IB World Religions 1.1.1. What Is Religion? Definitions, Culture and Ideology Notes

1.1.1. What Is Religion? Definitions, Culture and Ideology

The problem of definition

1. The nine religions studied in this subject differ so widely that no single sentence covers all of them comfortably. The study therefore begins by asking what religion is rather than by assuming it.
2. The English word carries a particular history. It grew up in a Christian setting, which is why definitions built from it tend to fit belief in one God more neatly than they fit anything else.
3. Some traditions have no equivalent word. Many Hindus speak instead of dharma, which covers duty, order and right living, and reaches wider than the English term does.
4. The question is treated as genuinely open. One standing knowledge question asks whether the concept of religion exists in every society at all.
5. Two families of definition dominate the discussion, and each fails in a different direction. Substantive definitions say what a religion contains, while functional definitions say what a religion does.
6. Neither is the answer. They are tools, and the useful skill is noticing which traditions each one strains to include.

Substantive definitions

1. A substantive definition identifies religion by its content, typically belief in God, in gods, in spirits, or in a reality beyond the ordinary world.
2. Definitions of this kind fit the traditions they were built from. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and the Bahá'í Faith all teach belief in one God, and the definition holds without strain.
3. The difficulty arrives with traditions that place no creator God at the centre. Theravada Buddhists teach a path without a creator, and Jains hold that the universe has always existed.
4. Widening the content helps a little. Speaking of the sacred, the supernatural or the transcendent rather than of God admits more traditions, though it also blurs the boundary the definition was drawn to make.
5. Even widened, this approach can exclude people on their own terms. Adherents who keep the festivals, the food laws and the community while holding no belief in a personal God still count themselves inside the tradition.
6. Its lasting value is that it keeps religion tied to claims about what is real, which is how most adherents describe what they are doing.

Functional definitions

1. A functional definition identifies religion by what it does, for individuals and for societies.
2. The functions usually named are binding a community together, answering questions about suffering and death, ordering daily life, and giving conduct a source of authority.
3. This approach takes in exactly the traditions the substantive test leaves out. A tradition without a creator God still does all of these things for its adherents.
4. The cost is that the definition grows very wide. Nationalism, a political movement, a sports club or a set of family customs can pass a functional test without anyone calling them religions.
5. There is a second cost. Describing what a practice does for a society says nothing about the truth claims adherents themselves believe they are making, so the definition can explain religion away rather than explain it.
6. The approach nevertheless sits close to how religions are studied here, with contemporary practice always set in its historical, social, political and cultural context.

Religion and culture

1. Religion and culture overlap so thoroughly that separating them is often artificial. Language, food, dress, music, calendar and family expectation all carry religion and are carried by it.
2. Some traditions draw no line at all. Judaism is a people as well as a religion, and a person can be recognized as Jewish while keeping few religious practices.
3. Many Hindus describe dharma as a way of life rather than as a religion, covering family obligation, social duty and stage of life alongside worship.
4. Migration makes the difference visible. Communities that move usually keep religious practice while cultural forms shift, so a second generation may hold the belief while dropping the dress or the language.
5. Conversion tests it from the other side. A convert takes on the belief and the practice without the surrounding culture, which is why converts often notice first which parts were cultural all along.
6. The workable position is that religion and culture are distinguishable without being separable. Students are asked to notice where the joins are rather than to draw a permanent border.

Religion and ideology

1. An ideology is an organized system of ideas about how life and society ought to be ordered, held by a group and used to guide action.
2. The overlap with religion is substantial. Both can supply doctrine, authoritative texts, a founding figure, an organized community, moral demands, ritual, and a picture of a better future.
3. The distinction usually offered is reference beyond the visible world. Religions make claims about a transcendent or ultimate reality, while ideologies as usually defined make claims about this world only.
4. That line is contested from one side. Secular movements have produced ceremonies, honoured sites, foundational texts and martyrs, and observers applying a functional definition have called some of them religions.
5. It is contested from the other side too. Religions carry political programmes, and adherents within a single tradition disagree sharply about how far their faith should shape the state.
6. The question is not settled here. Religion is treated as a working term, tested continually against what actual adherents say and do, which is what the rest of the study is for.