WHAT IS RELIGION - By Rev. Dr. Arthur Chang

The Oxford Dictionary says:

Religion is human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It is also commonly regarded as consisting of the way people deal with ultimate concerns about their lives and their fate after death.

We live in a relational, interdependent world. Humans are the most intelligent of animals on earth and take the longest to mature into responsible adults. Humans have always found the world a fearful place from the earliest moment we became self-aware. As all creatures, we are endowed with a fight or flight response for sheer survival. However, our brilliant minds will not let us settle for mere survival; we are propelled toward thriving and flourishing. The evolution of our knowledge and our civilization are our testament to these realities.

What is Religion - We Want More as Humans

To arrive at this point, we had to find a way to quell our fear and to continue to learn how the world in which we live works. For our fear, we were drawn to religious practices, and to understand the way the world works, we turned to science.

Humans learned how to be relational by developing ethics and other useful survival tools. We were in awe of the forces of nature and our dependence upon them. We concluded that we must bring our psyche into harmony with this mysterious world, which encompassed the miracle of birth and the mystery of death.

Ancient Tribal Religious Cultures

Religion developed culturally and tribally, usually with values for the tribe’s survival. Humans developed a sense of the sacred, a reverence for things spiritual, and a concern or love for each other as our religions evolved.

Religion provides us with an approach to experience the Holy Presence mystically.

Religion offers us a cosmology, a way of understanding the laws and principles of the world in which we live, thus, enabling us to bring our lives into conformity with how things are.

Religion tends to validate a specific moral order within its culture that the people are expected to conform to as part of the group.

Religion provides rituals to emphasize important markers in the development of the lives of individuals from birth, into maturity and ultimately to death.

For most of us, religion serves to nurture our sense of peace, love, and openness to grow in harmony with our neighbors and to fulfill what we believe to be our divine destiny.

Our Light of Faith Burns From Within