religion

religion,

a system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion; a code of behavior by which individuals may judge the personal and social consequences of their actions; and a frame of reference by which individuals may relate to their group and their universe. Usually, religion concerns itself with that which transcends the known, the natural, or the expected; it is an acknowledgment of the extraordinary, the mysterious, and the supernatural. The religious consciousness generally recognizes a transcendent, sacred order and elaborates a technique to deal with the inexplicable or unpredictable elements of human experience in the world or beyond it.

Types of Religious Systems

The evolution of religion cannot be precisely determined owing to the lack of clearly distinguishable stages, but anthropological and historical studies of isolated cultures in various periods of development have suggested a typology but not a chronology. One type is found among some Australian aborigines who practice magicmagic,
in religion and superstition, the practice of manipulating and controlling the course of nature by preternatural means. Magic is based upon the belief that the universe is populated by unseen forces or spirits that permeate all things.
..... Click the link for more information. and fetishism (see fetishfetish
, inanimate object believed to possess some magical power. The fetish may be a natural thing, such as a stone, a feather, a shell, or the claw of an animal, or it may be artificial, such as carvings in wood.
..... Click the link for more information. ) but consider the powers therein to be not supernatural but an aspect of the natural world. Inability or refusal to divide real from preternatural and acceptance of the idea that inanimate objects may work human good or evil are sometimes said to mark a prereligious phase of thought. This is sometimes labeled naturism or animatism. It is characterized by a belief in a life force that itself has no definite characterization (see animismanimism,
belief in personalized, supernatural beings (or souls) that often inhabit ordinary animals and objects, governing their existence. British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor argued in Primitive Culture
..... Click the link for more information. ).

A second type of religion, represented by many Oceanic and African tribal beliefs, includes momentary deities (a tree suddenly falling on or in front of a person is malignant, although it was not considered "possessed" before or after the incident) and special deities (a particular tree is inhabited by a malignant spirit, or the spirits of dead villagers inhabit a certain grove or particular animals). In this category one must distinguish between natural and supernatural forces. This development is related to the emergence of objects of devotion, to rituals of propitiation, to priests and shamansshaman
, religious practitioner in various, generally small-scale societies who is believed to be able to diagnose, cure, and sometimes cause illness because of a special relationship with, or control over, spirits.
..... Click the link for more information. , and to an individual sense of group participation in which the individual or the group is protected by, or against, supernatural beings and is expected to act singly or collectively in specific ways when in the presence of these forces (see ancestor worshipancestor worship,
ritualized propitiation and invocation of dead kin. Ancestor worship is based on the belief that the spirits of the dead continue to dwell in the natural world and have the power to influence the fortune and fate of the living.
..... Click the link for more information. ; totemtotem
, an object, usually an animal or plant (or all animals or plants of that species), that is revered by members of a particular social group because of a mystical or ritual relationship that exists with that group.
..... Click the link for more information. ; spiritismspiritism
or spiritualism,
belief that the human personality continues to exist after death and can communicate with the living through the agency of a medium or psychic.
..... Click the link for more information. ).

In a third class of religion—usually heavily interlaced with fetishism—magic, momentary and special deities, nature gods, and deities personifying natural functions (such as the Egyptian solar god Ra, the Babylonian goddess of fertility Ishtar, the Greek sea-god Poseidon, and the Hindu goddess of death and destruction Kali) emerge and are incorporated into a system of mythologymythology
[Greek,=the telling of stories], the entire body of myths in a given tradition, and the study of myths. Students of anthropology, folklore, and religion study myths in different ways, distinguishing them from various other forms of popular, often orally transmitted,
..... Click the link for more information. and ritual. Sometimes they take on distinctively human characteristics (see anthropomorphismanthropomorphism
[Gr.,=having human form], in religion, conception of divinity as being in human form or having human characteristics. Anthropomorphism also applies to the ascription of human forms or characteristics to the divine spirits of things such as the winds and the
..... Click the link for more information. ).

Beyond these more elementary forms of religious expression there are what are commonly called the "higher religions." Theologians and philosophers of religion agree that these religions embody a principle of transcendence, i.e., a concept, sometimes a godhead, that involves humans in an experience beyond their immediate personal and social needs, an experience known as "the sacred" or "the holy."

