SOLUSI UNIVERSITY

A PRESENTATION-QUIZ PASSED WITH FULFILMENT OF COURSE REQUIREMENT RELT 350

RELIGION AND ETHICS IN MODERN SOCIETY COMPLETED BY:

CHAMBURUKA TAPIWANASHE :SU150024N

KACHUWAIRE VALERIE :SU150057A

NYATHI EDWINNAH THANDOLWENKOSI :SU150039N

WHAT IS

A. RELIGION

B. ETHICS
Many definitions of religion have been attempted but many fall foul of being too narrow, or too

wide. Many definitions are biased towards continental cultural norms in particular, Western

creedal theism. William James, one of the most respected surveyors of religion, lectured in

1901-2 that the very fact that they are so many and so different from one another is enough to

prove that the word religion cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a

collective name. It has proven problematic to come to a reasonable definition which describes

the varieties of religion found across the East and West, both old and new. Many people have

given up even trying to define religion coherently for example William James gives space to the

opinion that "the man who knows religion most completely troubles himself least about a

definition". What is counted as being "religious" and what counts as "a religion" changes over

time and from place to place.

It occurs in today's confusing and world, that religion is a term that is denied by some of those

very people who the term encompasses. Some Christians declare that Christianity is not a

religion, but it is a relationship with Jesus. Likewise, some Muslims say Islam is not a religion but

a way of life. One academic author bemoans that they have lost count of how many times

converts or adherents to such varied belief systems

as Paganism, Islam, Buddhism and Jehovah's Witnesses have said, 'It is not a religion, it is a way

of life.

Religion is a fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a group of

people. These set of beliefs concern the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, and involve

devotional and ritual observances. They also often contain a moral code governing the conduct
of human affairs. Ever since the world began, man has demonstrated a natural inclination

towards faith and worship of anything he considered superior/difficult to understand. His

religion consisted of trying to appease and get favors from the Supreme Being he feared. This

resulted in performing rituals (some of them barbaric) and keeping traditions or laws to earn

goodness and or everlasting life.

Christianity has always stressed a personal relationship with God as the touchstone of religion.

When God created Adam and Eve, He walked with them in the Garden of Eden, in the cool of

the day, and enjoyed their fellowship. Religion was, and still is, a close, personal, and satisfying

relationship with the Creator God. Down through the ages men have devoted their entire life to

enjoying this personal relationship with a God who loves the fellowship of human beings.

Abraham was called the ‘friend of God’ in 2 Chronicles 20:7 and James 2:23. Blaise Pascal

(French Mathematician, Philosopher, and Physicist 1623-1662) said, “There is a God shaped

vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God,

the creator made known through Jesus.

Jesus summarized the true meaning of religion in Matthew 22:37-40, “Love the Lord your God

with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as

yourself.” It is notable to highlight that though this may be a good defining term of religion,

scholars have found it vague that religion is love.

The above views seek to clarify that religion is difficult to define as a result of several problems.

Namely, these problems are the problem of culture because it is difficult to separate religion

culture and cultures above all are too many and diverse. The problem of diversity as there are
too many religions in the world today. The problem of dynamism as cultures and diversity

change rapidly. Therefore, to better understand religion there are working definitions that

assist towards the cause. An example of such is J, L Corks 1992 definition which states that

religion is that which includes Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha’ism, Sikhism,

Zoroastrianism, Aboriginal Spiritual and those traditions that resemble one or more of them.

The Purpose of Religion

Religion, writes Baha’u’llah, is the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world,

and of tranquility amongst its peoples. Following the coming of the Manifestation of God,

extraordinary progress occurs in the world. His teachings awaken in whole populations

capacities to contribute to the advancement of civilization to an extent never before possible.

They also inspire breathtaking achievements in all fields of human endeavor and elicit from His

followers extraordinary qualities of heroism, self-sacrifice and self-discipline. Universal codes of

law and institutional systems are created that bind people together in ever larger and more

complex societies.

