“Religion”—Anything Deemed Absolute—So Potentially Divisive
“Religion” is usually understood as a “way of life,” whether it is called the “Tao,” “Buddha nature,” “covenant with God,” or recites words attributed to Jesus of “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It does not present itself as merely another hobby, but quickly embraces more and more aspects of people’s lives, finally professing to encompass the whole, not merely a small segment of one’s life. This does not mean that everyone professing a religion is actively involved in it. The Dalai Lama estimated that probably the latter group is only about one-sixth of those who profess to be religious.11 Yet the religion does not present itself as simply for one’s spare time or very narrow secondary interest.
Typically, religion involves rituals of worship, doctrines, community, myth, cult, morality, and other aspects. I believe that its most dangerous distinctive character is its alleged metaphysical or mythical claims that it eventually propagates as Absolute, whether a deity, truth, power, or “way” of life, including morality. Its selection to propagate the Absolute or unquestionable is not a covert or embarrassing experience for which it needs to make apology. Instead, it is open, explicitly articulated, not usually by use of the word “Absolute” but by teaching adherents that they cannot question its doctrines or practices. To select some single entity or imagined but nonempirical entity such as a process or principle, as one’s Absolute, and to insist that it is Absolute, which means unlimited and unquestionable, at the expense of all other particular possibilities is at least subconsciously presumptuous and tends to produce divisiveness in a society. It excludes as it includes or draws the bifurcating line within humanity.
However, the process of thinking anything as incommensurable or Absolute is extremely nebulous and full of obvious problems, never a “slam-dunk.” For example, the most influential Christian theologian of the twentieth century, Paul Tillich, said that “religion” could not be a belief in “a god” because that would imply a genus called “gods,” which itself would be greater than any one god. Instead, he argued that religion had to be one’s “ultimate concern,” beyond any genus or any single entity or group of entities, so a belief in “god beyond the god of theism.” He felt this meant “atheism” (a=no; theism=belief in a god) was more accurate to describe religion in its truest sense, even though he sometimes said he believed in “panentheism” (“everything in god,” as distinguished from “pantheism” which means “everything is god,” which Tillich said was nonsense).12
Tillich explained that his definition of religion as “ultimate concern” meant that the object of one’s concern is ultimate, but also that the nature or passion of one’s concern for that “object” (which he insisted cannot really be an “object”) is ultimate. Yet, ironically, he understood “ultimate concern” as accommodating, even requiring doubt, which could not be so if the object of concern was really “ultimate” so that one could not think anything greater. Further, most religions never present themselves open to doubt at all. They are absolutized.
Many people have always believed in some other(s) that are supranatural, which means distinctly beyond the “natural” powers, as different from “supernatural,” which means only an intense, higher form of natural power—even if the people were not yet sophisticated enough to distinguish “natural” powers as we do today. These were powers or beings, good or malevolent, creative or destructive. But as modern science continually decreases the spaces and causes formerly assigned to supranatural powers, people’s belief in them has diminished and will continue to do so. In many cases, such power or powers have become trivial without the “believers” even realizing as the common ejaculation of surprise “My God!” suggests.
I define “religion” as a development of a system of ideas and behaviors (including the symbols, rituals of worship, doctrines, community, myth, cult, morality, listed earlier), by a group consistent with its constituents’ belief in an Absolute, that is, unquestionable supranatural power, persons, or values, which is beyond everything relative. If a philosophy aims primarily at people improving their lives without any sense of formal worship or religious institutions, which are distinguished from “secular” agencies, even if its great philosophers’ writings have permeated the culture for millennia, it might not be a “religion” in the sense of having an Absolute personal Other. But the degree to which it developed an Absolute, it would seem to qualify as “religion.” Confucianism with its great philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, Hsun Tzu, and others, developed practical philosophies to show how the “Mandate of Heaven” is immanently experienced in everyday life. As significant as “Heaven” was, the emphasis of any “transcendence” was upon the improvement of human life and institutions, a “human flourishing.” None of the great teachers over the centuries were deified or made Absolute, and the Analects of Confucius were more of an invitation to participate in an ongoing conversation than some rigid, unquestionable method of individual transcendence or salvation. With the absence of the “unquestionable” element, it would not seem to be religion as I defined it, although it is often viewed as a religion.
Taoism was also practically oriented, but more specifically a worshipping community. Buddhism began primarily as a philosophy of practical life, and only gradually became a religion in the sense of developing first a method of answering life’s main problems, then in the process of absolutizing that existential–conceptual answer, in some forms of Buddhism, the “Buddha” or “Buddha nature” began to be absolutized, eventually even worshipped in specific forms as deity. At that point it certainly was “religion” as I am defining it. The dehumanizing element is usually not found in specific doctrines, symbols, ethical codes, and so on, but more likely in making some element completely out of bounds for questioning, as Absolute.
Religion need not claim actual ultimacy or top rank in one’s interests so long as it claims absoluteness, that is, so long as it cannot be challenged because it has no equal, and no genus, whereas “ultimacy,” which might be thought as equal to “absolute,” is not necessarily Absolute since it can be challenged because it belongs to a quantitative genus or scale of interests or concerns, ranging from “of no concern” or at least “very insignificant concern” to “ultimate concern.” “Absolute” has no genus, no “degrees” of absoluteness, only the opposite, the “relative.” For example, one might view some particular amendment to the U.S. Constitution as “Absolute,” beyond challenge, while thinking that there are certainly many other things in life that are more important (that is “ultimate”) in the overall scheme of life than that amendment. But it is this “off-limits” to questions, which is the absolutizing that turns individual beliefs, when held in common or shared with others, into “religions.”
In fact, many people may attribute little importance to their religion in their actual lives, certainly far removed from “ultimate concern,” while they nevertheless remain convinced that it is unquestionable or Absolute. That may appear doubtful, but I think it is one of the paradoxes between belief and reality, or between what people think they believe and what they really believe. This mean “absolute” is therefore closer than the term, “ultimate concern” to the way “religion” is understood and works, as being based on something that is presented as unquestionable, even if one does not understand it or perhaps not even value it very highly.
Totally by itself as Absolute, religion brooks no challenges and belongs to no genus. However, noncompeting values could be more important or even of ultimate importance or even ultimate yet open to revision. The Absolute is never open to question, revision, or change, even if people’s lives reveal that it is not very important to them. By being “absolute,” it creates the impression that the object of such belief must be believed as being conveyed by itself, as Absolute, so can only be passively received, therefore also incommensurable and unchallengeable. This “passivity” in Christianity is manifest in the very idea of “revelation.” It comes from outside oneself. This meant to free it from human influence, human choice, or perhaps even to contingency. “Passivity” was the most important element in the basic definition or “religion” the articulate nineteenth century theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher developed. To the degree that a person sustains this kind of understanding about his or her religious attachment,