Religion Research Paper

Introduction

Religion is present in almost all cultures where it serves important functions such as
regulating behavior and promoting social harmony and unity. Despite it’s reputation for
promoting harmony in groups, it also has a history of being the source of terrible conflicts.
This paper examines religion’s conflict with science, the role of interfaith dialogue in
reducing animosity among religions, the emergence of new religions such as New Age
Spiritualism, and the various processes that lead to changes in religions.

Conflict of Religion and Science

Religion and science have long been considered to be completely different human
endeavors (Ogunade & Kayode, 2018). Religion establishes facts through the use of sacred
and canonical texts, visions, and teachings of revered religious leaders, among other forms of
religious methods. Science, on the other hand, uses the scientific method to establish facts
about nature. According to Ogunade & Kayode (2018), these differences in metaphysics and
internal logic of religion and science not only make the two endeavors incompatible with
each other but also potentials causes conflicts any time there are attempts to bring them
together. For a religious person, using the scientific method to gather knowledge weakens
their faith while for a science person, using religion as a source of any knowledge leads to
illogical conclusions. Thus, the different approaches to knowledge acquisition used by
science and religion create an eternal incompatibility and conflict between them.

Importance of Interfaith Dialogue

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Interfaith dialogue is cooperative and positive interaction involving people of
different religious faiths, beliefs, and organizations (Catto, 2017). Such dialogue is important
because it allows practitioners of faiths to learn about each other’s religion and, therefore,
helps to foster mutual understand among different religions. Such mutual understanding has
the potential of promoting peace and tolerance as religious differences and exploitation of
these differences from the point of ignorance have been major causes of conflicts throughout
history (Catto, 2017). Thus, interfaith dialogue not only promotes mutual understanding
among different religions but also promotes global peace.

Characteristics of New Age Spiritualism

The salient features of New Age Spirituality are drawn from a wide array of sources.
They include traditional Western and Eastern religions as well as modern science. Thus, New
Age Spiritualism is completely independent of any single religion. Borrowing its beliefs and
practices of different religions, science, and also developing its own unique beliefs, the New
Age Spiritualism can be distinguished from other social and religious groups by its unique
characteristics.

One of them is a highly optimistic view of humankind. New Age Spiritualists believe
that the human consciousness is about to be transformed by a giant quantum leap in
evolution. This transformation will make human beings to discover their innate divinity and
foster oneness of human family and strengthen relationship of nature and humanity (Frost,
2017). Another feature is their attempts to reconcile science and religion with the goal of
enhancing humanity’s material and spiritual condition (Frost, 2017). Additionally, New Age
Spiritualism is also characterized by its embrace of a large number of both traditional and
non-traditional spiritual practices and beliefs as they believe that all religions have important
spiritual practices that are that are useful to modern-day human beings.

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Traditional Types of Change in Religion

One characteristic of almost all religions is that they are constantly changing. The
three types of changes in religions are reform or progressive movement, syncretism, and
schism (Deming, 2015). Reform movement seeks to remove from a religion’s beliefs and
practices aspects that are considered impure or not original to the religion (Deming, 2015). It
can also seek to remove religious aspects that are considered outdated. Examples of this
movement include the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church and the
Reform Judaism.

These second type of change in religion is syncretism. Syncretism involves blending
of different religious beliefs and practices. For instance, the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica
blends religious beliefs and practices of Christians, Jews, and traditional African religions.

The third type of religious change is schism. This is the separation of a single
religious group or body into different groups. The split can either be violent or non-violent.
Examples of schism include Catholic-Orthodox split in Christianity and Sunni-Shia split in
Islam.

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References

Catto, R. (2017). Interfaith Dialogue and the Challenge of Indifference: Reflections from
Fieldwork in the City of Peace and Reconciliation. In Religious Indifference (pp. 65-
82). Springer, Cham.

Deming, W. (2015). Understanding the religions of the world: an introduction. John Wiley &
Sons.

Frost, G. (2017). New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library: The
Making of a Pagan Archive. Pomegranate, 19(2).

Ogunade, R., & Kayode, J. O. (2018). Interplay Between Religion and Science: Level of
Inclusion and Relevance in Religious Studies in Nigeria.