Religion has always been important for personal as well as social reasons. It has provided the
means whereby people have celebrated the stages of life, through birth, puberty, the formation
of new families through marriage, and death. It has provided resources of comfort and support,
and in the minds of many people, healing in times of sickness. It has given people
encouragement in difficult times, whether they were of war and oppression, or of drought and
famine, by speaking of an ultimate order in the universe, or the ultimate control in the hands of
a good and loving God.
The rituals of the stages of life, through which the stages of life are celebrated, are amply
illustrated in the various religious groups in this collection of material. (See rituals.)
However, religion not only celebrates these stages, but gives them meaning. It places human
beings in a context which gives a sense of purpose to each stage, and which provides a way of
acknowledging what each development in life leaves behind. The birth of children is celebrated
among many Christians, not just as something that will give pleasure to parents, but as the
enlargement of God's family. Children are pronounced as important and valuable to God,
valuable in the 'ultimate order' of life.
In the rituals which take place during puberty or adolescence, the person is welcomed as an
adult member of the community, capable of participating in its decision-making processes, of
helping to shape its identity and carry the community through each generation. Baptism in those
Christian denominations which baptise adults has much of this meaning, as does confirmation for
those Christian denominations which baptise children. There are other rituals in the wider society
which play a similar role: school and university examinations provide the basis for acceptance in
the wider society and the basis for finding an appropriate place. Getting one's driving licence and
registering to vote are symbols of taking up responsibility in the adult world.
Marriage takes place, with the break-up of the old family, and the formation of the new family,
partly for the pleasure of the married couple, but also so that children may be born and provided
with a stable social environment in which they may grow and develop.
Funerals (see Presbyterians and Muslims) provide an opportunity for thanking God for the life
that has been lived, and for re-assertion that death is not the end of life, neither for those who
have been left behind, nor for those who have died. All religions, apart from humanism, promise
that, at least for their members, there will be life beyond death.
Peter Berger (1973), amongst others, has maintained that one of the primary functions of
religion is to deal with the threats of anomie, of personal meaninglessness, and of evil. For most
people, life is not smooth and uneventful. There are many events, such as war and natural
disasters, or human stupidity and failure which threaten to disrupt it. One of the primary
functions of religion is to account for evil and to provide ways of sustaining people through
experiences of chaos. Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, offer explanations of evil and
suffering in terms of karma, the moral law of the universe. Immoral actions, in which there is
greed, hatred and delusion, have inevitable consequences in the evil and suffering an individual
experiences. In very general terms, Islam looks to the will of Allah as the explanation,
postulating that Allah (God) has a plan in which all will ultimately come out well, although the
immediate experiences may be mysterious to us. Sometimes Jews have interpreted suffering as
being partly the result of disobedience to God, or the moral failure of others which leads to the
suffering of innocent people. Partly, it is the unhappy path which will lead to a much greater,
brighter future.
Christianity has a range of ways in which it explains evil. In some denominations, much is made
of Satan or the devil (see Church Doctrine, Pentecostals and Seventh-day Adventists), the evil
spiritual power, which can cause much trouble and suffering, but whose power has been
defeated, but not yet vanquished. Evil is also the result of the moral failure and disobedience of
individuals.
All religions believe that individual human beings fail. They do not keep the moral rules and
standards of their religion. They fail to live up to the standards of their own consciences.
Religions vary somewhat in what they consider to be the pervasiveness of evil. Some Christian
groups talk of the total depravity of human beings apart from God. Human beings are incapable
of keeping moral rules that have been laid down by the strength of their own will. Other
Christian groups would prefer to say that there is some evil in all people.
However, the Christian traditions hold that the means of overcoming this situation has been
provided by God. Through Jesus Christ the means of living in obedience to God has been
provided. There are various ways in which this is explained. Some use the imagery of sacrifice,
taken from ancient traditions. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in his death, the means of
human forgiveness has been provided. Or it is explained in terms of images of love and
forgiveness. The death of Jesus Christ shows God's love and acceptance even in the midst of
evil. As people are motivated by that love, so God gives them the power to live good lives.
Salvation means 'wholeness'. It can apply to living a full life at the present time. It can also
apply to life beyond death. Most Christian denominations speak of the fulfilment of life occurring
beyond death, even though they also say much can be experienced in the present.
Meaning for individual life is found in the stories of religion and as those stories are acted out in
the rituals and ethics. It is usually experienced within a religious community which bears the
traditions and ensures the re-enactment of the rituals. It is understood within the religious
framework which speaks of the ultimate nature of reality and truth, of the basic forces of good
and evil. Meaning involves accounts of why suffering and evil occur and how a good and a full
life can be achieved.
Within a pluralistic society, there are many accounts of good and evil, of the place of the
individual and the nature of ultimate reality. Which account does the individual believe?
Some individuals decide that a particular tradition is their tradition and that they will stick with
it. Others move from one to another, listening, experiencing but making no life-time
commitments. Some seek for an overarching unity in all religions. Most prefer to turn to
whatever resources they find useful, whatever stories sound plausible at the particular time or in
their particular circumstances. For some, the lack of unity among religions, the fact that
individuals have to make their choices about their own religious identity, makes the task very
difficult and meaning hard to find.
For many, there is an evident story in the immediate world around them. People find their
meaning in family life, as they give themselves to one another within their families and amongst
their friends. They find their identity as they relate to the natural world and recognise that they
are, in fact, part of it; or as they explore the globe, enjoying the variety of human cultures and
ways of life. They find their place through highly specialised skills and occupations through which
they contribute to the wider community.
One of the major stories in Australia (reflected in the principles of the Humanists, for example)
which gives people a sense of the nature of reality is the story told by science, of the big bang
and of evolution of life and, eventually of human kind. One of the great moral challenges of the
present time is the environmental challenge, which threatens to wipe out the species of human
beings, and perhaps many other species as well. The story is overlaid with the stories of
democratic society, dominated by market forces, but undergirded with a welfare state safety
blanket.(See, for example, the principles of Humanism.) The story depicts a society in which all
can find a place through employment. Apart from observing rules which protect human beings
from each other and protect the basic institutions of society, such as possession, intimate
relationship, and so on, human beings are free to find what interests them and what they enjoy.
Is this story of science and democracy the new Australian religion? Some have spoken of implicit
religion: the stories which actually give meaning to people and which are played out in the ways
in which they live, distinguishing it from explicit meaning as found in the organised religions.
For many people, however, the stories of science and democracy, of market forces and the
welfare state, family and nature, are not sufficient. There is more to life than that. These stories
do not deal with the mystery of life. Most Australians, even those who are wary of religious
organisations, continue to say that the spiritual dimension is important. Religions will continue to
point to realities beyond what is evident in the immediate world in which people live.