tors and witches and perform rituals to placate the former and
restrain the latter. This does not happen in ChristianNorthern Ire-
land. If the atlas says anything about religion, it is using a very con-
fusing notion of religion.
The diversity of religion is not just the fact that some people are
called or call themselves Buddhist and others Baptist. It goes deeper,
in how people conceive of supernatural agents and what they think
these agents are like or what they can do, in the morality that is
derived from religious beliefs, in the rituals performed and in many
other ways. Consider the following findings of anthropology.:
Supernatural agents can be very different. Religion is about the [7]
existence and causal powers of nonobservable entities and
agencies. These may be one unique God or many different
gods or spirits or ancestors, or a combination of these differ-
ent kinds. Some people have one "supreme" god, but this
does not always mean that he or she is terribly important. In
many places in Africa there are two supreme gods. One is a
very abstract supreme deity and the other is more down-to-
earth, as it were, since he created all things cultural: tools and
domesticated animals, villages and society. But neither of
them is really involved in people's everyday affairs, where
ancestors, spirits and witches are much more important.
Some gods die. It may seem obvious that gods are always
thought to be eternal. We might even think that this must be
part of the definition of "god." However, many Buddhists
think that gods, just like humans, are caught in a never-ending
cycle of births and reincarnations. So gods will die like all
other creatures. This, however, takes a long time and that is
why humans since times immemorial pray to the same gods. If
anything, gods are disadvantaged in comparison with humans.
Unlike gods, we could, at least in principle, escape from the
cycle of life and suffering. Gods must first be reincarnated as
humans to do that.
Many spirits are really stupid. To a Christian it seems quite
obvious that you cannot fool God, but in many places, fooling
superhuman agents is possible and in fact even necessary. In
Siberia, for instance, people are careful to use metaphorical
language when talking about important matters. This is
because nasty spirits often eavesdrop on humans and try to
foil their plans. Now spirits, despite their superhuman pow-
WHATISTHEORIGIN?