Meaning & Characteristics of Religion | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Religion

The history of mankind has shown the pervasive influences of religion, and thus the study of religion, involving the attempt to understand its significance, its origins, and its myriad forms, has become increasingly important in modern times. The student of religions attempts not only to know the variety of beliefs and practices of homo religiosus ("religious man"), but  also to understand the structure, nature, and dynamics of religious experience. The student o f religion attempts to discover principles that operate throughout religious life to find out whether there are also laws that operate in the religious sphere.

The 19th century saw the rise of the study of religion in the modern sense, in which the techniques o f historical enquiry, the philological sciences, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines were brought to be are on the task o f estimating the history, origins, and functions of religion. Rarely, however, has there been unanimity among scholars about the nature of the subject and thus the subject of religion, throughout the history, is full of controversies.
Characteristics of Religion
Keeping in mind the dangers of general characterizations, what are the distinctive features of religion  Several concepts may be isolated that may jointly be considered "symptomatic" of religions.

The Holy Religious belief or experience is usually expressed in terms of the holy or the sacred. The holy is usually in opposition to the everyday and profane world and carries, with it a sense of supreme value and ultimate reality. The holy may be understood as a personal GOD as a whole realm of gods and spirits as a diffuse power, as an impersonal order or in some other way. Although the holy may ultimately be nothing but the social order a projection of the human mind, or some sort of illusion it is nevertheless experienced in religion as an initiating to human life and touching it from beyond itself.
Religions frequently claim to have their origin in revelations, that is, in distinctive experiences of the holy coming into the human life. Such revelations may take the form of visions ( Moses in the Desert ) inner voices ( Muhammad outside Mecca )or events (Israel's exodus from Egypt; the divine wind, or kamikaze, which destroyed the .invading Mongol fleet off Japan; the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). Revelations may be similar to ordinary religious experience, but they have a creative originating power from which can flow an entire 'religious tradition.
Response Response to the holy may take the form of participation in and compliance to the customs and rituals of a religious community or a commitment of faith. Faith is not merely a belief but an attitude of to the holy an acknowledge its claim upon them. In a deeply religious person, commitment to faith tends to shape all of that person's life and character.
Beliefs - As religious traditions develop, they generate systems of belief with respect to both practice and doctrine. These systems serve to place the members of the religious tradition in the world around them and to make intelligible this world in relation to the holy. In early or primitive traditions this practice and doctrine usually Find expression in bodies of myth or in ritual law. In those traditions which develop an extensive literate class, Theology often comes to supplant myth as the vehicle for refining and elaborating Self. The more this happens, the more the belief system has to be evaluated. The importance attached to right belief ("orthodoxy") has varied from religion to religion and from period to period.
Rituals and Liturgy Religious traditions almost invariably involve ritual and liturgical forms as well as. systems of belief. These may take the form of Sacrifice or Sacrament, Passage Rites, or invocations of God or the gods. The most important cultic acts are in most cases those performed by the entire community for a significant portion of it although in may traditions private devotional forms such as prayer, fasting and pilgrimage are also practiced. A distinction is often made between religion arid magic in this context. In magic attempts are made to manipulate divine forces through human acts. In truly cultic acts such as prayer and sacrifice, the prevailing attitude is one of awe, worship, and thanks giving.
Participation in communal rituals marks a person as a member of the community, as being inside and integral to the community that is articulated in the system of beliefs. That in many traditions the disfavor of the community is expressed in it's barring a person from the important cultic acts is hot surprising because these acts insure the proper standing of the individual and community in relation to the holy.
Ethical Codes Connected with beliefs-is yet another aspect of religion, the possession of an ethical code incumbent upon the members of the community. This is particularly evident in highly structured societies such as India, where the caste system is an integral part, of traditional Hinduism. Marduk in ancient Babylon and Yahweh in ancient Israel were believed to be the authors of the laws of those nations, thus giving these laws the weight and prestige of holiness. The prophets of Israel were social critics who claimed that righteous acts rather than cultic acts a are the true expression 0f religion. As religion develop they come to place increasing stress on the ethical and sometimes religion is almost totally absorbed into morality, with only a sense of the holiness of moral demands and a profound respect for them remaining.
Community Although religious solitaries exist, most religions have a social aspect that leads its adherents to form a community, which may be 'more or less tightly organized. In earlier times the religious community could scarcely be distinguished from the community at large; all professed the same faith, and the ruler was both a political and a religious leader. In the course of time, however, religious and civil societies have become distinct and may even come into conflict. In modern secular states, India and the United Spates, for example, a plurality of religious communities coexist peacefully within a single political entity. Each religious community, whether in a pluralistic or homogeneous society, has its own organized structure. A common though by no means universal feature of these religious organizations is a priesthood charged with teaching and transmitting the faith and performing liturgical acts.