3. Optional themes / 3.

4 Knowledge and religion

The big picture

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Figure 1. Is religion a
necessary component of civilisation?
Credit: Nerthuz Getty Images

Writing at the time of the Italian Enlightenment, philosopher

Giambattista Vico remarked, ‘Without religion no commonwealths
can be born.’ Intuitively, this statement certainly seems true as,
according to Emory University’s Professor Frans de Waal, there are
no societies without religion. So does religion give birth to society, as
Vico claimed, or does society give birth to religion?

Some other key questions emerge from Vico’s statement such as,
‘What is religion?’, ‘Where did religion come from?’ and ‘Do humans
need religion?’ These same questions could just as easily be posed
with regard to some other areas of knowledge such as science or
history. What is unique about religion, however, is that it has been
interwoven with the human experience since the first homo
sapiens began living in large groups on the African savanna.

The question regarding what constitutes religion is certainly easier to

respond to than the other questions posed above, as religion has a
definition. French sociologist Emile Durkheim defined religion as ‘ a
unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things’.
Although the precise language regarding the definition of religion
can vary, all definitions focus on shared experience through

ritual
and the integration of sacred or
supernatural
elements.

Be aware

The term supernatural refers to any element that is beyond or

apart from the physical world and the established scientific laws that
govern the physical world.

The term sacred refers to something that has religious significance

or meaning.

The term religion refers to an organised set of beliefs and rituals

focused on the supernatural and sacred.
Analysing the role of shared experiences and rituals within human
societies can help us to answer the second question posed above,
‘Where does religion come from?’ Some theories regarding why
religion has been an integral part of human society since the
beginning will be addressed in section 3.4.3 . In the meantime, listen
to religious scholar Reza Aslan discuss where religion came from in
the Big Think video here.

For many religious individuals, however, the question of where

religion came from or why societies have religion is

superfluous
. It is superfluous because the answer is clear – religion comes
directly from the God(s) it worships.
From an Egyptian perspective, religion came from their Gods. From a
Christian perspective, Christianity was revealed to humanity by God
and through Jesus Christ. From an Islamic perspective, Islam was
given to humanity by God and through Mohammad. Ancestral
religions did not have holy books of revelation in the same way that
modern

monotheistic
 religions do, but the beliefs and rituals associated with them were
indeed believed to come from supernatural sources of information
and inspiration.
Of course, the problem with holding a belief that religion was given
to humanity by supernatural intervention belies the fact pointed out
by Dr. de Waal that religion is as old as human society itself. Coupled
with the fact that there is a diverse array of religious variance that
anthropologists, sociologists and historians have documented
throughout recorded (and pre-recorded) history, a claim can be
made that the ‘gift’ theory of the origin of religion is short-sighted at
best and self-centred at worst.

A counterclaim to this, which is often made by religious individuals,

is that all ‘other’ religions are human made and culturally
constructed while ‘my’ religion is the one true religion. When
pressed for evidence to support this claim, a religious individual will
cite their religious texts that document the revelations made to
humanity by their God(s). The extent to which religious evidence of
this type can or should be considered valid will be a focus of analysis
in section 3.4.3 .

Since religion has been, and continues to be, such an integral part of
human societies (and perhaps even non-human societies ), it is
crucial to analyse the last question posed above, ‘Do humans need
religion?’ and this will be discussed in section 3.4.1 .

As a whole, this section will focus on the ways in which religion has
influenced, and continues to influence, knowledge. What type of
knowledge does religion create? Is it more certain than other types
of knowledge or less so? If religious diversity coincides with cultural
diversity, is religious knowledge culturally bound? What are the
methods of religious knowledge construction and is religious
knowledge rational? Lastly, we’ll focus on what many experts believe
may have been the cause of religious development – ethical
instruction.

It is important to understand that, as you move through this

subtopic, some of your own personally held beliefs or ideas may be
challenged. Such self-reflection and evaluation should not be viewed
as threatening to your individual religion because, as the famous
theologian Paul Tillich said, ‘Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it is an
element of faith’. It is also important to note that, at no time, will any
specific religion or religious belief be analysed for their validity.
Religion as a whole will be analysed and examples of different
religious practices, claims and influences on knowledge will be used
as examples and contexts for analysis.

Theory of knowledge is designed to require you to reflect on your

own personal assumptions, knowledge and beliefs. If religion is a big
part of your life, then, inevitably, self-reflection on the role of religion
in these regards will be a part of your TOK experience. TOK requires
us all to ask, ‘How do I know that?’ It is appropriate therefore to
apply this question to elements of religious doctrine, knowledge and
belief.

Concept

Some of the major concepts and questions that will be addressed in

this subtopic focus on the role of authority in creating knowledge
and the extent to which religions serve to create
hierarchical power structures or tear them down. Interestingly,
where other AOKs embrace doubt, religions tend to
favour certainty and frequently make claims about what
is true without the type of evidence that modern societies have
come to value. Speaking of values, we’ll examine the very important
role that religions play in disseminating the cultural values of a
given society and investigate claims that this particular task is the
primary function of religions.
3. Optional themes / 3.4 Knowledge and religion

Scope
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Figure 1. The
scope of religious inquiry and knowledge claims ranges from
prescriptions for how to live your daily life to answering the most
important questions such as, ‘Why do we exist?’ and ‘What happens
to us when we die?’
Credit: Arctic-Images Getty Images

Religious suffering is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of

a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of
the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the
people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to
give up their illusions of their condition is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusions.

(Karl Marx, 1843)

According to the quote above, what questions can religion answer
that other areas of knowledge cannot? Put another way, if
knowledge is a map, what territory does religion occupy?

Activity
What is the scope of religion?

Brainstorm some answers to the two questions posed above: ‘What

questions can religion answer that other areas of knowledge
cannot?’ and ‘If knowledge is a map, what territory does religion
occupy?’ When completed, share your answers with the class.
It is important to evaluate answers to these questions because the
answers can inform our understanding of other domains of religious
knowledge creation such as methodology, perspectives and ethics.
For example, if religions can answer questions regarding the
afterlife, then religions must create methodologies for deriving
knowledge about the afterlife as well as ethical guidelines about how
to achieve a good afterlife (ethics).

What Marx is saying in the quote above is that given the history of
humankind’s environments, both natural and constructed, there is
no other wellspring of happiness, hope and internal wellbeing that
exists and thus religion becomes necessary. If knowledge is a map,
Marx would claim that religion occupies the area of the map
concerned with qualitative states of individual and collective
wellbeing. Remember, however, that Marx believed that religion was
only contextually necessary, not absolutely necessary. Therefore, if
human environments changed so that the majority of individuals
could derive happiness, hope and internal wellbeing from other
environmental elements and institutions, then religion would no
longer be necessary.

Clearly, religion is still viewed as something that is necessary, as,

according to a 2017 Pew Research Study , 84% of the world
population still identifies with some type of religion, and Christianity,
as the world’s largest religion, represents 31% of individuals
globally. Given the incredibly large proportion of the global
population that still identifies with a religion, an important
knowledge question to ask is the following.

