What makes religion necessary is a subject on which it would be
foolish to expect any degree of consensus. What makes it
possible, at least in the forms experienced and documented from
ancient times to the modern, is language, and soon after
language, writing-although Japanese Shintoism, like Judaism,
began before writing-and reading, or more to the point, the
Book. For the Judeo-Christian religions, as well as for Islam,
the Book is the sufficient condition for their development and
persistence. When the Book grew into books, it actually became
the center of religious praxis. This is reflected in the nature
of religious rituals, an extension of mytho-magical experiences
previous to writing. They were all meant to disseminate the Book,
and make its rules and prescriptions part of the life of the
members of the respective community.
The timeline of the practical experience of religious human
self-constitution suggests significant commonalties among the
various religions. The way the notion of God was constituted is
only one of these commonalties. What separates religion from
pre-religious expression (such as animism) is the medium in which
each is articulated. The subject is relatively constant.
Acknowledgment of forces beyond individual understanding and
desire to overcome confusion or fear in facing difficult and
inexplicable aspects of life and death go hand in hand. A
perceived need to pursue avenues of survival which promise to be
successful because of the implied expectation that forces
residing in the unknown would be, if not directly supportive, at
least not actively opposed, is also discernible.
But when rationalizing the coming of age of religion, one
automatically faces the broader issue of the source of religion.
Is it given to humans by some perceived superior force? Does it
result from our involvement with the environment of our
existence and from the limits of our experience? When praxis
began to differentiate, mytho-magical experiences proved
unadaptable to the resulting pragmatic framework.
Farming and animal husbandry replaced scavenging, hunting, and
foraging. Communities started to compete for resources (manpower
included). Efficiency of human work increased, resulting in more
forms of exchange and leading to accumulation of property.
Relations among people within communities became complex to the
extent that arguments, attributed to forces outside direct
practical experiences, were necessary to instill and maintain
order. The process was multi- faceted, and still involved myths,
the magical, and rituals. All three-still retraceable in some
parts of the world-were carried over to religion, progressively
forming a coherent system of explanations and prescriptions
meant to optimize human activity. The sequence is known:
Practical experiences conveyed by example from one individual to
another, or orally from one to several.
Where the unknown forces were ritually conjured in new forms of
human practical self-constitution, these practical experiences
were progressively unified and encoded in forms apt to further
support the new scale achieved in the insular communities around
the world. Abraham, accepted almost equally by Jews, Christians,
and Moslems, lived at around 2,000 BCE and proclaimed the
existence of one supreme God; Moses in the 13th century BCE; the
six sacred texts of the Hindus were compiled between the 17th
and 5th centuries BCE; Taoism-the Chinese religion and philosophy
of the path-came to expression around 604 BCE, and Confucius's
teachings on virtue, human perfectibility, obedience to
Providence, and the role of the sage ruler shortly afterwards;
Buddhism followed within decades, affirming the Four Noble
truths, which teach how to exist in a world of suffering and
find the path to inner peace leading to Nirvana. This listing is
meant to highlight the context in which the practical experience
of religious self-constitution was expressed in response to
circumstances of life and work that necessitated a coherent
framework for human interaction.
The Torah, containing the five books of Moses dedicated to the
basic laws of Judaism, was written around 1,000 BCE. It was
followed by the other books (Prophets and Writings) and form the
Old Testament. The Greeks, referring to all seven books (the
Septuagint), called the entire work ta biblia (books). This
collection of books is dedicated to the theme of creation,
failure, judgment, exodus, exile, and restoration, and
introduced prescriptions for conduct, diet, justice, and
religious rites. The themes were presented against the broad
background in which laws pertinent to work, property, morals,
learning, relations between the sexes, individuals, tribes, and
other practical knowledge (e.g., symptoms of diseases, avoidance
of contamination) were introduced in normative form, though in
poetic language.
The pragmatic framework explains the physics of the
prescriptions: What to do or not do in order to become useful in
the given context, or at least not to be harmful. It also
explains the metaphysics: why prescriptions should be followed,
short of stating that failure to do so affects the functioning
of the entire community. What was kept in writing from the
broader oral elaborations that constituted the covenant
(testament) for practical experience was the result of pragmatic
considerations. Writing was done in consonantal Hebrew, a
writing system then still at its beginning, on parchment scrolls,
and thus subject to the limitations of the medium: How much text
could be written on such scrolls in a size that facilitated
reading and portability.
Between these books and what much later (translations
notwithstanding) came from the printing presses following
Gutenberg's invention, there is a difference not only in size,
but also in sequence and in substance. Over time, texts were
subject to repeated transcriptions, translations, annotation,
revision, and commentary. The book that appeared to be given
once and for all kept changing, and became subject to
interpretations and scrutiny ever so often. Still, there is a
fundamental element of the continuity of its expressed doctrine:
life and work, in order to be successful, must follow the
prescribed patterns. Hence the implicit expectation: read the
book, immerse yourself in its spirit, renew the experience
through religious services meant to extol the word.
But since alternate explanatory systems were progressively
developed-science not the last-parallel to relative fixed
pragmatic frames sanctioned in early religion, a certain
separation of religion from practical experience took place.
Religion consecutively constituted its own domain of human
praxis, with its own division of labor, and its own frame of
reference. Christianity, Islam, the Protestant Reformation, and
various sectarian movements in China, Japan, the Indian
subcontinent (neo- Confucianism, Zen, the Sikh religious
movement) are such developments.
We have heard about such expatiations and hear as well about
conflicts triggered around them, but fail to put these conflicts
in the perspective that explains them. Within a given context, a
new growth triggers reactions. Members of the Baha'i religion (a
faith that began in the 19th century) are subjected to the
repression of Muslims because its program is one of unity of
religions, not subordination of some to others. The expectation
of universal education, or active promotion of equality between
sexes, corresponds to a pragmatics different from that from which
Islam emerged, and for that matter, many other religions. The
Religious Society of Friends, i.e., the Quaker movement, was a
reaction to the corruption of the church as an institution. It
spells out a program in line with the requirements of the time:
reaching consensus in meetings, doing away with sermons,
pursuing a program of education and non-violence. It was also
subjected to repression, as each schism was, by the powers that
were in place.
These and many other developments mark the long, as yet
unfinished, process of transition from religion to theology and
church, and even to business, as well as the process of
permutation of religion into culture, in particular from religion
to secular culture and market. The Book became not only many
different books, but also varied experiences embodied in
organized religion. Alternative perspectives were submitted as
different ways to practice religion within a pragmatic context
acknowledged by religion.