Religion
During the course of the year, I have analyzed many different descriptions and definitions in an effort to isolate the meaning of the words 'religion' and 'religious'. In what I am going to discuss for the remainder of this essay, I find it necessary to give a brief explanation of what I understand religion as being before I can classify anything else as being religious or not. In my study I have not yet found a normative definition of religion which impressed my mind. It may be the case that no such definition exists and it may well be futile to search for such a definition. C.J. Webb writes: 'We all know what we mean by holding a thing to be sacred better than any definition can tell us, as we all know what we mean by calling things beautiful better than any definition of beauty can tell us.' (Webb: 1916) That, however, is not to say that the important and necessary aspects of religion which we need to formulate our discussion cannot be pointed out. I found Donald Wiebe's analysis particularly helpful in delineating the most important and necessary aspects of religious rituals or phenomenon. Wiebe states: 'The three elements that jointly make a cultural phenomenon a religious one are transcendence, human limitation and salva
This descriptive mechanism has therefore passed the test of time and when analyzing the religious content of a ritual you may refer back to these ideas to qualify your conclusion. ' (Wiebe 1981) Transcendence expresses that there is another world, the world of the Gods. In particular they give my ritual of prayer a higher degree of significance and depth by giving me some form of visible proof that there is something transcendent, something supernatural which cannot be explained by the laws of nature or physics. Muslims regard the life after death as being a thousand times more significant than life in this world; prayer is believed to be a primary means to attaining heaven in that life. Such an analysis is essential when placing certain rituals beyond or before the line which separates religious rituals from others. One such incidence actually occurred while I was writing this essay, and I find it worth mentioning because it is a good example of why the Qu'ran has had such an impact on my faith in Islam. He (Allah) said: "Get you down (from Paradise to the earth), both of you together, some of you are an enemy to some others. Thus did Adam disobey his Lord, so he went astray. Till now in my life, however, I have not been able to perform the daily prayers regularly. As a result I ended up just recounting the story and not including any quote. Usually it is Zuhr, for no other reason than that I usually wake up at that time of the day. Having briefly described my ritual, I will now attempt to characterize it with my desired definition of religion. Prayer, however, has been a part of my daily life in a more moderate form for as long as I can remember. In concluding this essay, I hope to have imparted a clear understanding of how the origins of my ritual position it in the realm of good and evil, how it's conceived in my life as a purely religious practice, and the effects it has on my thinking, my faith and my perceptions of both the world around me and the world of the transcendent.
Common topics in this essay:
Usually Zuhr,
Donald Wiebe's,
Muhammed PBUH,
Satan Prayer,
Taq'wa Qu'ran,
JZ Smith,
Holy Book,
Christmas Eid,
God Allah,
,
human limitation,
five minutes,
origin prayer,
twenty five,
twenty five minutes,
page qu'ran,
transcendence human limitation,
angels prostrate,
world world,
myth origin,
thousand pages writing,
fear god,
myth origin prayer,
five minutes prayer,
religious rituals,
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Acceptance Essays