Important

Knowledge question

 What problems of knowledge do religions attempt to solve that

other areas of knowledge cannot?
To be clear, there is no problem of knowledge that religions have not
attempted to solve. However, after the scientific revolution and
enlightenment, many modern religions have lost intellectual ground
to other areas of knowledge that use tools and methodologies of
knowledge construction that yield more accurate and valid results as
well as objective evidence. As Sam Harris points out in the Big Think
video here, what was once considered demonic possession in a
Christian culture is now understood to be the neurological disorder of
epilepsy. This is one example that demonstrates a link between the
rapid expansion of knowledge over the past 600 years, and the
reduction the role of religion as a fountain of knowledge pertaining
to all elements of life.

In an attempt to settle the intellectual dispute between religious

knowledge systems and other areas of knowledge, Harvard
evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed a principle of Non-
overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) . This principle proposed that science
and religion should stick to solving problems of knowledge for which
they were methodologically best equipped to do so.

Thus, in response to the knowledge question posed above, Dr. Gould

would claim that the problems of knowledge which religion can and
should attempt to solve and which other AOKs cannot are those
concerning individual purpose.

Making connections

Can valid knowledge be gained through personal introspection (self-

reflection)?
Not everyone agrees with Dr. Gould. Some argue that other areas of
knowledge can and do address questions of life’s purpose, meaning
and value. Positive psychology is one such perspective within the
discipline of psychology that concerns itself with addressing these
questions via a scientific approach. Richard Davison of the University
of Wisconsin is one prominent positive psychologist who has
leveraged the tools of science in order to answer questions about
meaning and happiness. Davison is perhaps most famous for placing
the Dalai Llama in an fMRI machine as well as studying the brain of
the ‘happiest man alive’, Matthieu Richard, in an attempt to
understand the role of the religious ritual of meditation on human
wellbeing. In addition to scientifically studying meditation, Dr
Davison has established The Center For Healthy Minds with the goal
of exploring the mind in order to ‘cultivate wellbeing and alleviate
suffering’.

Additional research by neuroscientists and psychologists has focused

on yoga, a physical activity that emerged in India within the Hindu
religious tradition. Research has demonstrated a link between
practising yoga and reduced stress and anxiety. Research has also
found that exercise of all types, including yoga, can reduce
symptoms associated with the psychological disorder of depression.
Neuroscientists and psychologists from all over the world are using
the tools of science to investigate mindsets and behaviours that lead
to happiness and wellbeing.
 Figure 2. Science
is currently investigating behaviours and practices that contribute to
happiness and thus answers to questions pertaining to the ‘good life’
are not solely under the purview of religions.
Source: " Portrait de Matthieu Ricard.jpg " by Jon Schmidt is licensed under CC BY-SA "

Thus the sciences can and do address certain questions of purpose,

meaning and value. However, there remain some questions outside
the purview of the sciences that many individuals still require an
answer to such as, ‘What happens to me when I die?’ and ‘Why is
there something rather than nothing?’ These questions are but two
examples of the types of questions that religions provide answers to
while other areas of knowledge cannot. Many people believe that
these are the most important questions to ask because they get at
the very nature of existence: life and death. It may be cool to know
that the universe is expanding but how does that help to relieve
your

existential angst
?
Existential questions such as these are definitely some of the most
important questions that can be asked; however, they’re also the
most difficult to answer. Therefore, a key knowledge question is the
following.

Important

Knowledge question

 Is certainty of knowledge attainable within religion?

The answer to this question depends greatly on the perspective from

which you answer it. From the perspective of an individual who
adheres strictly to the teachings of their religion and has full

faith
in those teachings, the answer to this question is
wholeheartedly ‘yes’. Evidence in support of this claim can be found
in statistics pertaining to the number of religious affiliated suicide
bombings. In 2019, there were 149 suicide bombings . Fifty percent
of those bombings were carried out by members of the Islamic State.
The Islamic State is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation seeking to
establish a territory of control in northern Iraq. For a suicide bomber,
there is no greater certainty than death, and religiously motivated
suicide bombers, such as those of the Islamic State, are certain that
they are going to achieve an afterlife, as the would-be suicide
bomber in the following video attests to.
Certainty, therefore, is clearly possible within religious knowledge
systems. However, one need not rely on the extremes of religious
belief in order to find certainty within religion. If you were to visit a
church on a Sunday, a mosque on a Friday or a synagogue on a
Saturday and ask any of the practitioners present if they were
certain that God exists, you would surely get more yes answers than
no.

As will be discussed in greater detail in section 3.4.3 , certainty is

possible with regard to religious knowledge because faith on the part
of the religious practitioner is at the core of all religions, and faith, by
definition, is the belief in something without sufficient evidence in
support of that belief. The suicide bomber has no evidence that they
will enjoy an afterlife after detonating their bomb, but they have
certainty that they will because they have unwavering faith in their
religion and its knowledge claims.

The circular nature of faith, evidence and knowledge within religions

allows followers to make knowledge claims related to the most
complex and meaningful questions of existence while remaining
impervious to the criticism that they lack evidence.

So, if faith serves as the evidence of certainty for a given religion’s

knowledge, an individual lacking faith in the religion will claim that
there is insufficient evidence to generate certainty regarding
knowledge claims made by that religion.

Important

Knowledge question

 To what extent do scientific developments have the power to

influence thinking about religion? Is faith a prerequisite for
religious knowledge?

Science certainly has, and will continue to, influence thinking about
religion. However, faith is an incredibly powerful phenomenon and
there are many individuals in the world today who would more
readily assent to knowledge claims made by their local religious
authority than their local scientist.

1n 1996, Pope John Paul II made a statement about evolution to the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences stating:

Theories of evolution which regard the spirit as either emerging from

the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that
matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.
Pope John Paul, along with millions of faithful Catholics the world
over, is certain that a soul exists and that humankind did not evolve
from apes because, as he states in the same Papal address,
‘Revelations tells us that Man is created in the image and likeness of
God...in other words, the human person cannot be subordinated as a
means to an end’. Here we see religion attempting to answer the
question ‘Where did we come from?’ For a scientist, the answer is
‘from apes and other animals through a long causal line of
evolution’. However, for Pope John Paul II and many other adherents
to Catholicism’s teachings, the answer is ‘from God’.

When pressed for evidence for each claim, the scientist will present
archaeological, genetic and biological evidence demonstrating the
theory’s validity. The evidence Pope John Paul II cites in support of
this certainly is a religious text and his faith in that text. Of course,
this line of argumentation is circular and thus invalid. In matters of
faith, however, logic has no say.

Religion has a scope of knowledge claims that is vast. From the

perspective of an ardent adherent, the evidence in support of those
claims is their faith. However, from the perspective of a non-believer
in the religion’s teachings, there is no evidence to support any
claims regarding knowledge.