Thus as the driving force of the civilizing process and the primary agent of human development

religion has the power both to nurture moral character and profoundly influence social

relationships. The teachings that the successive Manifestations of God reveal to humanity are

endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame. Once accepted,

these teachings can overturn old patterns of thought and contribute to new understandings at

the deepest levels of belief. But belief must be accompanied by a sincere effort to translate that

which is written into reality and action.

order and stability. No lasting transformation can be effected without unity and agreement and

the perfect means for engendering fellowship and union is true religion. It must unite all hearts

and cause wars and disputes to vanish from the face of the earth, give birth to spirituality, and

bring life and light to each heart.

The indispensability of religion to social order has repeatedly been demonstrated by its direct

effect on laws and morality. When the lamp of religion is obscured, the result is chaos and

confusion and the lights of fairness and justice, of tranquility and peace cease to shine.

The separations and conflicts between people, carried out in the name of religion, are contrary

to its true nature and purpose. If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it

were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious

act, said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Any religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion.

Religion has different meanings to all kinds of people and as a result there are varied definitions

of the term. Scholars offer us many different definitions of religion due to nameable problems

like the problem of diversity as there are too many religions in the world. The problem of

culture because all religions operate within a cultural setup, hence variations. The problem of

dynamism due to the changing times. Nonetheless, these definitions tend to be of two types

namely the substantive definition and the functional definition and these will be further

explained below.

Substantive definition is a definition that tells us what religion is by pointing to its distinguishing

characteristic usually its beliefs and/or practices. Roberts, 1984 defines religion as an

institutional system of beliefs and values shared by a group and grounded in faith and the
worship of a supreme transcendent being. For example, SDA Christians are a global group of

believers within a formal and organized hierarchal structure of churches, conferences, unions,

divisions and the General Conference who believe in the creational and supreme power of the

Trinity of Divinity, the life of Jesus Christ, Decalogue, Church Manual, Spirit of Prophecy just to

name a few. Therefore, the substantive definition implies that religion is the human

recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God.

However, the substantive definition is often found by other scholars to be faulty. The fault is

that it is narrow as it attempts to describe religion in terms of one distinguishing characteristic.

This substantive definition refers to a superhuman power or personal God; thereby making the

selection of a defining characteristic, upon which a substantive definition of religion depends,

often revealing prejudice. This perhaps marks a personal religious even a denominational bias

or a broad cultural bias. To define religion in terms of one characteristic practice for example,

prayer appears equally inflexible once religion is treated as a label for a type of activity found

across cultures.

In order to avoid being too narrow and too rigid, many scholars prefer a different type of

definition known as a functional definition. A functional definition concentrates not on what

religion is (its beliefs and practices, for example) but on what these beliefs and practices do for

the individual and the social group based on the needs they fulfil (for example, in providing or

contributing to bonding, identity, comfort, and security). One well-known example of this kind

of definition refers to religion as ‘a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of

people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life’ (Yinger, 1970, p. 7). Moreover,
Chitando Israel has this to say, ‘we can only come up with tentative, working and operational

definitions.’

The focus of the definition is not on the substance of the beliefs and practices but on what

they do for people. Religion, as a means by which human beings struggle with the ultimate

problems of human life, distinctively responds to questions of meaning and purpose raised

most sharply, for example, through our encounters with suffering and death. Other functional

definitions speak of religion as providing meaning, as a source of fulfilment, as a means of

personal transformation, and as a force for social cohesiveness. The advantage of functional

definitions is their flexibility. The disadvantage is that religion distinctively deals with those

things in a person's life that are of such importance that everything else is secondary. This is

certainly flexible and inclusive but not sufficiently specific as it is not helpful in determining

where religion ends and something else begins. It seems that, when defining religion, there is

likely to be a difficult choice between the specific but narrow, and the flexible but vague. Is

there a way around this problem?

