Definitions of religion

Humanities with a Global Approach

Robert Lawton

Week 2 – The Bible

As this class is Humanities with a Global Approach I am looking to view the Bible from a different perspective. I believe, perhaps too proudly, that I have a very unique perspective. As a pseudo-American who was adopted in my early teens by a Laos family, who themselves had come over as political refugees at the charity of a local church I was not raised with traditional American outlooks on society and religion. I attended church periodically with various foster families, but never received a consistent Christian indoctrination. Instead, from that time when I was taken in as a refugee of sorts myself I began attending temple. I identified as Buddhist from that point on, and forsook the church proper. As we grew up my siblings began to shift away from the traditional temple. Some became more avidly Christian, and others took on the new American religion of agnosticism. I was disappointed in this, as I felt it a step back for them. I was proudly Buddhist. However, when I was asked what that meant I could say very little about it. I did not speak enough Laos to understand much of what was said in temple. Religious language in any language is different from the secular, especially the string of curse words I primarily employed in speaking Laos. I decided I needed to explore what being ‘Buddhist’ actually was, and why I did not want to be Christian.

This decision led me to explore both religions from a standpoint of having a little bit of knowledge in each. I had seen Christmas movies, and I had seen Little Buddha. As I immersed myself in the Western Dharma culture I heard people say 2 things, very different things, about Buddhism. Some held it was a religion, while others said it was only a philosophy. Everyone agreed Christianity was a religion, but could not agree on the Dharma (Buddhism to non-Buddhists). The question becomes, “What is religion?” In my opinion, the early books of the bible clearly define, or at least provide the characteristics of a religion. Some are shared, others are not. Fundamentally there are some extreme differences.

In the beginning… there is creation of Christianity, in Christianity. This does not exist in Buddhism, where the need for a creation story does not exist. Many religions around the world though have this as a fundamental of their beliefs. While it is entirely possible to believe in God and not creationism, the fact that the metaphor of God’s power is still in (and accepted) the Bible is core to the idea of a religion – there must be something else out there, beyond the power of man that is making stuff happen. Whether we can understand it or not, explain it or let it remain a mystery a religion would seem to need a creation. The Bible starting with a creation theory seems to say that from the beginning of the world (from your faith) God is there, God is present, and God is in control. This is the antithesis of Dharma, which maintains that it is not necessary to know where things came from, but only to think about where it is going.

Genesis continues with the creation of Man, and to a lesser extent woman. They partake of the forbidden fruit and damn is all for eternity, unless God saves us of course. And to do that we once again have to surrender ourselves to his power. Again, this concept only marginally exists within Buddhism. In the Dharma as taught by Buddha there is suffering, but there is a cause to suffering, an end to suffering, and of course a method to end suffering. While this is a different approach than Christianity, this is where the religiosity of Buddhism steps in. There is a way to rise above our mortal shackles (Samsara) and break from the cycle of suffering and non-suffering to achieve a state beyond. Technically this is the Three Bodies of the Buddha, which coincidentally is not too dissimilar to the Trinity.

The Bible has a list of genealogy, a way to verify the authenticity so to speak of the words within. This shows how old and important it is. These people lived hundreds of years by the grace of God, even though by that time they were well incorporated with original sin. The Dharma, especially the Tibetan tradition is also very fond of tracing lineages. Ostensibly it is a way to know the authenticity of a text or teaching, but the key to the Dharmic approach is that we are always taught by the texts to question our teachings. As Buddha says “Study my words like a goldsmith for flaws and only use what is deemed pure.” Much of this has been forgotten by current Dharma practitioners as Buddha has become an religion of following and not questioning.

The question becomes, is religion about following or is it about learning and growing? Is it about community and shared heritage? Is religion material or spiritual? Christianity has it’s prophets and saints, and so does Buddhism. Christianity has a holy book (one book to rule them all) and Buddhism has its own texts. While there is no creation theory, there is much else in common. In the end the basic systems of beliefs differ to greatly for them to be called the same, but I believe they can both be safely called relgion.