What is Religion? 

Religion is a murky, elusive, and many-headed beast. The very word itself defies definition. Oh, you can look it up in any dictionary readily enough, but all that will tell you is its common usage in the English language. People throw around words all the time without truly stopping to consider what the dictionary says they mean.

Anthropologists have been studying religion for as long as the science has existed, and even today, it is hard to come up with a good definition that covers all phenomena in all cultures that could be considered "religion." Is it belief in a deity? Buddhism and Taosim are both major religions without supreme deities. Belief in a higher power, then? That depends on what you consider "higher power" to mean. There are plenty of indigenous religions out there with beings more powerful than mortals, who are nevertheless the butt of jokes. In the end, the best that anthropology can come up with for a working definition is "belief that the world is more than what it seems." That, it seems, is about all we can agree on as a species - that there is more to life than what you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

Okay, fair enough. But that kind of a definition could mean almost anything. And when you look at all of the beauty, horror, passion and struggle that religion has given to us, it seems to lack the kind of depth one would expect when trying to pinpoint just what "religion" means, or is.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, English inherits the word "religion" from the Anglo-French religiun, whose mother was the Old French religion (meaning a religious or monastic community), which originally was born in Rome as a Latin word.

Now, this Latin word - religionem - simply means "respect for what is sacred." Therefore, if you have a belief that something is sacred, and you have a means of displaying respect for it, you have a religion.

One might imagine the first "religion" to consist of nothing more than places or objects that were avoided, since fear is the most primal form of respect, and avoidance is the only respectful way of dealing with something fearful (the other option being confrontation, but would you want to take on spirits armed only with a flint spear?)

The definition of religionem is a pretty fair try at a universal definition of what religion is, but not good enough, because it uses another ambiguous term - sacred. How do you know something is "sacred?" What differentiates something "sacred" from something that is merely important, or dangerous?

The OED goes on to say that religionem has two possible roots. One root leads to relegare - which is a combination of re- (again) and legare (read). At its heart, the word "religion" could simply mean "that which is repeated." Indeed, you sometimes hear of people who do something "religiously," meaning they repeat it faithfully, without fail, no matter how inconvenient it may be from time to time.

To be sure, repeated performances of any kind tend to take on ritualistic qualities. We all have our little rituals we perform, regardless of our religious beliefs - morning and work routines, victory dances and displays at sports matches, or social events such as fairs or conventions that we attend annually. All of these are ritualistic. But what makes the difference between a secular ritual and a religious one?

The second possible root of the Latin word religionem may hold a clue, and that is that religionem may come from religare, meaning "to bind fast." According to the OED, the specific type of bond this refers to is a social one, an obligation which creates and maintains a relationship. Religionem may also be related to religiens, "careful," which adds the implied dimension of importance.

Here, then, are several basic aspects of religion in general, hidden in the origins of the word itself: a repeated performance, done for the sake of creating social bonds, which must be executed with care.

Given this framework, it is not hard to see how any important secular ceremony could take on religious or near-religious overtones to some people. There is a lot put on the line during these rituals, and if something were to go wrong or, worse, someone were to deliberately disrupt the proceedings, those involved generally feel anger, shock, embarrassment, and often times shame because the pride of their community or way of life has been marred.

Of course, hidden behind the overt actions of a particular ritual are a whole series of beliefs and values which link together with a larger worldview. Rituals are the tip of an invisible social-spiritual iceberg. Just as there are symbols in any ritual - gestures, props, costumes, etc - a ritual itself can be seen as a symbol upholding and validating an entire way of life.    

When considered in this light, it is not surprising that recent contentions over some public symbols and rituals have been so heated. Examples include the displaying of the ten commandments outside a public court house in Montgomery, Alabama in 2003; the use and display of the Confederate flag, the use of Native Americans as mascots for sports teams, and the proper framing of the United States pledge of allegiance for use in public schools (whether the words "under God," should remain or be removed).

