Views of Religion

The fact that the theistic religions are false in their view that there is a God does not negate their pragmatic value in a number of realms. Religion offers more than the promise of a deity or even of future salvation. Religion also serves as a guide for moral and ethical behavior, as a balm for those in pain, as a communal experience bringing people together, and so on. While these different functions may be couched in terms of a deity who desires that people behave in a certain way, the value of these behaviors is not dependent on whether or not there really is a deity making this demand. The ethical and moral behaviors are valuable in themselves and could--and indeed have been--offered as precepts by philosophers with no religious intent.

There are a number of different ethical structures with a religious basis, some developed within a religious framework, others adapted from secular philosophy to the needs of a religious community. Christian ethics can be found in different forms as well, and underlying all is the essential view that human beings have free will and so that ethical decisions are valuable. Moral issues can be raised with every action we take in life, and everyone needs some guide to how to make ethical decisions and how to select the proper behavior in a social setting.

Everyone sooner or later will have to cope with the issue of death and dying and with the death of family members. Religion offers a means of succor for those who face th

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as the Brahman, and this along with earlier doctrine produced the main doctrine of the Upanishads, that Brahman is the sole reality. The reality of the world is not dependent on the individual but on the Brahman, because the innermost individual or �tman is nothing else but Brahman. Brahman has to be grasped with the use of reason. In each of these religions, what is thought of as the soul is in some sense part of something larger, though the soul itself is individual in Christianity, something that withers away into something greater in Buddhism, and something that seeks to reunite with the greater over-soul in Hinduism. In each case, the conception of the soul is separate from the physical form, and salvation is fulfilled when the soul separates from the physical form through death, yoga, or the attainment of Nibbana by the devotee. 7. In traditional Buddhism, the major religion of India, there have been two goals related to salvation, either birth in heaven (svarga), or liberation (moksa). Both also involve the issue of enlightenment (bodhi). Four paths to salvation are identified in the literature: 1) ascetic practices; 2) the pratimoksa, or monastic discipline; 3) the bodhisattva path; and 4) the Vajrayana, or "dia

Category: Philosophy - V