Returning to the quote at the beginning of this section, Marx referred

to religion as creating an ‘illusory happiness’ and called for its
abolition. However, Marx simultaneously recognised the intrinsic
need for people to have faith in a greater meaning and purpose to
their lives. In creating the concept of NOMA, Stephen Jay Gould also
believed that the scope of religion was unique in its ability to answer
life’s deepest questions that are out of reach of scientific
methodologies. These will be examined further
in Perspectives (see section 3.4.2).
3. Optional themes / 3.4 Knowledge and religion

Perspectives
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Figure 1. In
native American cultures, religion played a major role in healing
physical and mental ailments. This blend of medicine and religion is
exemplified by the prominent position of the healer within many
native American cultures such as the Navajo, pictured here.
Credit: The Granger Collection app.tt.se

How have perspectives regarding religious

knowledge changed over time?
Like many knowledge questions within religious knowledge systems,
the answer to the question above depends greatly upon the
perspective from which you answer it. For strict adherents of
religious teachings, their perspective regarding religious knowledge
and the truth claims available to their religion have not changed
much since the religion was created as they come from religious
texts and authority figures whose role is to interpret the texts and
make knowledge claims based on their contents.

However, many modern followers of religion would be considered

‘moderate’ by standards of the past as there are individuals who
have faith in some of the teachings of their religion, and certainly
consider themselves spiritual, but do not believe all the claims put
forward. This ‘customisation’ of one’s personal experience with
religion is greatly related to interpretation.

Important

Defining terms

Four important terms related to religious knowledge systems are

theism
,
polytheism
,
atheism
and
agnosticism
. Theism refers to a belief in a supernatural God. Polytheism refers
to a belief in the existence of many supernatural Gods. Atheism is
the non-belief in a supernatural God, while agnosticism is the belief
that there is neither enough evidence to confirm the existence of a
supernatural God nor enough evidence to refute the existence of a
supernatural God. In short, an individual who holds an agnostic
perspective can be said to be supernaturally ‘undecided’.
Because most religions are based on texts that are static, that is,
they are no longer edited and updated, they must be interpreted.

For individuals who choose to interpret the texts literally, there is not
much room for variety of interpretative meaning and thus strict or
literal interpretations of religious texts lead to narrow perspectives
regarding religious-based knowledge and knowledge claims.

Examples from Christianity of literal interpretations of texts that

result in knowledge beliefs would include individuals who do not
believe in evolution or the scientifically established age of the
universe, but prefer to believe the explanations for these that are
contained within one of their holy books (Genesis).

However, from the point of view of adherents of a religion who are

not

religious literalists
, time and modernity have brought a major change in perspective
with regard to religion. This perspective shifts away from interpreting
holy books as the literal words of the God or Gods and instead
interprets the teachings contained within holy books as
metaphorical
or
allegorical
in nature. This change in perspective allows for a more customisable
and personal religious experience and is explained quite insightfully
by Presbyterian Pastor Tim Keller in the Big Think video here.

Activity

Considering points and counterpoints

After watching the discussion of literalism versus interpretation with

regard to holy books by Pastor Keller above, watch the counter point
put forth by Sam Harris .
After you’ve listened to both men articulate their views on the role of
holy books in religious knowledge, answer the following questions
with a partner.

1. Define religious literalism.

2. Summarise Pastor Keller’s thesis in two sentences or fewer.
3. Summarise Sam Harris’ thesis in two sentences or fewer.
4. What are the implications of each thinker’s argument regarding
knowledge construction within religion?
5. With which thinker do you agree? Why?

Pastor Keller articulated the more modern perspective within

religions that allows for an updated interpretation of the knowledge
claims made within their corresponding holy books. This
acknowledgment partly stems from the fact that these texts were
written by humans and are therefore historically and culturally
bound. For example, according to the Old Testament of the Bible,
adultery, blasphemy, worshipping Gods other than Yaweh and sexual
activity prior to marriage should be punished by death.

Thankfully, time has led to changing perspectives with regard to

literal interpretations of sacred texts within religions, and the
predominant perspective is no longer literalism. However, for many
critics of knowledge claims made by religions, selective
interpretation or selective literalism is still unacceptable, which
brings up the following knowledge question.

Important

Knowledge question

 To what extent is it legitimate for a non-believer to criticise the

content of a religious belief?

One response to this knowledge question is that it is not legitimate

for a non-believer to criticise the content of religious belief.
University of Reading religious philosopher John Cottingham supports
this claim on the basis that elements of religious language and
knowledge should not be abstracted from the whole. He puts forth a
‘fruit juicer’ analogy and states:

Someone who has tasted strawberries only via the output of the
juicer, and has firmly decided ‘this is not for me’, may turn out to
have a radically impoverished grasp of what it is about the fruit that
makes the strawberry lover so enthusiastic.
Cottingham’s perspective is that the comprehensive elements of
religion – the ritual, the community, the metaphor, the poetry, the
aspirational goals and the shared belief – all lead to a whole that is
greater than the sum of its parts with regard to insight and
understanding. To strip away the interactive nature of all those
elements is to strip away core elements of meaning and truth.

Activity

Changing perspectives on religious belief

Choose an adult in your life to have a conversation with about their

own perspectives regarding religion and religious knowledge. Some
questions to ask could be:

1. Have your religious beliefs changed over time?

2. Were there any specific personal events or experiences that
distinctly contributed to your changing beliefs?
3. Do you believe that religious belief guides your everyday life?
4. Do you believe that religious belief is supported by evidence?
What type of evidence?
5. Do you believe that religious belief should be integrated in
societal laws and legislation?

Just as judging a piece of art outside the context in which it was

created often reduces its quality, Cottingham believes that it is
inappropriate to judge religious knowledge claims outside their
context – don’t judge the fruit by the juice.
 Figure 2. Professor Cottingham
contends that to abstract from their context particular religious
beliefs and knowledge claims for the purpose of critique is akin to
assessing the quality of a mango by only drinking its juice.
Credit: apomares Getty Images

Another analogy in support of this claim can be made regarding the

emotion of romantic love. Someone who reads Romeo and Juliet and
has never experienced feelings of romantic love themselves might
marvel at the foolishness of the two teenagers. Would it be
appropriate for a love-naive individual to critique their beliefs?

Psychology professor and famed internet intellectual, Jordan

Peterson, shares Cottingham’s belief that, as a total package,
religion can offer valid knowledge claims. Peterson’s perspective is
that religious knowledge claims should be limited to those that are
moral in nature and that individuals outside the religion who critique
those claims are naive to the value of religion as a positive cultural
force. As Peterson describes below in a debate with Sam Harris, the
‘packaging’ of religion in literature and ritual combines to create an
incredibly effective delivery system of moral and ethical knowledge
claims.
Another perspective is that it is illegitimate for a non-believer to
critique the content of a religious belief because beliefs are
subjective and personal. As mentioned in Scope, religious knowledge
claims focus on some of the most personal and important questions
of existence and thus beliefs surrounding answers to those questions
are highly personal. A religious individual might say, ‘Why do you
care what I believe?’ Many people hold the perspective that if a
belief is personal and does not affect anyone else, then no one
should have issues with those beliefs.

