RELIGION AND

THE SEARCH FOR

ULTIMATE
MEANING.
The nature of religion and its
meaning
What is religion?
■Religion is from the latin word religare
which means to tie together or to bind fast.
■Religion is a powerful institution that
connects human beings both as individuals
and collectively to a transcendent reality
■An experts studies show that
Starting from the past Religion
has been apart of our mental and
emotional make-up.
■And for many, the term Homo
religiosus or religious men ApTly
describes The human experience.
 Human experience
■ It represents the
collective experiences
that a person feels
when dealing with
any organisation, be
that as a customer, an
employee, a patient or
a citizen.
■Many of the world’s population
is religious And despite that
many tried to eliminate religion
ever since the 18 century but
th

they horribly failed time and

time again.
■ Religion Has a spreading effect and
influence on the development of
humanity, society, culture and the
individual.
■ However many contemporary scientists
is speculating the demise of religion
due to the evolution of technology and
that people today rely more on
scientific reason and method to explain
natural phenomenon such as
Miracles,
Supernatura
l occurences
And
mysteries
■So some social scientist like the
founder of psychoanalysis and Karl
Marx the Father of sCientific
socialism believed that Religion
will gradually Dissapear.
■This view is called secularization
Secularization
■ Which the Latin word
saeculum means
worldly
■ Is the declining
importance of religion
in a society.
■In the 21st century the church regain it’s
influence with no sign of abetting
■A social scientist concluded that “The
fact is that atheism and rationalism no
longer constitute the major challenge of
Christian theology today comes not
from the death of God but from the
rebirth of the gods.
 Rationalism-A belief or theory that opinions
and actions should be based on reason and
knowledge rather than on religious belief or
emotional response.
“scientific rationalism”
■
atheist” is “a person who does not
“

believe in the existence of a god or

any gods,
■ A contemporary Defines religion as a
■ “as a system of beliefs, rituals, and
practices Usually institutionalized in one
way or another Which connects this world
with the beyond it provides the bridge
That Allows humans the divine the
universal life that both encompasses and
transcends the world”.
■This subsTansive definition limits
religion to the supernatural or divine
Force
■But another subsTansive definition
which was proposed BY Edward
Tylor the founder of British social
anthropologists
■Proposed that Religion is a
Belief In spiritual beings
■TheorY Is that Human Beings
develop religious beliefs in
order to explain dreams, visions,
unconscious ness and death
■The problem of the subsTansive
definition of religion as noted already
by emile durkheim in his elementary
forms of religious life (1992). Is that
buddhism, unlike Islam, hinduism and
christianity. Tends to be a religion
without God or belief in any
supernatural beings
■SubsTansive definition-
having a firm basis in
reality and therefore
important, meaningful, or
considerable.
■In the functional definition of
religion is anything that
provides individuals with the
ultimate meaning that
organizes his/ her entire life
and world view.
■According to the American
scholar Milton ginger religion
is a system of beliefs and
practices by means of which a
group of people struggles with
the ultimate problem