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4.1
Religion and self
 
  More than 85 % of the people living on the planet Earth today subscribe to the beliefs and rituals of at least one religion. Of the hundreds of religions that have existed and continue to exist, just four account for over 73% of the world's estimated 6 Billion religious population as at 1996. Christian churches, such as the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of England, and Mormons count around 1.95 Billion (34%), Muslims around 1.1 Billion (19%), Hindu 0.8 Billion (14%) and Buddhism 325 million (6%).  
  While some of us may tend to discount the importance and influence of religion in the 21st century, the religions mentioned above represent:  
 
the largest common interest communities on the planet
the wealthiest land and asset owning organisations.
 
  Religion permeates and pervades almost every major component and institution of society life across the human race, from the more obvious examples such as shrines, churches and temples, the moral laws of society, their constitutions, and legal system to the less obvious examples such as the everyday words we use, as well as rights of royal families and attitudes towards ourselves and others.  
  So it has been since the first development of organized settlements of humans were founded, that religion and government, religion and the function and nature of society have been intimately linked. The very basis of organized society, the very first models of civilization owe their structure and function to key religious principles. So it has been that not one generation of human beings have lived on the planet Earth since the creation of the first organized societies without the shadow of one or more religions profoundly influencing their lives.  
  What makes religions so powerful?  
  An often quoted explanation for the power and influence of religions is that "human beings need to believe in something", or "they need to be at least certain of a few key concepts in order to move out and explore the world with confidence"; hence the need for religion. However is this correct? After all, beliefs can be provided in documents without necessarily the need for buildings, priests and internal rules.  
  As you can see by the religious buildings in any town centre around most human cities in the world, religion is about more than just "the message". It is common sense that there must be more to religions per se, given many have survived for extraordinary lengths of time, albeit in modified forms (e.g. the Egyptian Master Builders/Priests to the Knights Templar and Freemasons connection- a supposed 8000 year line).  
  This is the first purpose of this chapter, to investigate what makes a religion a religion by showing the common structure and operations existing across almost all religions.  
  The key influences of religions on the organisation, functions and values of society  
  As the goal of this book is to seek and find answers to the question of life balance and harmony, our prime concern is to identify those beliefs and concepts that impact our sense of who we are, why we are here and why we do what we do.  
  As most of us live within some kind of organized settlement of various societies, how we live our lives in the most part is influences by the rules of the society we live in.  
  As religions have historically been the core influencers of societies since the creation of human civilization, our second objective in this chapter is to identify and understand the key influences of religions on the organisation, functions and values of society.  
  What are the common themes/history of religions?  
  In libraries across the world, there are literally hundreds of thousands of texts dedicated to various religions. The number of Gods listed by various cultures throughout the history of humanity number into the thousands. In many cases, religions such as Christianity and Islam seem completely at odds? Yet are they?  
  When we look at the origin and heritage of religions, we see that historically new religions have sprung from old, rather than from a completely new base. Christianity sprung from the roots and heritage of the Judaic gnostics and Greco-Roman "mystic" schools, Islam also counts Judaism as the basis of many of its foundations. Judaism itself shares heritage to even older religious beliefs from as far as Iran/Iraq and the Egyptians. Even Sth American religions share extraordinarily similar words, stories and themes to those of the Ancient Middle East.  
  Common themes appear across almost all religions, from the structure and hierarchy of Gods and lesser Gods (e.g. angels), to the rituals and important symbols. However, it is not always easy at first to see many of the common themes, as new religions so often seek to distance themselves from their past. Often this has been done by simply coming up with a new "labeling" system. Sometimes even by deliberately destroying any physical evidence of past heritage as in the case of Christianity.  
  Often as the creation of a new religion comes from the splintering of interpretation and belief, the old ways become "the enemy" of the new religion. Like you may have experienced or seen, no greater hatred or bitterness is there than between those that were once considered family and friends. This can be seen in so many ways, from family feuds through to the atrocities committed during times of Civil Wars.  
  Religions are no different. Hence the greatest enemies of religions are normally those that represent those religions closest to their true past, for example the traditional animosity between the Jews and Christians, the Muslims and the Jews and the Jews and the Egyptians/Babylonians.  
  This is the third goal of this chapter, to seek to bring together the common themes throughout the major religions and seek to make sense of their common pedigree and history of development.  
  To understand the effect of religion on our sense of self  
  Our overall goal therefore of this chapter is to seek to understand the various facets of religion and in doing so learn more about our sense of self and why we do what we do, why we think the way we do and ultimately to find the answers listed in Chapter 2 of the journey of self.  
  The differences and difficulties of this topic  
  What will make this one of the more difficult topics discussed so far is that we begin to unearth understandings about religions that by definition will be considered tampering of many religions. As can be understood, many religious regard such unauthorized questions and investigations as highly threatening and consider such action often in terms of the words heresy and blasphemy.  
  It is critical that we have no intention to offend readers who have strong beliefs in the history of their particular religion, nor in the integrity of leaders of various religions who choose to read this book or obtain excerpts of this book. Our goal is not to attack a particular religion or cause discomfort to those people who believe what they believe.  
  We restate once again, everything in this book are ideas- we claim none of what we are about to say is fact. Therefore no religious leader or believer should in anyway feel threatened that what they state as "fact" is under threat. Our goal is to seek to find a common thread of understanding of our past and our present. That requires us to pursue different avenues of thinking. At all times we have the utmost respect for the beliefs of the religions of the world and their leaders. We hope they find no offence to these "ideas" versus the truths, beliefs and facts of their specific religion.  
  We will now begin with an investigation into the meaning of the word religion and the principle themes that are found embedded in the philosophy of all religions.  
 
 
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