So, is religion nothing more than a set of rituals which have been given a special significance within a community? History would seem to suggest that the beliefs tied to religious rituals are less important than the rituals themselves in some regard. For example, when the nature-focused religions of Europe were replaced with Christianity, most of the rituals were simply appropriated and adapted to Christian teachings. Mardi Gras, Easter, May Day, Halloween and even Christmas all owe their modern form to this process.

Islam, too, uses this technique as a policy for conversion. For instance, the particular rituals practiced by rural Muslims in North Africa are far older than the presence of Islam in the area. When these peoples were converted, they were allowed to keep the rituals they had always used. The rituals were simply practiced for a different purpose. Thus, the social cohesion of these societies was maintained even after such a radical change.
 
In the end, it may be easier to describe what it is religion does rather than what, exactly, it is. If you accept the existence of God, the same could be said about God. And there, I believe, is where the science of deduction can and should be applied.

To be continued....

(References: Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/; Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day)

Current Mood: exhausted

Why Religion?

I am what you might call a spiritual mutt. I was baptized Methodist. As a child, I attended a Presbyterian church and, later, a Lutheran church while attending Catholic private grade school. I have one Evangelical aunt and a stepmother who is a pastor for the United Church of Christ (apparently an offshoot of Unitarianism).

Needless to say, it was not the simplest way to be exposed to Scripture. I can remember my mother asking me over the kitchen table what Catholics believed, and then having me compare it to what I was being told in my Lutheran Confirmation classes. She then asked me one critical question - what do you think?

What this forced me to do was to analyze both positions objectively, as philosophical arguments. I had no exposure yet to skepticism or atheism, so I assumed that ONE of them had to be true. And for those who are curious, I confess that more often it was the Lutheran position that made more sense to me.

But, really, my exploration of religion and spirituality began long before I knew what religion really was. Even as a child, while other boys absorbed themselves in sports fiction, I was reading deep into the "O's" section of the Dewy Decimal system. What lies there is not for the timid. There you will find stories of the Fae, the original fae who steal mortal children from their cribs. You will find vampires and werewolves, ESP and UFOs, voodoo and witchcraft.

I remember reading a bestiary on my bunk bed, flipping through pages of boggarts, mermaids, snakes who swallowed their own tails, headless men and women with faces in their chests, flying dogs and malicious trickster foxes who knew magic. 

And in this section, you will also find mythology. Childhood versions of the Greek and Nordic myths were my favorites. I knew about Troy and Odysseus's wild adventures long before they were required reading in my college classes. Super Mario Brothers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had nothing on lost Greek soldiers digging a trench, filling it with blood and calling up the ghosts of dead kinsman and heroes for guidance.

I shivered and silently cheered Grendel on as he rampaged through Heorot, painting the walls with the gore of thirty warriors. I grew to hate the ever more twisted figure of Loki until he lay bound with a serpent dripping venom into his face forever, only to watch him and all his monstrous progeny rise up at the end of the world to wage a war with gods and giants of ice and fire.

So you could say I have always been interested in religion on more than an intellectual level. It has been my guilty pleasure, an interest I shared with my mother and sister but rarely even with my friends. I mean, what kind of high schooler actually likes writing essay questions on what St. Augustine meant? I wasn't about to admit that. I was on the lower end of the out-crowd as it was.

So it's taken a long time to come to this point - where I'm ready to really seriously pursue a career in the academic study of religion (and admit it to people). My BA is in anthropology, and I'm glad it is, because anthropology looks at the human experience both as something to observe and something to participate in. It is an axiom of anthropology that you cannot truly understand a person until you have lived where he lives, eaten what he eats, danced his dances and spoken his language.

Anthropology - the study of humanity - is different than sociology - the study of society. Sociology looks at society (usually Western) and tries to understand it as a series of interconnected systems, with the goal of improving society. Anthropology, on the other hand, looks at societies (traditionally non-Western, though this is changing) and tries to understand not only how they work and why they work, but what they mean to those living in them, with the ultimate goal of figuring out what it is that we all share in common with each other, regardless of what culture we come from.