Making connections

How does our own theism, atheism or agnosticism have an impact

on our perspective when interpreting religious knowledge claims or
assessing them for validity? Do you believe that your belief or non-
belief in a religious knowledge system affect your beliefs in other
disciplines and AOK such as ethics, history, law, human sciences and
natural sciences?
An alternative perspective, however, is that, too often, religious
beliefs do not stay personal.

Figure
3. When religious beliefs affect individuals who are non-believers,
they become worthy of external criticism and scrutiny.
Source: "Westboro Baptist Church Protest and Counterprotest" by Travis Wise by CC BY 2.0
This line of reasoning also serves to counter Cottingham’s position
that religious beliefs and knowledge claims should not be extracted
from the whole because doing so strips them of their necessary
context. However, it could be said that critiques of religious
knowledge claims do not rely on abstraction alone. There are very
lucid and context-free knowledge claims and beliefs that exist within
religions that are able to be kept whole and do not lose meaning
when abstracted for the purpose of scrutiny.

Examples of such claims are:

 there is life after death

 God exists
 there is some knowledge in our sacred texts that is
supernaturally derived through revelation.

These claims are abstracted from a variety of religions and yet their
meaning is highly ambiguous. Each of these claims have
undoubtedly created a great deal of good in the world in their own
way; however, they have also individually and collectively
contributed to a great deal of suffering and evil as well. Thus it is
quite legitimate for a non-believer to criticise the content of religious
beliefs when those beliefs affect others.

Just as foundational knowledge claims have intellectual ripple effects

in other areas of knowledge, such as the way in which mathematics
is linked to the sciences, so too within religion. Belief in an afterlife
may lead to a willingness and desire to adhere to the teachings of a
given religion in order to achieve a good afterlife or even immortality
as the fear of death is an incredibly powerful fear.

Belief in an afterlife or rebirth, the quality of which depends on one’s

goodness in this life, can propel people towards doing good deeds
and exhibiting virtues. But it can also propel individuals towards
committing violence in the name of their religion, whether that be
participating in the Catholic sanctioned Crusades during the Middle
Ages or becoming a suicide bomber over the last few decades. When
one is certain of a life after death, putting yourself in a situation in
which death is a likely outcome suddenly becomes much more
acceptable.

Activity

Are religions inherently violent or peaceful?

Throughout history, there have been innumerable violent acts
committed in the name of, or inspired by, religion. Likewise, religious
beliefs have at times inspired pacificism or non-violent resistance. A
controversial question therefore is, ‘Are religions violent or are
people violent?’

This activity requires that you thoroughly engage with this question
via a written response or a debate. The choice of how you address
both sides of the issue is up to you and your teacher depending on
your cultural context and level of comfort having such a
conversation. Thus the two task options are:

1. Write a persuasive essay arguing whether or not religions are

inherently violent or inherently peaceful.
2. Have a debate in your class in which half of the class argues
from the perspective that religions are inherently violent and
the other half argues from the perspective that religions are
inherently peaceful.

Thus many ardent anti-theists and anti-religious scholars believe

that it is their duty to criticise religion in order to free religious
adherents from intellectual bondage and liberate the rest of the
world from the deleterious effects of that bondage. To anti-religious
scholars like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens,
religions are dangerous because the negative ripple effects they
have in the world far outweigh the positive ones. From their
perspective, not only is it legitimate for a non-believer to argue
against religious knowledge claims and belief but it is of fundamental
necessity.

These concerns are articulated briefly by Oxford Biologist Richard

Dawkins below.

In the video clip above, Dawkins mentions that religion is deeply tied
to culture and vice versa. Certainly, the relationship between culture
and religion is one that is bidirectional, and thus an important
knowledge question is the following.

Important

Knowledge question
 Can there be religious knowledge that is independent of the
culture that produces it?
3. Optional themes / 3.4 Knowledge and religion

Methods and tools

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Figure 1. Many
experts believe that our biological predisposition to assign agency to
phenomena in our environment contributed to the advent of religion.
This predisposition still persists and contributes to human religious
inclinations.
Credit: Enjoylife2 Getty Images

Where did religion come from?

In order to analyse the methods and tools used to create knowledge
within religious knowledge systems, it is important to first analyse
where religions came from.

As discussed in The big picture, the answer to the question, ‘Where

did religion come from?’ depends on your perspective. If you are a
follower of a religion, you believe that the religion came from your
God and/or the sacred individuals within your religion. To an
anthropologist or sociologist, however, the creation of religion was a
useful, and perhaps inevitable, occurrence given the social and
intellectual development of the human species.
Thinkers such as Scot Atran , Yuval Noah Harari , Justin
Barrett and Pascal Boyer all believe that religions emerged as a
result of both biological and societal factors.

Two main biological factors that researchers have identified as being

elements that greatly contributed to the creation of religion focus on
the fact that homo sapiens possess the following:

1. the hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD)

2. theory of mind.

The HADD is responsible for the way in which humans are naturally
inclined to assume purposeful intervention of an agent in an event
that may be naturally occurring. It is the cognitive process of seeing
a random event and coming to the conclusion that it was intentional.
If you are walking in the woods and hear a rustling in the bushes, is
your first thought, ‘Oh that’s the wind’ or is your first thought, ‘Is
that an animal?’ From an evolutionary perspective, it is adaptive for
humans to possess the cognitive default of causal agency (that is, to
assume that acts are intentional and happen for a reason) because
this stimulates an automatic fight or flight response which is
important for survival. Imagine if this automatic response did not
exist. The fight or flight response would not be activated in reaction
to an unknown stimulus that posed a threat and this could result in
death. It is better to run in response to an unknown sound than wait
to see whether or not it was caused by a large predator.

Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists believe that this

evolutionarily beneficial default cognitive response, which sees
events in the world as the result of causal intent, led to the natural
phenomena being attributed to unseen entities such as gods, and
thus religious knowledge systems developed.

The HADD that humans possess is not limited to finding causes for
natural events in the context of religion. It can also attribute causes
for random events where none exist. A clear example of this is the
extent to which we erroneously attribute causation where there is
merely correlation. If you’ve ever had a pair of ‘lucky socks’, a
monster in your closet, or some other superstitious element or
routine in your life, you too have misattributed causal agency to an
action or behaviour.
 Figure
2. Attributing your quality performance in an athletic competition to
the pair of socks you are wearing is an example of a hypersensitive
agency detection device at work.
Credit: sot Getty Images

Another possible explanation for a biological disposition towards

belief in the supernatural is theory of mind. Theory of mind was a
term established by Jean Piaget while working on human cognitive
development. As children reach four or five years of age, they
typically develop a ‘theory of mind’ whereby knowledge, beliefs and
other cognitive states are attributed to others, not just ourselves.
Theory of mind is connected to empathy as it allows you to ‘put
yourself in someone else’s shoes’ and consider the world from their
perspective. Theory of mind allows for the existence of mind sets,
understandings and knowledge that are different from our own. Such
an appreciation is necessary for belief in a supernatural God.

