Religion

Religion is an explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, based on a notion and experience of the Transcendent, and how to live accordingly. It contains the four “C’s”: Creed refers to everything that goes into the “explanation” of the ultimate meaning of life. Code of behavior, or ethics, are all the rules and customs of action that follow from the Creed. Cult are the ritual activities that relate the follower to the Transcendent: prayer, meditation, fasting.... Community-structure is the relationship among the followers; it can vary from an egalitarian relationship, as among Quakers, to a monarchical one, as with Catholics. The Transcendent, means “that which goes beyond” the every-day, surface experience of reality. It can mean spirits, gods, a Personal God, Impersonal God, Emptiness, etc. In modern times there have been developed “explanations of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly” not based on the Transcendent, e.g., secular humanism. Although these “explanations” function as religions do in human life, because the Transcendent is not included they are given a different name, which often is Ideology.