A way around this could be the adoption of Ninian Smart seven dimensions of religion and

these are:

i. The practical and ritual dimension. Every tradition has some practices to which it

adheres for instance regular worship, preaching, prayers, long and elaborate service

known as the Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity. They are often known as

rituals. Also important are other patterns of behavior which, while they may not strictly

count as rituals, they fulfil a function in developing spiritual awareness or ethical insight
 for example yoga in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions where meditation is directed

towards union with God. They can count as a form of prayer.

ii. The experiential and emotional dimension. There is a great amount of significance and

experience in the formation and development of religious traditions. Consider the

visions of the Prophet Muhammad, the conversion of Paul, the enlightenment of the

Buddha. These were seminal events in human history. And it is obvious that the

emotions and experiences of men and women are the food on which the other

dimensions of religion feed.

iii. The narrative or mythic dimension. It is the story side of religion. It is typical of all faiths

to hand down vital stories: some historical; some about that mysterious primordial time;

some about things to come at the end of time; some about great heroes and saints;

some about great founders, such as Moses, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad;

some about assaults by the devil; some parables and edifying tales; and some about the

adventures of the gods. This belief is strengthened by the fact that many faiths look

upon certain documents, originally maybe based upon long oral traditions, as true

scriptures.

iv. The doctrinal and philosophical dimension. Religions rely on doctrines especially based

in the exemplary lives of the lives of the founders. Thus, in the Christian tradition, the

story of Jesus’ life and the ritual of the communion service led to attempts to provide an

analysis of the nature of the Divine Being which would preserve both the idea of the

Incarnation and the belief in one God. The result was the doctrine of the Trinity, which
 sees God as three persons in one substance. In any event, doctrines come to play a

significant part in all the major religions.

v. The social and institutional dimension. Every religious movement is embodied in a group

of people, and that is very often rather formally organized as a Church, or Sangha, or

Uma. To understand a faith we need to see how it works among people.

vi. The material dimension. This social or institutional dimension of religion almost

inevitably becomes incarnate in a different way, in material form, as buildings, works of

art, and other creations.

vii. The ethical and legal dimension. The law which a tradition or sub tradition incorporates

into its fabric can be called the ethical dimension of religion. In Buddhism for instance

there are certain universally binding precepts, known as the five precepts or virtues,

together with a set of further regulations controlling the lives of monks and nuns and

monastic communities. In Judaism there are Ten Commandments and other rules

imposed upon the community by the Divine Being. All this Law or Torah is a framework

for living for the Orthodox Jew. The above view leads to the study of scholarly views on

ethics.

Ethics is a moral philosophy that seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining

concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. It tells us

what we should or should not do in order to conform to society’s rules. It is important to note

that ethics deal with theory and morality deals with the practical. Ethics deal with the principles

by which we decide right or wrong whilst morals are reflected in what you do or don’t do. The
three schools are virtue ethics, consequentialist ethics, and deontological or duty-based ethics.

Each is of these is unique and vital but inadequate by itself. So there is a need to conform to all

three unanimously.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with how humans should live, and what should be

considered right and wrong. The word originates from the ancient Greek word "ethos," but the

concept is much older, with every society possessing its own code of ethics. Every society has

an origin story with an accompanying code of ethics. One well-known example is that of Moses

being presented with the Ten Commandments. For many in African culture, these

commandments have shaped their government and system of law.

Ethics it is regarded as a systematic approach to understand and analyzing and distinguishing

matters of rights and wrong ,goods and bad, admirable and deplorable as they relate to the

wellbeing of the human kind and the relationships among each other .Someone defined it as

the moral principles that governs a process behavior or the conducting of an activity .it is the

moral philosophy the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad the moral of

values and [Link] is also an attractive process rather than a static condition ,so some

ethicist use the expression doing [Link] it is required as the balance of emotion and reason.

Donahue 1996 “We are in the throes of a giant ethical leap that is essentially embracing all

human kind”.