I went into anthropology because I saw it as the ultimate tool for really coming to understand religion. To understand the "calculus" of it, if you will. Every culture has some form of religion, or at the very least something we in the West would label "religion." Is there, then, some common religious experience all humans have, regardless of whether we bow to Mecca or call down the loato ride our bodies? And if there is, can those commonalities be used to deduce conclusions about God?

This has become my life's quest: to compare religious teachings and use the logic of scientific deduction in an attempt to answer the major religious, spiritual and philosophical questions by finding places where there is consensus among world faiths.

It is my intention to use this blog to chronicle the conclusions I have reached thus far, and to document where my searching is currently taking me. 

Current Mood: blah

I've been training my pecs at the same time as my lats for the last month or so. Well, one night at work I was looking in one of the mirrors in the furniture aisle, and I imagined myself doing a dumb-bell fly movement. And I actually saw my shirt twitch! So I tried it again, with my hand over my pec. It took a lot of concentration, but I did manage to get just my pecs to twitch again.

Current Mood: accomplished

I don't know how people do it - 5 meals a day, plus 8 hours of sleep, plus 45-90 min in the gym (not counting travel time there and back), plus a full-time job. I either end up having to skip a workout day, not eat enough, or loose sleep. I end up getting about 5-6 hours of sleep during days when I work that are also training days because I have to get up early so I can get the gym in as well as three meals before my closing shift at 3:45 pm. I get off work around midnight. So....how do you guys do it??

Oh, and I read in the most recent issue of M&F that it helps to cook up all of your meat for the week at once and just store it until you need it. Do you guys do that? If so, how is it working out, and what equipment do you have that makes it easier? (I.E. outside grill, food scale, etc.)

Current Mood: discontent

Motivational Quote (From an ad in the March issue of Muscle & Fitness mag):

"Bodybuilding is much bigger than the gym. This isn't some hobby like boating or rock climbing that you try to make time for after work and on the weekends. Bodybuilding is a way of life. And the goals you set for yourself should dictate how you live it. Because everything you do, from how much you sleep to the foods you eat, is either helping you achieve your goals or getting int he way of them. Life is measured in ounces, centimeters, carbs and daily percentages. Some call this obsessive. But they're wrong. An obsession is something you have no control over. Bodybuilding, on the other hand, demands complete discipkline -both in and outside the gym."

Current Mood: contemplative

I want my ultimate weight to be around 160-185 lbs. with minimal body fat. I think my bone structure can support that much, but not a lot more, since my bones are pretty long and thin.

Current Mood: calm

Ugh. Why is it suddenly so friggin' hard to eat my pre and post-workout meals? I managed to get down all of my breakfast, but after an hour of solid chewing, I had to simply throw away the rest of my post-workout meal. I couldn't swallow another bite without inducing some weird gag reflex.
I'm thinking lack of sleep might have something to do with it, I dunno. I got only 5 hours of sleep the first three days of this week, then last night I went to be at 4 am and got up at 9:45am.

Current Mood: aggravated

First off, here's the lowdown on me, RL:

Height: 5'9"
Weight: 145 lbs.
Body Type: meso-ectomorph
Body Fat: 8.6%

Chest: 35.5"
Arm: 11.5" (flexed)
Waist: 28.75"
Thigh: 20"
Calf: 14.5"

My goals: Currently looking to gain mass. My goal is to reach 150 lbs. with little change in body fat by the start of summer.
Current Program: My current megacycle is one designed by Michael Mejia and John Berardi, supposed to be specifically to help ectomorphs like me gain mass. I'm just starting the second mass-building cycle. I'll let you know how it goes.

Once again, feel free to post comments, suggestions, and questions as you read this. I want this journal to be as interactive as possible.

Current Mood: accomplished