Many experts within the natural and human sciences therefore

believe that the combination of theory of mind, the understanding
that there are other minds out there, and the HADD led to belief in
the supernatural and, in time, the establishment of religion. In
speaking with Sam Harris about the origins of religion on his Making
Sense podcast, Sapiens author Noah Yuval Harari stated, ‘Our mind
is a factory creating stories that give meaning to life’.

The video below provides a quick synopsis of the development of

supernatural belief and religious formation, and although HADD or
theory of mind are not mentioned by name, see if you can recognise
each of these elements in the narrative provided.
Given that humans have a natural proclivity to believe in
supernatural agents with minds and desires of their own, methods
and tools of knowledge construction within religions tend to
capitalise on these natural proclivities for the purpose of creating
knowledge and spreading belief. A technique that is effective in
coordinating belief and providing an intellectual and emotional
anchor for causation is ritual. A key knowledge question is therefore
the following.

Important

Knowledge question

 Do ritual and habit play a role in the formation of religious

knowledge?

‘History began when humans invented gods’ – Yuval

Noah Harari
It was stated earlier that modern thinkers believe religion came
about because of both biological and societal development. This is
somewhat of a misstatement, as many historians and
anthropologists believe that religion facilitated the creation of
society.

Be aware

The majority of definitions of religion include ritual as a defining

feature. Thus if a belief system does not have shared and codified
rituals it is usually not considered a religion.
Best-selling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari is one of the
experts who believes religion facilitated the creation of societies. In
his influential work, Sapiens , Harari makes the point that, prior to
religions and what he refers to as ‘shared myths’, social,
technological and intellectual advancements were massively stunted
because, without shared myths, humans could not live in groups
larger than 100 or so individuals.

Harari contends that shared myths are necessary for large-scale

cooperation and interpersonal peace because myths create shared
trust. Harari believes that once religion was invented, it provided a
myth as well as a set of rituals and habits that served to establish
mutual trust and unite humans. For Harari, the impact of the
creation of ‘shared myths’, which includes religious knowledge,
cannot be overstated. Harari makes the point that homo
sapiens existed in a general state of intellectual and societal
stagnation for 250,000 years until the invention of shared myths led
to a cultural and societal explosion. Harari believes that the creation
of collectively agreed-upon fictions is crucially important for the
creation of a society because:

Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a

medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe – is rooted in
common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.

Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on

crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe
that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be
crucified to redeem our sins.
Inventing a myth is one thing; however, getting people to believe in
it is quite another. One highly effective methodology for establishing
social cohesion and trust is ritual. Humans are social creatures and
thus shared experience has an important effect on our cognition.
Psychological science has investigated this impact throughout the
years. One such study was recently conducted by the University of
Toronto in which they had one group of participants engage in a
shared but meaningless ritual of filling up cups of water and stacking
coins within them. The other group of participants engaged in no
such ritual. The researchers then asked the participants to play an
economic trust game in which they gifted money to individuals in the
hope of receiving money back. The researchers found that the
individuals who engaged in the shared ritual showed much greater
levels of trust, as measured by the amount of money they entrusted
to strangers during the game.
 Figure 3. Rituals
are an important element of both religious and secular life as they
create shared experiences and thus shared trust among members of
social groups.
Credit: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc Getty Images

Harvard sociologist and founder of behavioural sociology, George

Homans said with regard to ritual:

Ritual actions do not produce a practical result on the external world

– that is one of the reasons why we call them ritual. But to make this
statement is not to say that ritual has no function . . . it gives
members of the society confidence, it dispels their anxieties, and it
disciplines their social organizations.
Rituals are central to knowledge creation in religions not only
because they facilitate trust and social cohesion but also because
they provide a

correlational
anchor upon which our HADD can anchor causality and agency.

Making connections

Identify some rituals in your life that are religiously derived. In what
ways do these rituals serve to create meaning in your life via societal
or personal connection? Examples could be gathering as a family
during Christmas, confirmation, Bar or Bat Mitzvah, Ramadan, or
celebrating Diwali.
 Credit: Hafiz Ismail / EyeEm Getty Images
Source:"Novices meditating.jpg" by Honey Kochphon Onshawee / CC0, Public Domain

Figure 4. Praying and meditating are very similar rituals shared by many religions. The role
of ritual in creating and cementing belief will be discussed in this section.

Take, for example, the ritual so frequently found in modern religions

– prayer. Prayer involves both meditating on the teachings of a given
god while simultaneously communicating with that god. Often,
individuals will make requests in their prayers. These requests could
be as broad as continuing to have good health or as specific as
winning a championship game or earning a grade A on an upcoming
IB exam.

If requests come to fruition, the ‘answered’ prayer often serves as

evidence for the existence of god and related knowledge claims
made by the religion. But from a scientific perspective, this is not
valid evidence as the relationship between the request made in
prayer and the request coming to fruition is correlational and not
causal.

In ancient religions, human sacrifices to gods that resulted in

bringing about the desired result served to strengthen belief in the
efficacy of such a practice. In both cases, the religious ritual was
used as an anchor upon which to moor supernatural agency.

Making connections

Do you agree with Carl Sagan’s idea that ‘extraordinary claims

require extraordinary evidence’?
Thus an effective method of knowledge construction within religions
is the creation of ritual and traditions for the purpose of establishing
social cohesion, commitment to the group and shared trust.
All modern religions have rituals associated with major life events
such as birth, marriage and death. In addition, religious holidays are
established to deepen the role of ritual in everyday life and
strengthen bonds.

Activity

Rituals in your life

Make a list of rituals and traditions that are important to you. After
you have made the list, choose three to analyse by answering the
following questions.

1. How long have you been engaged in this ritual/tradition?

2. What emotions do you feel when you think about this
ritual/tradition?
3. Can you identify any ‘core values’ that the ritual/tradition
implicitly instructs?
4. Do you believe that this ritual/tradition is important in your life?
What purpose does this ritual/tradition serve to you?

As mentioned, and as you probably discovered while engaging in the

activity above, rituals create trust. Trust itself is not a method or tool
of knowledge construction per se , but it is a necessary component
of another tool – faith.

Important

Knowledge question

 What is the role of faith in religious knowledge?

Trust and faith are interrelated because in order to believe claims

made by an individual in the absence of evidence, you must trust
them. Faith is central to religious belief, and for many modern
adherents of religion it is the distinguishing factor that makes
religion so very beautiful.