In the comparative study of these religions certain classifications are used. The most frequent are polytheismpolytheism
, belief in a plurality of gods in which each deity is distinguished by special functions. The gods are particularly synonymous with function in the Vedic religion (see Vedas) of India: Indra is the storm god, Agni the fire god, Vayu the wind god, Yama the god of
..... Click the link for more information. (as in popular Hinduism and ancient Greek religion), in which there are many gods; dualismdualism,
any philosophical system that seeks to explain all phenomena in terms of two distinct and irreducible principles. It is opposed to monism and pluralism. In Plato's philosophy there is an ultimate dualism of being and becoming, of ideas and matter.
..... Click the link for more information. (as in Zoroastrianism and certain Gnostic sects), which conceives of equally powerful deities of good and of evil; monotheismmonotheism
[Gr.,=belief in one God], in religion, a belief in one personal god. In practice, monotheistic religion tends to stress the existence of one personal god that unifies the universe.
..... Click the link for more information. (as in ChristianityChristianity,
religion founded in Palestine by the followers of Jesus. One of the world's major religions, it predominates in Europe and the Americas, where it has been a powerful historical force and cultural influence, but it also claims adherents in virtually every country of
..... Click the link for more information. , JudaismJudaism
, the religious beliefs and practices and the way of life of the Jews. The term itself was first used by Hellenized Jews to describe their religious practice, but it is of predominantly modern usage; it is not used in the Bible or in Rabbinic literature and only rarely
..... Click the link for more information. , and IslamIslam
, [Arab.,=submission to God], world religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad. Founded in the 7th cent., Islam is the youngest of the three monotheistic world religions (with Judaism and Christianity). An adherent to Islam is a Muslim [Arab.,=one who submits].
..... Click the link for more information. ), in which there is a single god; supratheism (as in Hindu Vedanta and certain Buddhist sects), in which the devotee participates in the religion through a mystical union with the godhead; and pantheismpantheism
[Gr. pan=all, theos=God], name used to denote any system of belief or speculation that includes the teaching "God is all, and all is God." Pantheism, in other words, identifies the universe with God or God with the universe.
..... Click the link for more information. , in which the universe is identified with God.

Another frequently used classification is based on the origins of the body of knowledge held by a certain religion: some religions are revealed, as in Judaism (where God revealed the Commandments to Moses), Christianity (where Christ, the Son of God, revealed the Word of the Father), and Islam (where the angel Gabriel revealed God's will to Muhammad). Some religions are nonrevealed, or "natural," the result of human inquiry alone. Included among these and sometimes called philosophies of eternity are Buddhist sects (where Buddha is recognized not as a god but as an enlightened leader), Brahmanism, and Taoism and other Chinese metaphysical doctrines.

Bibliography

See J. Wach, Comparative Study of Religions (1951, repr. 1958); J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (3d ed., 13 vol., 1955; repr. 1966); V. T. A. Ferm, Encyclopedia of Religion (1959); J. Hick, The Philosophy of Religion (1963); J. de Vries, The Study of Religion (tr. 1967); G. Parrinder, ed., Man and His Gods (1971); M. Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion (16 vol., 1986); E. L. Queen 2d et al., ed., The Encyclopedia of American Religious History (1996).

religion

the ‘belief in spiritual beings’ (Tylor, 1871) and the institutions and practices associated with these beliefs.
‘a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things’, things set apart and held in awe, which unites the believers into a moral community or church (DURKHEIM, 1912) (see also SACRED AND PROFANE). On this definition, in terms of social FUNCTIONS, there is no ultimate distinction between religions which involve beliefs in spiritual beings or other supernatural phenomena and many other kinds of socially unifying ideas such as nationalism. The latter can be seen as FUNCTIONAL ALTERNATIVES OR FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENTS of religion in the more conventional sense. Furthermore, even some beliefs and practices conventionally thought of as religions, such as CONFUCIANISM or BUDDHISM, do not readily correspond to narrower standard dictionary definitions of religion which emphasize the worship of gods and spirits. Nor is a distinction between the supernatural and the empirical easy to draw uncontentiously See also FUNCTIONALIST THEORY OF RELIGION.
any set of doctrines – ‘theories in a hurry’, according to GELLNER – providing overall answers to ultimate and existential questions for which there are no empirical answers. In comparison with definition 2 , this definition leaves open for empirical analysis the particular social effects or social functions of religion.

