To be religious it is not enough that one perceive the world and the people in it as radically defective and fundamentally unimprovable by human effort individually or collectively; one must also believe that there is a way out of our predicament. Religious practices have a soteriological point: they aim at finding salvation from the condition in which we find ourselves, and thus they presuppose the possibility of salvation from it. Religious and spiritual practices, in other words, are part of a quest for salvation. Someone who, in accordance with Part I, experiences the deficiencies of the human condition, but does not believe in the possibility of salvation from it, is not a religious type but a nihilist. Salvation can of course be interpreted in different ways. It may be interpreted as a mystic realization accessible here and now that, at metaphysical bottom and despite appearances, all is well. Or it may be interpreted as a state that comes after death, or even at the end of history.
In sum, a second essential characteristic of religion is the belief that salvation is possible, salvation from a predicament that is perceived as fundamentally unsatisfactory and fundamentally insusceptible of improvement by unaided human effort, whether individual or collective.
Related Posts (on one page):
- John Hick's Religious Ambiguity Thesis
- What is Religion, Part III
- What is Religion, Part II
- What Is Religion? Part I
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4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.