I was careful to avoid the issue of mortality as you have already covered it. In fact your no.5 could also be interpretated as a solution to "death" by an attempted movement to the position of "selflessness". I speak here of the angst sometimes experienced by a realization of the arbitrariness of existence....or as Shakespeare put it "a tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury and signifying nothing".

7. ....true...a "sense of community" is a positive concept but historically religion has had more impact (and more pragmatic "utility") as a devisive pernicious separator of "us" and "them".

8. ...according to Bohm and Capra we (thinking beings) are mesmerized by "a control paradigm". Everything is evaluated in terms of what we can or cannot control....hence the emphasis on nature/a deity as a "force". An alternative view is to attempt to move away from this anthropocentric pre-occupation with "control" and to to view the world in terms of a "spontaneous unfolding" in which "consciousness" is no different from any other dynamic process involved with the maintenance of temporary structures within the flux.

Fresco,

I take it then that you see your 6 as more an elaboration of our 5?

It is a natural consequence of building a well integrated and cohesive group that those outside the group are regarded as the "other". Chauvinism may indeed be one of the byproducts of a common community bound together by belief and tradition. Perhaps just as important is the increased survivability of such groups. The "clannishness" of the Jews may be a case in point. Not being absorbed into the larger Christian community, Jews became targets for prejudice and attack. What sustained the Jewish community, until the holocaust, was also the intense inter-connectedness of the Jewish community. In either case, one of the purposes of religion seems to be the creation, development and perpetuation of a community of those sharing certain beliefs and values.

Control of nature and/or natural forces also seems to be a purpose of religions, at least in general. Sympathetic magic may be obvious in the religions of undeveloped peoples, but it remains present in the symbolic rites and rituals of more "sophisticated" faiths. If Bohm and Capra are saying that humans like to have control over things, themselves and their environment, they might have learned that as children without having to attend University. It might be argued that some religions have as one of their purposes the surrender of the individual to either the larger group, or to some extra-mundane force. Again, this seems to me not so much a purpose not previously mentioned, but an elaboration on how "control" might evolve and be regarded in different religions over vast periods of time.

Am I understanding you better?

What do our other readers have to say? Have I abstracted your thoughts faithfully above, or have I gotten off-track? Surely, there are other purposes of religions and I hope someone will bring them to our attention. It seems as if this might become a very productive discussion, and the active participation of as many people as possible can only make it better.

Ash

Asherman,

I think we agree on the general polarities but I am stressing the negative poles. However a fundamental problem occurs with the word "purpose" in all this because purpose implies conscious intentionality. The point is that "religion" is rarely consciously adopted. It is a covert aspect of self -identity which is acquired through socialization which tends reify the status quo. We should perhaps say that it "functions" psychologically and sociologically with respect to those polarities above, but to anthropomorphically ascribe "purpose"to it might perhaps lead us close to Dawkins view of religion as a "cognitive virus" bent on self perpetuation by infestation and adaptive mutation.

Givin' this some thought, I've come around to agree with Asherman that seekin' a means by which to influence nature deserves its own place in the list.

Gonna hafta chew on some of your stuff a bit yet, fresco - seems tasty, but I ain't figured out yet whether it'll prove satisfyin'. I'll stay on it, and letchya know what I come up with.

Which analogy brings to mind a function of religion heretofore in our diuscussion overlooked - how can we forget about bake sales?

2 Timothy 3:17

That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.


comment:

Notice the word throughly(thru) not thoroughly.

Through and through and throughly perfected.

You can wash your hands thoroughly but you cannot wash them throughly.