June 12, 2006
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What's the difference between faith and religion? Is the world losing faith?
What's the difference between faith and religion? Is the world losing faith?
I have been assigned as a host for this topic and I thought I’d make a few comments about the terms and their meaning. As a one-time Religious Education Director for a Unitarian Church; and as a teacher of History and Comparative Religion, I have long had an interest in this question in all its ramifications.
Religion has many meanings but I have always favored that of Sociologists and Anthropologists: A fundimental Institution of all Cultures with the responsibilities of moral guidance, reassurance and comfort, and explanation of unknown phenomena. This Institution can be Organized (with priests, ritual and complicated dogma) or Unorganized (Where a shaman or “medicine man” is regarded as having a direct pipeline to the Gods).
In our Western Culture, Religion is almost always pretty heavily organized with established rituals, places of worship, and a well-trained priesthood or ministry as well as established dogma and well-known religious materials.The Bible, for example, was once thought to contain all those books necessary for complete knowledge. It’s a good example of the religious material I’m talking about.
Faith might be defined, for the purpose of this discussion, as belief in those religious principles taught by your culture. Faith is almost always treated as an individualized concept and as one held by the believer without any tangible proof of its actual truth. Small children almost always accept their parents’ religious beliefs “faithfully”, that is without question as being true. Many of us continue to exhibit our faith with unquestioning acceptance of our religious leader’s interpretation of moral guidance and “world truths” just as we have been taught.
For the past several hundred years Western Organized Religion has had a competitor in the explanation of the unknown and exotic, that is: The Scientific Establishment.
Early on, the Church bet on the wrong side of the astronomy argument (Earth-centered universe) and it has never really recovered as, when science was proven right and the religious establishments had to agree (well, most of them anyway), doubt entered the equation and Faith, in the West at least, diminished in many people and has continued to do so.
Today, according to a poll done several years ago under U.N. auspices, only about 10-12% of Europeans labeled themselves “very religious”. The western nation with the largest percentage of those labeling themselves “very religious” was the U.S. (40+%). This seems to indicate that faith in organized religions at least, does seem to be diminishing.
Faith however, is an individual thing. Is it possible to separate faith in organized religion from belief and “Faith in God” ?
Comments (20)
Faith is not dependent on religion. I believe that the Pharisees and Sadducces were very religious, as was Paul in the bible but they had no faith.
I have noticed that it is not a question of having faith as much as what your faith is in. You have to have some level of faith to just get out of bed, faith that the floor is there, that you can walk, etc. Atheists have incredible amounts of faith and pour a lot of energy into it. Satanists have a lot of faith in their lord that he will provide whatever it is they are seeking. Witches have faith in the power that sustains magic, curses and spells.
Regarding faith in God and organized religion - Jesus did not have faith in organized religion. In fact it was the organized religion that killed Him. If your faith is in anything else besides God, that thing is an idol be it a denomination, a pastor, a teaching, the worship team, a song, whatever it is. Churches are to be the "Body" of Christ, not many seperate heads, thus making a monster. Different churches doesn't bother me but when they seperate themselves from the head or the body, they are asking for certain death.
“Faith is not dependent on religion.”
True... but it’s a large part of it... tychecat stated that the decline of faith really began to show as organized religion backed an incorrect theory (the Earth being the center of the Universe)...
Faith is an individual practice... but having faith in the specifics of God or any other deity is not nature... Its taught to us... To the point where we start mixing our God into our Religion...
A religious representative generally has the answers to everything... growing up in a single religious atmosphere, there was always this solidity in the words of God (as interpreted by our individual organization)... So when those words are broken, when science or any other means proves otherwise and we accept those answers over the ones given to us, religion loses a bit of ground... And to those who accepted those words without question... who believed purely in the teachings on faith alone... those people lose that bit of faith as well...
Now... should faith be dependent on religion? No... I have faith that there is something greater... but that’s as far as it goes specifically, the rest are just questions of religion in my opinion...
But as science continues to dissolve the words of our past... the people who have grown up believing that religion and faith are inseparable, begin to lose that solidity... and they pass that on to their children... who lose it even more... and slowly... generation by generation... faith diminishes the way of organized religion...
Do you think faith can have nonreligious meaning? What about the etymological roots of faith meaning "trust"?
When I think of faith as applied to religion, I remember what the main religious document tells us, “Heb 11:1 Now faith is assurance of (things) hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.”
This passage speaks to me of ambiguous desires. Things, hoped, and not seen, are key words. So I equate faith with ambiguity and religion with an attempt to lessen the ambiguity by providing the believer with specific how-to’s that reach people on a level where they feel they have some control.
Faith is more like the resignation of control; religion is the attempt to gain control.
Well, there is certainly a relationship between faith and religion. One of the primary purposes of most religions in to give comfort and assurance - generally by petitioning the Godhead, either through prayer in a form dictated by by custom or dogma in organized religions, or through the intercession of the holy shaman in unorganized religions.