The virtue of either definition 2 or 3 above is that neither depends on contentious distinctions between the natural and the supernatural which may not be shared by religious believers. The problem with either of the definitions however is that they no longer provide any effective distinction between traditional forms of religious phenomena and other forms of belief systems or other forms of ritual behaviour, making it difficult, for example, to conceptualize phenomena such as SECULARIZATION. Under these circumstances, some sociologists have continued to operate with definitions which remain closer to definition 1 , despite the difficulties associated with it. See also SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION, NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS, RITUAL.

Religion

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

What is religion? That's a hard question to answer. And the harder you try, the more difficult it becomes.

Is "religion" simply defined as the way we think about God? If so, Buddhism is not a religion, because many Buddhists don't believe in God. Nor do some Hindus and Unitarians and Jews. Add to those a lot of liberal Catholics who don't believe in God but won't admit it, plus a whole bunch of liberal Protestants whose definition of "God" is certainly not traditional.

Does "religion" mean simply living an ethical life? If so, then many good, nice, ethical atheists are religious.

Perhaps "religion" refers to an organized institution. But that can't be, because there are many religions (such as Quaker and Hindu sects) that resist any effort to organize. And many more religions that are not organized even though they think they are!

So in order to talk about "religion," it first becomes necessary to define the term.

One definition that seems to cut across many philosophical boundaries was developed by the sociologist Joachim Wach, who lived from 1898 to 1955. His "Three Forms of Religious Expression" comes close to capturing the elusive concept of religion.

Theoretical

This word refers to the fact that religions teach something. They have a "theoretical" component.

Religions teach by means of myths, doctrines, traditions, and customs. Sometimes it drives religious leaders crazy to hear from congregants, over and over again, "We've always done it this way!" But customs, stemming from myths and stories, cemented by doctrine, and interpreted by longstanding traditions, teach young people in ways they never quite outgrow. How many atheists, for instance, are still afraid of going to the hell in which they no longer believe? It's because the theoretical component of their childhood religion was so strong they cannot ever fully outgrow it.

Whenever we study a new religion, we ask about its teachings. That's what religions do. They teach something. They teach how the world was made, how humans came to be, what will happen in the future, how to live in the present. They pass on values and ethics by teaching children the social standards of their religious community. That's what Sunday school, catechism classes, and confirmation classes are for. That's why religious institutions of higher learning were formed.

Religions are all about teaching.

Practical

Religions also have developed ways of worshiping. "Practical" refers to what people in various religions actually do. Jews go to synagogues or observe family religious celebrations at home. Catholics go to Mass. Protestants attend church services. Muslims fulfill the Five Pillars.

Religious communities are known for their traditions. What makes us uncomfortable when we go to a worship service different from our own tradition is that we don't always know what is expected of us. We don't know the rituals. We don't know the customs. We are afraid of bumping into a "sacred cow."

Religions have a traditional practice, a "practical" component.

Sociological

Religions also attract a community. They have a sociological component. In New England, every town has a little white community church on the town common. In European cities, it's the cathedral that dominates the skyline. In Midwestern America, the "little brown church in the vale" is being replaced by the ultra-modern educational complex with an extensive bus ministry. California has its Crystal Cathedral. Jerusalem its Dome of the Rock. Mecca its Kaaba.

What kind of a community forms around a religion? The answer provides its sociological component.

So we might define "religion" in this way, using the words of Robert S. Ellwood, co-author of the textbook Many Peoples, Many Faiths:

While the essence of religion may be beyond words, the religious experience... expresses itself in human life in three ways. These three forms of religious expression (are) theoretical, practical and sociological.

Religion

a world view and perception associated with certain behavior and specific acts (cult or worship) and based on a belief in the existence of one or several gods and in the existence of the “holy,” that is, a form of the supernatural. Religion, which is essentially one of the idealist world views, is opposed to the scientific world view. The principal characteristic of religion is belief in the supernatural, but this does not mean that religion is the relationship that links man with god, as theologians usually argue. F. Engels observed: “All religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces” (in K. Marx and F. Engels, Sock, 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 328). In religion, man is enslaved by the products of his own imagination. Religion represents a specific form of social consciousness and functions as a regulator of social behavior.

According to contemporary scientific data, religion originated approximately 40,000–50,000 years ago during the late Paleolithic period (the Stone Age), when primitive society had reached a relatively high level of development. The beginnings of hunters’ magic and the worship of animals are recorded in late Paleolithic art. Additional evidence for the existence of religious beliefs is provided by late Paleolithic burial sites, which are distinguished from earlier sites by the custom of burying the dead with tools and ornaments, indicating rudimentary ideas concerning life after death, a “world of the dead,” and continued existence of the “soul” after the death of the body. Even today, there are analogous ideas and rituals.

