What is Religion?

I have some friends who grew up , like me, in China and not believing in any religions themselves, but have certain concepts about religion based on current general practices of religions in society. Religion in most Chinese intellects’ mind is equivalent to superstition or some kind of ideology that caused more harm than benefit in history. That’s why I felt necessary here to discuss the topic: “What really is Religion?”

First, religion is not ideology.

Here is a definition by Dr. William Hatcher: “Ideology is any philosophies or any beliefs which hold that certain ideas/ideals (doctrines) are superior to human beings.”

We all agree that there are good ideas and bad ideas; there are true ideas and false ideas, etc. But we are not talking about the value of ideas. We are taking about second order of belief about ideas, that is a belief that some set of ideas are superior to human being. Once we accept such philosophy, therefore it becomes permissible to sacrifice human being for the propagation of those ideas. That was exactly what happened in history that human beings turned religion into ideology. That’s why some felt justified to kill each other in the name of religion. We human have turned religion into something that is contrary to the purpose of true religion.

Then what is Religion?

Shoghi Effendi said:

“[T]he core of religious faith is that mystical feeling which unites man with God.”

Simply put, true religion is a relationship. More particularly, true religion is the establishment of a certain kind of relationship between God and us and between ourselves based on the relationship with God. In the absence of our relationship with God, we cannot build true relationship with other human beings.

Furthermore, true religion is the cause of love and unity. This is the essence of religion. Anything that is not productive of love and unity is not religion no matter what it calls itself.

Let’s use gravity as example here again. Gravity in its essence is an attractive force. So if we observe two things in the world are pushed apart, we may not know what pushed them apart, but at least we know for sure it isn’t gravity that pushed them apart.

In the same way, the essence of religion is an attractive force. Religion only creates love and unity. Therefore, whenever we see animosity/disunity among people which is the opposite of love and unity, we know one thing for sure that it isn’t religion that caused the disunity or hatred, because religion can’t do it any more than gravity can push things apart.

It is also said: Religion is science of the love of God.

This note is getting too long. I will discuss how to establish true relationship (or the purpose of life) in the next note.

(Parts of this note are taking from an audio tape by Dr William Hatcher)