1.1 What is religion?  (Page 4/6)

There is a lot of evidence to support this train of thought. But mysticism is, was and probably always will be a minority interest among religious people. Where does this leave the rest of us? Moreover, the mysticism approach and the fundamentalist attitude share one shortcoming: there is no way that they can be proven to a disinterested outsider. Instead, they require a leap of faith or a mystical experience that is itself religious. Thus, basing a definition of religion on them leads to arguing in circles.

The third reaction to the problem is to ignore it. This approach, which grows naturally out of the exclusivism of the first strategy, was perhaps possible in the past, when some religions dominated large geographical areas. But today, it would imply shutting oneself up in a self-imposed ghetto, avoiding all contact with everyone who might possibly not share one's beliefs and never venturing outside. Surely an unacceptable "solution" to most of us. After all, most religions do believe that their message is valid for all people; how is this truth to be transmitted to other people if we ignore them?

So perhaps there is a fourth way, a way of approaching the differences between religions that will not deny the religious feelings and beliefs, and therefore the very humanity, of people of other faiths and that will not restrict us in the practice of our own religion.

If we cannot identify one common characteristic of all religions, perhaps we can devise a system of classifying them. Then, perhaps the way we classified the religions will itself show us what they have in common.

There are many ways to classify religions. One popular way is to distinguish between local, national and universal religions. The local religion is limited in terms of both geography and missionary intent. Usually, one is born into a local religion; it is the faith of one's family, tribe or clan and one has little interest in extending it to others. On the contrary, since the religion is the source of the group's power, and therefore its means of survival, one should be careful not to divulge too much of it to outsiders. While this type of religion is most common among "primal" communities (hunter-gatherers, herders and premodern agriculturalists), remnants of it remain even in modern societies - witness the secrecy that surrounds groups such as the Freemasons.

National religions usually have to do with the common bonds of a shared language, culture, ethnic background or a shared history. Orthodox Judaism is a good example of this, traditional Hinduism another. While it is not impossible for an outsider to join a national religion, to do so requires that one adopts, not only the religious precepts, but an entire lifestyle. As a result, national religions tend, after an initial flowering that is associated with the growth and political dominance of the associated community, to stop growing and only perpetuate themselves, or even to decline.