Brumar89,
Ethnic religions:
a. membership is by birth or by adopting a complex lifestyle
b. strong territorial or ethnic group identification
c. small geographic distributions
The first issue that stands out in my mind, is that the author states " adopting a complex lifestyle".
Do you suppose Mr. Anderson is referring to religious lifestyle, dominated by ritual and fulfilling the tenets of the faith in question or do you believe he is referring to whether one should be going to play bridge or watching the son's soccer game?
The second is that the ethnic religious group is of a small geographic distribution. In the modern world, this definition does not have such a strong component any longer, especially amongst Western countries.
As far as being born into a faith and naturally being a member of that faith, I would take issue with. As a child, that child is beholden to his/her parents faith and has no free will. Where free will comes into question is when that individual can, free from coercion, chooses to be of that faith and to observe the Laws of that faith. It is my opinion that automatically assigning a faith to an individual, as a consequence of birth, is a political definition to maintain the faith's numbers.
On page 15, Mr. Anderson addresses the definition of Secularism.
Secularism
a. indifference to or rejection of religious belief
b. in its extreme, may become like a religion (e.g. atheism)
c. increasing part of many “modern” societies
d. one-fifth of the world’s population are secularists
If an Hindu, Shinto, or Jew claims to be secular, what conclusion will you come away with based on these definitions of Mr. Anderson? |