Hope is not faith, but it is certainly a close relation to faith and, in a

way, hope is faith in the future. Religious knowledge claims are often
about the future and religions are certainly focused on hope. Thus
religious knowledge claims leverage both hope and faith: hope that
the future will bring either continued good fortune or improved
wellbeing and faith that the religion’s belief system will bring the
adherent’s hopes to fruition. The University of Clemson’s head
football coach, Dabo Swinney, articulates what faith and hope mean
to him in this video.

A key question related to the knowledge question above is whether

or not it is rational to have belief in religious knowledge claims in the
absence of evidence? According to the 17th century French
mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, it is entirely rational to
agree with knowledge claims made by a religion because such
claims focus on the most profound questions – specifically, life after
death and eternal happiness.

Pascal argued that it is rational and logically prudent to agree with

religious beliefs because the cost of doing so is very low while the
cost of not doing so is very high. In the Christian tradition, the cost of
faith in religious knowledge claims is a slight reduction in freedom as
a result of living by the church’s teachings. If the knowledge claims
are wrong, you have lost very little. However if you reject the
Christian tradition and do not abide by its tenets and these turn out
to be true, then you will find yourself in eternal hell . For the very
logical Pascal, faith in religious knowledge claims was indeed a
rational act. This is known as Pascal’s Wager .

However, not all people see it this way. Richard Dawkins, for
example, finds faith entirely irrational, as he discusses in the
following video (between the 5:00 and 8:00 minute marks).

In the interview above, Dawkins hit on another important method of

knowledge construction within religion: the role of authority figures
within a given religion.

Important

Knowledge question

 What role does authority play in the pursuit of knowledge?

Given that faith is a central component to religious knowledge as

there is no non-correlational evidence for religious knowledge
claims, authority figures within religions play an immensely
important role. All religions have authority figures with
the power to interpret sacred texts as well as to create rituals and
traditions that become a part of the religion itself. Sometimes,
authority figures within religion can even create new sacred and
foundational texts, such as in the case of the Hadith in Islam .

Be aware

Correlational evidence is evidence in which two things are related.

For example, if someone makes the claim, ‘being tall makes you
good at basketball’ they can cite the correlational evidence that the
average height of an NBA basketball player is 6 feet and 7 inches
(201 cm).

Adherents of religious knowledge systems do not have causal

evidence in support of their claims. Instead, they rely on
correlational evidence, for example, I prayed for my cancer to go
away and it went away.

While correlations can indeed imply causation, such as in the case of

the basketball player example above, correlations do not establish
cause and thus correlational evidence alone is not considered strong
evidence.
Authority figures within religions also must rely on trust and faith for
their knowledge claims to be supported by members of their religion.
These authority figures can earn the trust of their followers through
shared experience and by demonstrating trustworthiness in the
same way as a teacher or coach would. Additionally, authority
figures within religions benefit from the existing trust in the religion
itself. An example of this is the Pope in Catholicism or the Dalai
Lama in Tibetan Buddhism. The overwhelming majority of Catholics
and Tibetan Buddhists have never, nor will ever, meet the Pope or
the Dalai Lama and yet both of these individuals benefit from an
incredibly high level of trust and faith in their knowledge claims.
 Figure 5. 99% of
Tibetan Buddhists have never met the Dalai Lama and yet they trust
him fully.
Source: Happiness. The Dalai Lama at Vancouver.jpg by kris krüg is licensed under CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0),Wikimedia Commons

Activity

Authority and trust

Think about authority figures in your life: teachers, religious figures,

coaches, government officials, etc. Identify four such authority
figures and create a chart that provides space to do the following.

1. Give them a ‘trustworthiness rating’ on a scale of 1–10 with 10

being the most trustworthy.
2. Reflect on where the source of your trust in them comes from. Is
it personal experience or something else? If it is something else,
discuss why you still trust them in spite of the fact that you
have no personal experience.
3. Is there something that this person could do that would reduce
your trust in them? Provide some examples.
 4. How would each of these areas of society function differently if
your trustworthiness rating for all these individuals was 1 or 0
out of 10?

As you may have discovered while completing the activity above, we

put a lot of trust in individuals who have not necessarily earned that
trust through our shared experience with them. Instead, much of
societal trust is institutional. Institutions are organisations that have
been established for a period of time and persist beyond the death
or withdrawal of its founding members and participants. Religions
are examples of institutions, as are schools and governments. The
extent to which knowledge claims made by individuals within an
institution are considered valid is directly proportional to the level of
trust in that institution.

The same holds true for religions. Authority figures within religions
can manufacture their own trust and thus increase the faith in the
validity of their knowledge claims although they also benefit from, or
are hurt by, the level of trust given to the religion itself.

For example, after it was known that the Catholic Church took steps
to cover up instances of child abuse and molestation while
simultaneously protecting individuals who were known to be child
abusers, the level of trust in both the authority figure, the Pope, and
the institution of the Catholic Church fell dramatically. Poll
results found that trust in authority figures in the Catholic Church
(clergy members) fell from 51% to 39% between 2017 and 2018. For
the Pope specifically, his poll results showed a 70% trustworthy
rating prior to the public becoming aware of the Catholic Church’s
efforts to cover up abuses carried out by church officials and a 53%
trustworthy rating immediately following the disclosure. When trust
in authority figures is low, their knowledge claims are less likely to
be considered valid.
 Figure 6. Faith is the
primary method and tool of knowledge construction within religious
knowledge systems.
Credit: mattjeacock Getty Images

Religions construct knowledge claims based on interpretation of

sacred texts and personal beliefs inspired by sacred texts put
forward by authority figures within the religion. The validity of these
claims is determined by the level of trust, and thus faith, that
individuals within a religion have for both the religion itself and
authority figures within the religion.

Although ancient religions could claim evidence for their knowledge

claims via

illusory correlation
, modern religions rely on faith and trust for the validation of theirs.
In spite of the fact that methodologies and tools of knowledge
construction are not concerned with creating objective knowledge in
support of religious knowledge claims, 84% of the global population
consider themselves religious. This fact highlights the value and
scope of religion. Religion focuses on making claims related to life’s
most important questions including ‘How should I live my life?’ This
question will be analysed in Ethics.
3. Optional themes / 3.4 Knowledge and religion

Ethics
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Figure 1. The
Jain ethical system has five vows that every Jain must swear to live
by. These are: non-violence, truth, non-stealing, chastity and non-
attachment.
Source: "Mahavratas.jpg" by Shree Diwakar Prakashan (Owner Mr. Sanjay Surana) (Website: http://www.jainbooks.in) is in the Public domain, WikimediaCommons

The Divinities of archaic religions served to regulate human violence

by submitting it to a regime of authority, ritual and law.
The quote above by Stanford professor Robert Harrison was not
made in specific response to the Jainist ethical system, although it
certainly could have been. As discussed in Perspectives, historians
and anthropologists frequently cite the moral and ethical codes of
conduct outlined by religions as fundamental and foundational
building blocks of society and culture. As Dr. Harrison points out
above, early religions reduced interpersonal violence by creating a
code of conduct that regulated behaviour within a given social
group.
The advantages of individuals within a large group living in
cooperative peace are obvious, but it is harder to get individuals to
assent to limitations on their own personal freedoms and behaviour.
Ancient religions formed an early version of a Hobbesian ‘social
contract’. The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679),
thought that governments should provide civil order in society in
exchange for individuals relinquishing their personal freedoms. If you
are the strongest, tallest homo sapiens for miles around and you are
hungry, what is going to stop you from taking a weaker individual’s
food? For Thomas Hobbes, the answer to this question was, ‘the
Leviathan’, a strong and powerful government. However there is no
force more powerful than God.