Religion emerges when the development of the human intellect has reached a level at which the rudiments of theoretical thought appear, together with the possibility of separating thought from reality (the epistemological roots of religion). The general concept is separated from the object it designates and is transformed into a special “being,” so that reflection by the human consciousness of that which is can serve as the basis for imaginary concepts of that which, in reality, is not. These possibilities are realized only in connection with the totality of human activity and social relationships (the social roots of religion).

Religion was a product of the limitations on the practical and intellectual mastery of the world in the early stages of human history. Primitive religious beliefs are marked by a fantastical consciousness of man’s dependence on natural forces. Not having separated himself from nature, man transfers to nature the relationships that are developing in the primitive commune. The natural phenomena that affect man in his everyday activity and that are of vital importance become the object of religious perception. Human powerlessness before nature evokes terror of nature’s “mysterious” forces, as well as an endless search for means of influencing these forces. Historically, the earliest manifestations of religion were magic, totemism, soothsaying, burial cults, and shamanism. Later forms of religion in preclass society included secret associations and the worship of leaders.

The first object of religious veneration, the fetish, was a real object to which supersensory qualities were attributed. Fetishism is associated with magic, with the attempt to influence the course of events in a desired direction by means of magical rites and incantations. Later, the supersensory qualities attributed to the fetish were separated from it and transformed into independent beings, or “spirits.” Animism, the belief in a “soul” independent of the body, emerged, and it became possible to divide the world into two parts: the world of that which actually exists and the supernatural world.

With the breakdown of tribal society, clan and tribal religions were replaced by the religions of class society. As social stratification took place, a hierarchy emerged in the “world of spirits.” With the development of farming, an increasingly important role was played by spirits of the plant world, by the cults of gods who died and were resurrected, and by rituals associated with seasonal phenomena in nature (for example, winter solstice festivities). As the patriarchal family developed, the clan ancestor cult was transformed into the cult of family ancestors and domestic gods. Esoteric (secret) beliefs and cults developed. Myths were reinforced in oral tradition and later, in written religious works, or sacred books.

With the division of society into classes and with the rise of the state, the polytheistic religions of early class society appeared: the Vedic religion of ancient India, Japanese Shin-toism, and the religions of ancient Egypt, Iran (Mazdaism or Zoroastrianism), Greece, and Rome. A special social stratum of professional priests emerged, the successors to the magicians, soothsayers, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, and shamans of primitive religions. A system of sacrificial offerings developed, cult rituals became more complex and acquired greater social significance, temples were built for sacrifices and religious services, and a system of religious training and education was established. Religion became one of the institutions of class society, defending the privileges and power of the exploitative elite. With the formation of a professional priesthood, religion was increasingly used to deliberately deceive the popular masses.

In the tribal cults of preclass society most of the gods were personifications of the forces of nature or of moral precepts. In the religion of slaveholding society, most of the gods personified social authority. “The fantastic figures, which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history. At a still further stage of evolution, all the natural and social attributes of the numerous gods are transferred to one almighty god…. Such was the origin of monotheism” (K. Marx and F. Engels, ibid., p. 329).

The religion of early class society retained many of the traditional cults that had originated in tribal society, including to-temistic cults of animals and plants and the worship of ancestors and various kinds of spirits, demons, and fetishes. A rich mythology developed. The religions of early class society were at first essentially tribal religions, but they later became the religions of nation-states, in which religious ties among people coincided with ethnic and political ties (for example, Confucianism, Shintoism, Hinduism, and Judaism, which still exist).

At a later stage of historical development the world, or supranational, religions emerged: Buddhism (sixth to fifth centuries B.C.), Christianity (first century A.D.), and Islam (seventh century). The world religions unite people of the same faith, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, or political ties. Monotheism is one of the most important distinguishing features of world religions such as Christianity and Islam. Characteristic of Christian monotheism is the cult of “abstract man” (ibid.). The cult of “abstract man” is the product of the relations of commodity production and an understanding of man in which real social characteristics, social inequality, and differences in wealth, legal rights, and other factors are discarded and “overcome,” or rejected as nonessential, from the standpoint of the most important relationship defining man’s essence: his relationship to god. In this sense, belief in god is associated with denigrating the “worldly” and with orienting man not toward social reforms but toward an ideal life emphasizing “salvation” from worldly bonds and retreat from the vanities of the world. In the supranational religions new forms of organization and relations emerged: the church, the clergy, and the laity. Theology developed, and missionary work evolved as a means of spreading the world religions. The specific features of each world religion are the product of differences in the material life and the political and cultural forms of the social milieu in which they originated and spread.