If you're interested, anthropologists think that about equal numbers of people currently practice the two types - there are an awful lot of Animists out there.
Faith is a widely used concept but here I think we are attempting to make a distinction between Religious Faith and Religious Dogmatic belief. I think in america, many people who call themselves "very religious" question or ignore some of the dogmatic precepts of their religion. since many of us use the two terms more or less interchangeably, our attitudes get somewhat muddled.
Could you have a sort of religious faith without believing in God? Many people say they do - All Buddhists, for example.
Linking you now.
I think one problem is the definition of God, whichever religion.
For example, i define myself "atheistic", although it's a strange concept... well... the word means that i don't believe in God. But which God are we speaking about?
I am atheistic because i don't believe in the existence of anything that look like a God in any religion i know. But it's not true that i don't believe in nothing. I believe in Nature, i believe in Science and blah blah blah... Is the definition of God hidden in that Nature/Science/blahblahblah? If yes, i have faith in that God, if not i am atheistic.
So, how can we separate faith from religion? Religion is a lot of things, but mainly is the definition of God. Or am i completely wrong?
If i have faith in a God that is defined in a religion, it means that i am religious because i believe in the principles of that religion. If i am religious it means that i believe the principles of a particular religion, so that i believe in the God described in that religion, so i have faith.
About Pharisees... different thing is bigotism. Actually if i think about it, i figure somebody that is an expert in a religion (so he is religious), but he does not really believe in God how i expect he should do. But being like that i must think that he believe to believe in God, because otherwise, which would the purpose of it? And that is hypocrisy... or not?
Anyway, the purpose of the topic is to speak about who sincerely has faith and who sincerely is religious, which exclude bigots.
"Faith might be defined, for the purpose of this discussion, as belief in those religious principles taught by your culture. Faith is almost always treated as an individualized concept and as one held by the believer without any tangible proof of its actual truth."
These two sentences seem to contradict each other. I do not see how Faith can be both a belief in principles taught by a culture, which by definition must be a collective of individuals, and still be an individualized concept. Can you please elaborate on this?
Also, I think that religion derives from Faith as people with similar belief gaather together, rather than the other way around as you suggest. Can you tell us why you believe Religion came before Faith?
Personally, I see no contradiction in my statement. Religion, according to my definition, is a Social Institution with certain well-defined purposes, Faith is - in this context - the individuals acceptance and belief in those institutionally defined purposes. Any attempt to discover the origins of religion are bound to be lost in the mists of pre-history. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I have in my possession an Aurignacian Venus figure casting. This small figurine is supposed by archeologists to be among the earliest indications of religion as are the remnants of flowers apparently sprinkled over carefully interred Neanderthal corpses.
Of course, people believed in things as soon as they had the capability for belief - apparently before they even became human - but in the case of religion, their beliefs became somehow focused on an explanation for their lot and faith in that explanation.
"Faith is not dependent on religion. I believe that the Pharisees and Sadducces were very religious, as was Paul in the bible but they had no faith."
OJesuslovesyousomuch,
I disagree with you that the Pharisees and Sadducees had no faith.
They had faith, in God, in Yahweh, in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
They did not have faith in Jesus Christ.
St. Paul said: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen."
The Pharisees and Sadducees, still had faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They just didn't have faith in Jesus Christ. Plus, they "saw" Him, and yet still did not believe.
"Jesus did not have faith in organized religion."
Why should he? He is God in the flesh. He is the great I am that I am. He needs no faith in anyone or anything.
I don't agree that organized religion killed Jesus. I believe an unbelieving people, who had great darkness in their lives, who couldn't see Jesus, killed Him. I don't think it was "just" the jewish people who were their calling for his crucifixion, but all sorts of citizens - romans, merchants from other countries, etc.
Some things to ponder....
uhmm... i am a bit confused.
What is an "organized religion"? Well, a religion, organized or not, is a tool for a society, not for a single person. Or am i wrong? I believe in what i believe and that's it. I don't need an organized religion to believe what i believe. By the way, even if i wanted to believe what an organized religion asks me to believe i cannot, because i cannot believe in what i want to believe. I can believe in what i believe, that's what i can do. And i cannot do anything else.
A religion is something that dictates the principles that are somehow linked in what the "single-person"'s of a society believe to establish some rules to judge the truth and the false, the just and the unjust.
So, if i, that i am just a regular human being, cannot have faith in organized religions, how can Jesus have it? Atlast i can believe that an organized religion is a good set of rules or it describes some truth. If this is what we mean with the expression "to have faith in organized religion", well, i don't even have that faith, but i could have. So, also Jesus could have it. I don't see why Jesus shouldn't believe that a set of reasonable rules to help them to decide between truth and falsity, justness and unjustness, cannot be given to the society in which he also was part.
