The philosophy of religion is a wide and varied field of study that is different from both theology and the history of religions. It touches metaphysics, epistemology, logic and many other areas of philosophy.
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Why religions matter
When we contemplate religions, a myriad of intriguing questions arise. Is there a fundamental difference between religious groups and other social communities? Must every religion involve a belief in a higher power, and must this necessarily be a personal God? Are religious practices and rituals necessary, or can a religion do without them?
Picture, for example, the fans in a football game stadium. They are united by a common interest, they form a closed social group, they have regular meetings at a special place of worship where they congregate and perform their weekly rituals and they even have an irrational belief in the powers of their football club. Are they a religion? If not, what is missing?
Is it a god? Does every religion need a god? But then, many religions don’t have anything like a god. Buddha, for example, was a human being, not a god. Daoism is a religion, but it does not have a god. The highest power in Hinduism is Brahman, but this name signifies an abstract principle, the ultimate reality of the universe, and not a personal god.
We might ask, why do these questions matter at all? After all, who cares. We could let anyone who wants to found a religion do so, and accept all sorts of communities as religions: Shakespeare actors playing in a park, a bus-load of tourists, a class of students. Wouldn’t that do?
The problem is that religions have a special status in most of our societies. For example, one might have to pay taxes differently, depending on one’s religion. In Germany, one has to pay a special “church tax” that goes to one’s church. Churches also are protected in terms of freedom of belief and expression. In Covid times, when public meetings were restricted, church congregations were often exempted. When social distancing was mandated by law, churches in some places could still perform the Holy Communion and have their believers share wine from the same cup. Sometimes, believers will be excluded from military service if they can prove that a particular type of service is against their religion. The right of particular groups to eat Halal or Koscher food has to be respected by the state. When the British tried to force Indian troops to handle a gun cartridge that had been greased with pig and cow fat, thus offending both Hindus and Muslims, the soldiers rebelled. This became one of the starting points of what is often called the …
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