The methods that ancient religions used to attain adherence to their

moral systems were also exchange based, although they focused on
both social and emotional elements while leveraging two human
fears:

1. fear of isolation
2. fear of death.

If individuals did not adhere to ethical codes of conduct, they were

exiled from the religion, which frequently meant from society as well.
This isolation was not only emotionally and psychologically
damaging but also created a survival disadvantage because the
individual could no longer benefit from the protection afforded by
the group.

Making connections

To what extent does personal fear of isolation lead to adherence to

ethical norms?
Not all religions promise a conscious life after death. However, all
religions do promise a path to alleviation of suffering either in this
life or the next, and this path to freedom of suffering involves
following the religion’s ethical system and codes of conduct.

For Jains, the path to alleviation of suffering and escape from

constant rebirth is by following the ethical path laid out by these five
moral vows:

1. Non-violence (Ahiṃsā)
2. Truth (Satya)
3. Chastity (Brahmacharya)
 4. Non-attachment (Aparigraha)
5. Non-stealing (Asteya)

By putting forward an ethical system and code of conduct, religions

create shared experience, shared belief and mutual trust. According
to Sapiens author and historian Noah Yuval Harari, all these
elements are necessary for the advancement of society because, by
systemising concepts of right and wrong, large groups of individuals
can live in relative interpersonal peace.

From the perspective of a follower of a given religion, however, the

role of ethical systems is less academic and more fundamental and
foundational. From the perspective of a religious individual, ethical
systems put forward by religion are the answer to one of life’s most
important questions, ‘How should I live my life?’

Given that religions provide an ethical guide to living your life,

consider the following knowledge question.

Important

Knowledge question

 If religion is intimately connected with ethics, should we expect

those with religious knowledge to act more ethically than those
without it?

One claim in response to the knowledge question above is, yes,

adherents of a religion will be more ethical than non-adherents
because following ethical guidelines is a core tenant of what it
means to be religious. This claim is most frequently put forward from
the perspective of individuals who are themselves religious. The fact
that religious individuals would make such a claim is not surprising,
for if an individual makes a choice to follow the teachings of a
religion, they believe that religion is ethical and just. Therefore, due
to the psychological phenomena of

positive distinctiveness
, followers of a religion often believe that their ethical system is the
most ideal ethical system that exists.
Another claim related to the KQ above can be summarised by a
quote from Dostoevsky ’ s The Brothers Karamazov in which one of
the main characters states, ‘If God does not exist, then everything is
permitted’. This idea is echoed by many religious individuals; in
particular, those following a

monotheistic
religion.

Figure
2. Benjamin Franklin is not the first name that comes to mind when
contemplating religious advocates; however, he strongly believed
religion was necessary to keep the ‘tiger chained’.
Source: "Benjamin Franklin 1767.jpg" by David Martin is in the Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

One of the founding Fathers of the United States and a well-

respected 18th century intellectual, Benjamin Franklin believed that
ethical systems put forward by religions were necessary for
society. Writing to a friend who was going to publish an anti-
religious essay he said:
You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life, without the
assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear perception of the
advantage of virtue, and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing a
strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common
temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of
weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced,
inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of
religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain
them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great
point for its security.

If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?

Activity

Analysing a text

After reading the excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s letter above,

answer the following questions.

1. Summarise his main point in no more than two sentences.

2. What type of evidence does he put forward in support of his
claim?
3. Identify one or two strengths in his argument, including but not
limited to, his evidence.
4. Identify one or two weaknesses present in his argument,
including but not limited to, his evidence.

Clearly, religious knowledge is not necessary for the establishment

of ethical systems and corresponding high levels of ethical
behaviour. In the TED Talk below, neuroscientist Sam Harris claims
that religion is not necessary for high-quality ethical systems since a
scientific approach via logic and reasoning will result in the best
possible moral views.

Harris makes the implicit claim that not only will religious ethical
systems not result in more ethically sound behaviour, but that
religiously derived ethical systems are actually detrimental to
societies because they have the built-in inflexible characteristic of
being supernaturally derived and are thus morally certain. If you
believe that your religion’s ethical system is derived from a
supernatural entity such as God, you cannot challenge those ideas
without the threat of religious alienation.
Therefore the point that ethical systems derived from religious
knowledge are dangerous due to their rigidity is often made by
individuals with an anti-religious perspective. In commenting on
religiously derived ethical systems, Richard Dawkins said, ‘Religion is
evil because it can make you do evil things believing they are good’.

Activity

Do religious ethical systems help or harm?

Based on Sam Harris’ TED Talk, ‘The Moral Landscape’, as well as

the excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s letter and other ideas in the
text, you have the following task.

Write a 300 word response to the prompt, ‘what if religions never

existed?’ Your response is likely to provide you with insight into your
own personal beliefs about the value of religion to society!
An alternative perspective is that doing ‘evil things believing they
are good’ is not unique to religion-based ethical systems – there
have been plenty of evil acts committed in the name of

secular
ethical systems. However, religions, by definition, integrate an
added level of rigidity and authoritative weight because their
ethical systems are supernaturally derived. This tenet creates a
situation in which scientific and logical critiques of religiously derived
ethical claims are often met with the retort that God is omniscient
(all knowing) and thus infallible.
The Big Question episode entitled, Do we need religion to create a
moral society ? from the BBC (see below) is a wonderful
demonstration of the debate that you engaged in via the task in the
activity box above. It is a bit long, but it is immensely valuable
because the structure of the show allows a variety of perspectives to
be expressed.

A beautiful element of the video is the consensus among

participating members that moral individuals can exist both inside
and outside religious ethical systems. Stated as a claim in response
to the knowledge question above, we should not expect those with
religious knowledge to act more ethically than those without.
Conversely, we should not expect followers of religion to act less
morally than non-followers.
As mentioned earlier, ethical systems created by religion are
designed to facilitate interpersonal peace and societal harmony.
However, you can probably cite several examples of violence
perpetrated either in the name of, or inspired by, religious
knowledge. The inherent problem of ethical systems within religions
is that they are open to interpretation by individuals
with power within the religion. This leads to the following important
knowledge question concerning religion and ethics.

Important

Knowledge question

 What role do religious leaders and authority figures play in

influencing ethical debates?

