Recall that Chapter 3 discussed the importance of a culture’s social institutions.
Religion, as pointed out, is one of those institutions that assist people with living
life and preparing for death. Kimball expands on this important point when he
writes,“For the vast majority of people worldwide, their religious tradition—like
family,tribe,ornation—anchors them in the world. Religious traditions provide
structure, discipline, and social participation in a community.”^28 Friedman uses
theimageofanolivetreeanditsdeepand stable roots in the title of his book
The Lexus and the Olive Treeto underscore the powerful and enduring quality of
religion to a collection of people.^29 Witness the importance of religion’s collective
force in the word“religion”itself.“The wordreligioncomes from the Latin word
religare,whichmeans‘to tie.’”^30 The obvious implication is that religion ties peo-
ple to a set of prescribed beliefs.
An intriguing aspect of religion is that it has attempted to explain the workings of
the world—and in some cases the next world—for thousands of years. Whether
through institutions such as the Catholic Church, spiritual and social leaders like
Buddha and Confucius, or the teachings of the Bible, Vedas, Koran, Torah, and I
Ching, people have always had a need to look outside themselves and seek help
when addressing questions about mortality, immortality, and the origins of the uni-
verse. Religion also takes on the task of trying to explain what are often called the
cosmic and complex issues all people must deal with. Fisher and Luyster allude to
some of those issues when they write,“All religions help to uncover meaningfulness
in the midst of the mundane. They do so by exploring the transpersonal dimensions
of life–the eternal and infinite.”^31
What is being stated in all of our examples is that religion offers its followers a
worldview that provides a set of principles and beliefs about the nature of life and
death, the creation of the universe, the connection of individuals and groups to one
another, and the relationship of humankind to the earth. All of these give credenceA major characteristic
of religion as a
worldview is that it
provides people with a
belief in the existence
of a reality greater
than themselves.Courtesy of Edwin McDanielReligion as a Worldview 109Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).