Discussion Group Report

"Religion has been present at every level of human society from the earliest times," points out Geoffrey Parrinder, author of World Religions, a useful encyclopedia of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices from Paleolithic times down to the present day. The Oxford English Dictionary defines religion as "the recognition of superhuman controlling power, and especially of a personal god, entitled to obedience." Belief in god(s) is found in most religions, but different superhuman powers are often revered, particularly those connected with the dead. There are many other elements of religious life which cannot be included in a short definition.

Religion has been universal at all stages of history and human geography, but not all individuals have been religious. Likely this was so to a lesser degree in the past, though atheists and agnostics probably appeared more among literate and individualistic peoples than in closely-knit societies, Socrates was condemned to death for teaching atheism to young men, but in fact he had only criticized the myths about the Greek gods for being immoral. He believed in the immortality of the soul and in a divine genius which he thought guided him.

"The study of religion reveals that an important feature of it is a longing for value in

life, a belief that life is not accidental and meaningless. The search for meaning leads to faith in a power greater than the human, and finally to a universal or superhuman mind which has the intention and will to maintain the highest values for human life."

Whether morals can exist without religion or some supernatural belief has been debated, but at least all religions have moral commandments.

In recent, times the errors in speculations about the origins of religion, says Parrinder, have made scholars cautious. If religion is as old as thinking human beings, as seems likely, then its origins are so remote that it is improbable much evidence will appear to explain its beginnings. The important task is to study the different phases and aspects of religious life, and to discover from these the role of religion for human life.

He says that in studying religion, the believer may have a better chance of understanding other faiths than the skeptic, for the unbeliever often seeks to explain religion away as psychological or social illusion. He quotes E. Evans-Pritchard, "The believer seeks rather to understand the s manner in which a people conceives of a reality and their relations to it."

The suggestion he makes here is questionable because he assumes that the unbeliever does not seek "to understand the manner in which a people conceives of a reality and their relations to it." This assumption is itself debatable. The doubter asks whether the people's conception of a reality is valid, and when there is no evidence that it is, he may ask what the psychological and sociological reasons are why the people conceive of reality as they do. Actually, many doubters themselves have previously been believers and have experienced the manner in which believers conceive of a "reality," and may very well understand it.

Parrinder also briefly discusses "anti-religion," which he says can be traced from the cynics and skeptics of ancient Greece and the charvakas of India down to modern secularists. Originally it referring to that which lasts for an age or century, it has undergone changes in meaning so that it has now come to be applied to that which opposes religious belief or, more narrowly, is against religious education. He says humanism, formerly concerned only with human interests, now is taken to exclude the divine, and declares that men and women are on their own in the universe, without a god or life after death,

He says, "Belief in a universe of law, and trust that truth can be found, are basic to both religion and science and can form the ground for a modern mythology." This statement does not run against humanist thought if the religion he has in mind is religion "in the best sense," which Humanist Manifesto II points out "may inspire dedication to the highest ethical ideals." It was cautioned, however, in the study group discussion, that the warning in the Manifesto "that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species," appropriately points out a serious problem in the development of a modern mythology. If science is to help form the basis of such a mythology, then, as the Manifesto states well, ^Any account of nature should pass the tests of scientific evidence; in our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so."