The concept of religious literalism and

selective literalism
were discussed in Perspectives and are relevant when responding to
the question above. Given that all religions rely on experts to
interpret, explain and teach about the sacred texts and beliefs
derived from those texts, these experts must interpret the texts.
Personal experience and individual perspective play a role in this
interpretative process and therefore it is not uncommon for bias to
exist in religious interpretation. This point is crucial, for if a religious
authority figure has interpreted a text in a specific manner and as a
result makes an ethical claim, the ramifications can be vast.
Perhaps the most relevant and intriguing example of this is the
various ways the word jihad has been interpreted by Islamic religious
authority figures. The word jihad literally means ‘struggle or effort’
and is used 31 different times in the Qur’an in a variety of contexts.
Thus interpretation is necessary and Islamic scholars have
interpreted the word to have three different contextually dependent
meanings:

 a believer’s internal struggle to live out the Muslim faith as well

as possible
 the struggle to build a good Muslim society
 holy war: the struggle to defend Islam , with force if necessary.

An Islamic authority figure’s own personal perspectives, experiences

and culture could certainly affect the way in which they interpret the
word jihad as well as the amount of value they place on that
interpretation when creating religious knowledge claims. There is no
doubt that some authority figures within Islam choose to emphasise
the third definition cited above and that this emphasis has resulted
in violence. However, the overwhelming majority (99%) of Muslims
either do not choose to interpret the word in this manner, or choose
to practice selective literalism and interpret this element of
the Qur’an as historically bound or metaphorical. This is similar to
the way in which Jews and Christians do not believe that child abuse
is ethically justifiable when they read the Bible verse, Proverbs 23:14
which states, ‘Do not withhold discipline from a child, although you
strike him with a rod, he will not die; strike him with a rod and you
will deliver his soul from darkness.’

Figure 3. The
way in which sacred texts are interpreted is a huge factor in
religious-based knowledge claims about ethics.
Credit: Tim Allen Getty Images

Critics of religious knowledge systems believe that it is quite

problematic that religious authority figures play such a prominent
role in the creation of ethical systems because, unlike secular
authority figures who make ethical claims, religious authority figures
believe that their ethical claims are protected from critique by
the certainty of God.

This particular issue of problematic interpretation has led some

people to make the claim that Islam is an inherently violent religion.
The Islamic journalist, Mehdi Hasan, does a wonderful job of refuting
that conclusion and discussing issues of interpretation and authority
in the Oxford Union debate below.
Making connections

In countries in which you have lived or currently reside, to what

extent does religion influence social norms and values?
Sometimes, it is hard to separate ethical claims that are derived
from religious beliefs and ethical claims that are derived from
cultural beliefs because religion is such an intricate and important
element of culture. For example, according to a Pew research poll ,
only 47% of Saudi Arabians, 27% of Iraqis, 22% of Pakistanis and
14% of Egyptians believe that women should be able to dress how
they want. In Iran, women are required by law to wear a hijab in
public while Saudi Arabian women are required by law to wear the
more comprehensive abaya.

Does this mean that Islam creates ethical systems that oppress
women?

The answer is no.

But what it does mean is that, over time, some religious experts in
places of social and political power have produced biased
interpretations of the Qur’an and conspired to create or maintain
cultural practices and beliefs that have unfortunately persisted in too
many parts of the world. Once again, there is a problem of
interpretation that has been manifested into a cultural value and
ethical code. This interpretation problem is discussed beautifully and
insightfully by author Samina Ali in her TED Talk below.

The question of ethics and religious knowledge systems is one that is

conspicuously controversial. What complicates a discussion and
analysis of ethical claims is that it is very difficult to extract and
separate ethical claims that are religiously derived from ethical
claims that are secularly created because religion and culture have
developed in concert over the past 4,000 years. Religion has
certainly provided some ethical guidelines that are useful today and
will continue to be useful as long as homo sapiens remain active on
this planet. However, a lot has changed since the religions that are
worshipped by 86% of the world today were created more than
2,000 years ago.

Important

Knowledge question
  To what extent can religious knowledge claims be separated
from other elements of culture?

Whereas humans once attributed the pull of the tides, the rains of
the seasons and the life and death cycles of their closest relatives to
the agency of a supernatural being, we have now developed tools
and methods of constructing knowledge such as logic, mathematics,
reason and science that no longer require such myths. In certain
territories on the vast map of knowledge, religions have relinquished
scientific terrain to the armies of intellect. However, the territory of
ethical knowledge claims is a territory that is still up for dispute.

For both adherents of religion and non-believers, the consequence of

who controls the ethical territory is of the utmost importance
because it concerns the most important question, ‘How should I live
my life?’

Ask a religious person if they are certain as to how they should live
their life and they will probably answer ‘yes’. Their faith dictates this:
if there were a better ethical system to live by than the one their
God puts forward, then their God would have advocated that ethical
system. There is comfort in this certainty of knowing the answer to
such a profound question and others like it, but it is the inherent
characteristic of certainty in religious belief that can lead to
ethical systems that are fully oppressive in their certainty of
righteousness.

Figure 4. The
sacred texts of Christianity have not changed, and yet Christians are
no longer burning witches at the stake. What has changed is culture
and therefore the interpretation of those texts.
Source: "Zeitung Derenburg 1555 crop.jpg" by R. Decker is licensed under Public domain,Wikimedia Commons
Ironically, the way forward for both secular and religiously derived
ethical systems is cultural advancement. Arguably, religion is a living
thing that adapts to the culture in which it lives: as cultures change
and evolve, so too do religions. There are still Christians that live in
Salem, Massachusetts, but they are no longer burning witches. The
sacred texts of Massachusetts’ Christians have not changed; what
has changed is their interpretation of those sacred texts, and their
interpretation changed because their culture changed.

There are many practices carried out throughout the world that the
majority of us consider to be appalling: for example, honour killings
of females, forced veiling, sati , anti-homosexual sentiment, caste
systems, discrimination, and religious violence. It is easy to look at
all these practices and blame religion, but a closer look reveals that
religion is not solely to blame. Religion is a reflection of the culture
that created it and therefore if we want to have inclusive,
empathetic and caring ethical systems that are either religiously or
secularly derived, we need to first create inclusive, empathetic and
caring cultures.
3. Optional themes / 3.4 Knowledge and religion

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What you should know

By the end of this subtopic 3.4 Knowledge and religion, you

should be able to:

 Explain the role that faith plays in religious knowledge.

 Identify some problems that religious knowledge systems
attempt to solve.
 Explain factors that may have contributed to the development
of religions in early humans.
 Identify and discuss the role of ritual in facilitating interpersonal
connections.
 Explain the relationship between the scientific revolution and
the changing scope of religious knowledge.
 Explain how interpretation contributes to religious knowledge
creation.
 Explain the role of experts in religious knowledge creation.
 Explain the link between ethical codes of conduct within
religions and life after death.