ABSTRACT

It would make little sense to discuss the nature of religious belief without some consideration of exactly what ‘I believe’ means. Structural beliefs have played a vital role in the history of Christianity, and at least some role in all other religions. Martyrs have died for their religious beliefs, wars have been fought over cultural differences expressed in religious terms. Beliefs may also pervade, to a greater or lesser extent, all other aspects of religious systems. But the phrase ‘I believe’ means very different things to different people, and even to one person at different times or in different contexts. This chapter, therefore, discusses the nature of religious belief, its relation to scientific belief, and how it can vary in intensity and quality. For many Christians, belief has been primary: ‘Believe, and ye shall be

saved’. At the present time those churches or denominations which are most successful in recruiting and maintaining numbers are those that demand most from their congregations in the way of belief and signs of personal commitment – in the Catholic case, traditional dogma and acceptance of the religious authorities; in the Fundamentalist Protestant case, sometimes the literal truth of the whole Bible. Many Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of God dictated by the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed, and must therefore be taken literally. But insistence on dogmatic belief is much less characteristic of many other religions. Judaism has less precise dogma – perhaps because the Jews were bound together by a culture and relied on common history and practices rather than common beliefs to maintain their integrity. And, as we have seen, Buddhism and Hinduism are much less dogmatic and belief plays a secondary role, with emphasis given more to experience and good deeds. The main world religions have structural beliefs embracing such issues as

the origin of the world and what happens after death, and usually (though not always) involving supernatural agencies seen with animistic or anthropomorphic characteristics. In most non-literate societies such beliefs are part of, and indistinguishable from, the socio-cultural structure as a whole: the distinction between sacred and secular, or natural and supernatural, is much less clear than it is in the West today. Nowadays westerners tend to distinguish

between such beliefs and what we know about the world, but in societies in which the religious system is pervasive, such a distinction may be far from obvious. Religious beliefs usually involve beings or entities that are outside normal

experience (see Chapter 4). They include counterintuitive characteristics; complex concepts which are never fully explained or understood and may indeed be the subject of much controversy, such as the Holy Trinity of Christianity; and apparent inconsistencies, such as the need to pray to a god who is held to be omniscient anyway. Inevitably, therefore, societies usually contain both believers and sceptics. Furthermore, different religious traditions may become merged, or at least exist happily together. In China popular religions, involving festivals, funerals and often shamans, have existed alongside Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, with no apparent perceived contradiction (Teiser, 1996). Before the Reformation in Europe, ‘folk religion’ existed in the countryside alongside a more formal Christianity in the abbeys and the more literate sections of society.