If somebody asked him "hey JC, how can i know what is just?" i don't see why he shouldn't sincerely answer something like "well, read your answers on the Bible!". I don't see anything blaspheme in this, even if i don't like the question and the answer either.
Ciao
dario
In my anthropology classes back in the dark ages "Organized Religion" had a very specific meaning: It was any religion where Ritual and a Priesthood trained in the Ritual controlled access to the God or Gods. these types of religions are also those with written dogma.
Unorganized Religions are those where a Shaman or "Medicine Man" or some individual has received a vision or calling and has direct access to the Gods. These are sometimes called "Primitive Religions" but some of them are anything but primitive. Here in modern America, we appear to have a mix of this in our religious practices. The Christian sects that see their leaders as the only "Right" conduits to God such as those who followed Jim Jones are examples.
Sociologists and anthropologists have suggested that all religions started out unorganized and as they expanded they developed a priesthood and rules of worship. If you read the bible as a historic document you can see some of this kind of development.
Most religious schisms have been over ritual and church politics, as in the Moslem Sunni - Shiaa split. Occasionally there is a basic difference over fundamental dogmatic belief as in the Protestant revolt in 1517. The role of Faith played a big part there.
Jesus of Nazareth probably saw himself as a reformer of what he (and other devout Jews of his time) perceived as a religion that had become too influenced by the Romans, was too corrupt, and had forgotten its true role and way.
The religious leaders (all those Sadducees and Pharisees) undoubtedly saw him as a threat and had enough pull with the Roman procurator to have him executed as a common criminal. The rise of his followers was probably because he gave them a hope which was lacking in most of the other religions of the time - that of a much better life after death. He inspired Faith in only a few followers but they managed to inspire Faith in many many more during the next several hundred years and in the process the Christian religion became very much an "Organized" religion.
"organized religion" is anything postmodernist see, in their view, as narrow minded.
I dissagree with Creed_of_Kings. If anything, a person claiming to be a "postmodernist" would most likely belong to one of the "Mainstream" religious denominations, most of which are prime examples of "Organized" Religion. A postmodernist who considered himself a liberal might reject the point of view of a "Fundimentalist" sect, but even though most of these are organized, they seem more likely nowadays to have some kind of "Charismatic Leader" who dictates both religious and political dogma to his flock under the guise of "Morality". This is more a characteristic of "unorganized" than "organized" religion.
To be sure, many people currently decry religious intrusion into politics or attempts by religious groups to impost their moral order on non-members. Right now, in Ohio, for example, there is a bill before the legislature to outlaw ALL abortions and make transportion of anyone across state lines to receive an abortion, a felony. This bill is clearly a violation of Ohioan's constitutional rights as they are currently intrepreted, and an attempt to impose a particular moral rule on everyone.
"Organized Religion" had a very specific meaning: It was any religion where Ritual and a Priesthood trained in the Ritual controlled access to the God or Gods. these types of religions are also those with written dogma.
Unorganized Religions are those where a Shaman or "Medicine Man" or some individual has received a vision or calling and has direct access to the Gods."
I can think of a few religions that don't mesh perfectly with that. In some (I'd say most) forms of neopaganism, for example, access to the gods is left up to every individual despite the existence of the ritual and the preistesses/priests, and there is no dogma per se. It isn't shamanic, so where does it fit? But that's just an aside.
You seem to take faith as something basically societally imposed, in that you can either accept or reject the basic beliefs of your culture (or is it your culture's religion?), acceptance being faith. Correct? Starting there, what about faith that is not attached to a specific belief system? Like Ojesuslovesyousomuch's faith that the floor would be there in the morning? To put it another way, can faith be seperated from an overarching belief structure? As I'm writing this, I'm thinking it cannot. Even faith about the floor ties in to the belief structure of logic, because you can't assume that past events will repeat themselves without that. Hmm. Maybe a better question is whether there is such a thing as 'personal' faith, given that the beliefs come from society. Any thoughts?
Blacksox has come up with an interesting point of semantics. In English we use the word "Faith" to mean unquestioned belief, or belief unsupported by factual evidence, which are two quite different things. For example we have faith that the sun will rise because it always has - we have lots of physical evidence. We believe in God because our culture has, from our childhood, taught us to. That being said, the human emotional need for security seems to predicate belief in something "Bigger" than we are as a human psychological given. Humans tend to have faith in SOMETHING, no matter how Atheistic they claim to be.
The difference between organized an unorganized religion is, of course, blurred in practice. I would say Wiccan and other neopagan religions are good examples of unorganized religion. Covens pretty much depend on a charismatic leader who tends to adjust the ritual to suit her/himself. Even well-organized groups like the Golden Dawn tend to do this.
Faith is belief without evidence because you want to believe it.
Religion is belief without evidence because you want to believe it, and because a group of other people believe it too.
Check out the protected post on Simone's site, please.
Hi,
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Henry
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