Jan 30

Marty did not give a proper definition for religion. He proposed five principles that religion uses but these principles were the same as those used for politics, so hw could not find a discernabel difference between the two based on his 5 principles. Most people agree that religion is not an easy term to define like “culture” but we have to be careful about how we talk about this concept. People later compared religion to nationalism; David Rapoport said, “Religion has often had formidable rivals; in the modern world the nation sometimes has surpassed religion as a focus of loyalties.” Yet we can see major differences between these two ideas. Is there a clear definition for religion? Probably not. The term is so broad that there is no clear set of words that incorporate all of its faces. Even though that is true, we can corellate religion with other ideas to try to get a handle of what it talks about. The main argument, in our reading, was that there simply is no violence in the definition of religion. Obviously many people have killed in the name of Christianity and more recently Islam but the basic truth is that those acts do not represent religious acts and are not a representation of religion. Also, we can’t blame religion for the violent acts that have resulted because of some people’s misconception and delusional acts in its name. The statement that religion has changed the seculiar institutions violent because of some people is not accounting for all the good that religion caused in these same institutions. Religion is at the base of theology which is a seeking to try to understand God in his representation to us.