Ethics is also called moral philosophy in some circles where it seeks to resolve the questions of

human morality by explaining more on the good and bad. “Ethics is the arena in which the

claims of otherness are articulated and negotiated.” Ethics is a grievous offense to those who
are overridden, and a mighty temptation to those who wish to override.” This is partly because

it is poised between the general and the particular, represented respectively by what he takes

as the two key questions, how ought one to live? And what ought I to do? Dr Harpham sees this

tension as insoluble, hence articulating perplexity, rather than guiding, is what ethics is all

about. There are a lot of definitions based on the cultures, norms and values of individuals

around the globe.

There are types of ethics and the first one is that of normative ethics which literally means an

attempt of deciding or prescribing values, behaviors and ways of being that are right or wrong.

They also has subdivided choices that are non-cognitive ethics it comes up where some people

argument moral judgments or utterances or statements are simply expressing certain emotions

Normative interprets the “ought to” statements and assertions .Relativist is the other thing

under the normative ethics , which refers to the belief that ethical values and beliefs are

relative to the individuals or societies that holds them .To add on normative ethics, absolutes is

another group of people which holds on the values, principles, commandments and they are

not relative ,dependent and changeable. This means they believe in one truth for example the

pastors they are obliged to tell the truth no matter there is war or the fraud has their relative in

it. .

The other type is that of descriptive ethic which is the form of empirical research into attitudes

of individuals or groups , in other words it is the division of philosophical or general ethics that
involves the observation of moral decision making process with the aim of describing the

phenomenon like the case of prostitution.

Meta is one of the fundamental types of philosophy as it examines the nature of morality in

general and what justifies a moral judgement which seeks to understand the nature of ethical

properties, attitudes and judgements .Some theorists suggests that Meta is proper evaluation

of actual moral theories. The Greek philosophers for example Plato and Socrats they both

believed goodness exist absolutely although they did not have the same view about what is

good. They view that there are no ethical truths as known as “moral anti-realism” Example of

Meta ethics are what does moral language mean? Do moral facts exist? If so, what are they like,

and are they reducible to natural facts? How can we know whether moral judgments are true

or false? Is there a connection between making a moral judgment and being motivated to abide

by it? Are moral judgments objective or subjective, relative or absolute? Does it make sense to

talk about moral progress?

The last type of ethics is that of applied ethics which is devoted on the treatment of moral

problems in life. It has proved to be the application of general ethical theories to moral

problems with the objective of solving the problems. One might say that it investigates the

application of ethical theories in actual life. This type of group finds its solutions to the

particular cases that are not acceptable from the Ten Commandments.

Aristotle ethical theory is based on the concept of virtue which is defined to be a character a

human being needs to live well. Virtue theory tells us “an action is right if it is what a virtuous

agent would in the situation at hand “he went on to say that there are theoretical and practical
wisdom therefore if one is wise ,courageous and temperate and just then right actions will

follow. And Kant’s theory gives emphasis to the principles upon which the actions are based

rather than the actions’ results. Therefore to act rightly one must be motivated by proper

universal deontological principles that treat everyone with respect (respect for persons’

theory).

Ethics refers to the rules provided by external sources for example student hand book in

schools and principles in religion. Whilst morality is the individuals own principles regarding

right and wrong. However, ethics and morality are vitally important in our world. The difference

according to the cultures and countries are evident in wars, disputes. For example the abortion

has a moral and ethical implication for each pregnant mother, doctor and the nation. Life is so

precious but a lot have aborted according to the situations a mother will be in so to serve the

mother they are forced to terminate the fetus.

Conclusively ethics and morality certainly have different meanings in different cultures however

basic standards should be used. The test of time will prove if the decision made today is the

right ones and there are consequences to each one, whether good or bad.
REFERENCES

 [Link]

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fr=mcafee&type=E210US91075G0&p=where+did+ethics+originated+from

 [Link]

 Ethics and Religion (Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society) by Harry J

Gensler

 Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics: New Perspectives from Philosophy and Theology by
Mikel Burley

 The Bible

 Class notes-Mr. L Ncube

religion/content-section-5.4

 Ninian Smart, ‘The nature of a religion and the nature of secular world views’

 [Link]