The essence of religion was most profoundly revealed by Marxism, which continued and developed the critique of religion in the tradition of progressive social thought, raising the critique to a qualitatively higher level by integrally linking it with the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of social relations that create the need for religious illusions. The gods do not create man but are created by man in his image and likeness. This was the main thesis of the atheistic critique of religion from antiquity to the time of L. Feuerbach, who asserted that man, in worshiping a god, was worshiping his own essence, which he had alienated from himself. Feuerbach reduced the religious world to its earthly foundation. However, he gave no reason for the duplication of the world or the self-alienation of man. There was not yet an answer to the question why “the secular foundation detaches itself from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm” (K. Marx, in K. Marx and F. Engels, ibid., vol. 3, p. 2). Marxism, which is based on a materialist understanding of history, shows that this “is really only to be explained by the self-cleavage and self-contradictori-ness of this secular basis” (ibid).

Concrete sociohistorical relations are cited by Marxism to explain the existence of religion. Since the emergence of class society, these relations have been based on the exploitation of man by man. The inverted world, in which evil and injustice triumph, engenders an inverted consciousness, in which humanity, downtrodden in this world, acquires an imaginary existence in another world. By associating the realization of man’s ideals with a place beyond “this” world, religion reconciled man to social injustice. This was precisely the social function of religion to which Marx was referring when he described religion as the “opiate of the people” (ibid., vol. 1, p. 415).

In developing and critically transcending Feuerbach’s anthropological approach to religion, Marxism emphasizes that religious alienation stems from the real alienation of man in a society in which “the human essence has no true reality” and therefore achieves an illusory realization in god. “This state, this society produce religion, an inverted world consciousness, because they are an inverted world.” Religion represents “the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again” (ibid., vol. 1, p. 414).

According to Marx, religion will be overcome with the revolutionary reconstruction of society in conformity with communist principles. “The religious reflex of the real world can only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature. The life process of society … does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan” (ibid., vol. 23, p. 90).

As religion was subjected to scientific investigation, its earthly sources became increasingly evident. Ethnologic studies by E. Tylor, J. Frazer, R. Marett, and K. Preuss have shown that the emergence of religion was related to the low level of development of production and intellectual culture. In describing the rudimentary manifestations of religion, ethnology helped to reconstruct the history of the origins of religious beliefs. The study of the oldest religious texts provided extensive comparative material for the elucidation of similarities in the myths, beliefs, and cults of peoples in various parts of the world. Similarities in beliefs are the outgrowth of similarities in the forms of productive activity and everyday economics during the early stages of social development. Studies showed that there was a connection between religious consciousness and the development of language and culture in antiquity. For example, Judaism was linked with the cultural world of the ancient East, and Christianity was an outgrowth of eastern Hellenistic syncretism.

As an element of the social structure of class society, religion performs certain social functions, acting as one of the instruments by which the ideas of the ruling class become the ruling ideas in a particular society. Thus, religion serves as the spiritual buttress for an inverted world based on social inequality and oppression. At the same time, because religion is involved in the class struggle, it can, under certain conditions, express the interests and aspirations of the exploited masses, whose struggle against the exploiters has often taken the form of a struggle between religious ideas. In many countries, revolutionary peasant movements have based their antifeudal programs on early Christian demands for brotherhood and equality. However, the religious guise in which the ideas of progressive social movements appear at certain stages of history is evidence of the immaturity of these movements.

The concepts of god and the supernatural vary in social meaning precisely because judgments about god are always judgments about the world. Belief in the existence of god shapes different attitudes toward reality and is manifested in different kinds of social behavior fluctuating within a rather broad range between secular service and monastic renunciation of the world, between exaltation and quietism, and between reconciliation with the status quo and protest. Thus, the orientation toward earthly problems in contemporary religious ideology reflects changes in the consciousness of the broad masses of the working people who are believers and who increasingly strive for the realization of social justice on earth by participating in the struggle to change the unjust world.

Every great historical upheaval in the social order is accompanied by an upheaval in people’s religious concepts. Thus, medieval Catholicism represented the feudal variety of Christianity. Protestantism, the bourgeois variety of Christianity, emerged with the development of capitalism, as a counterweight to Catholicism. From the second half of the 19th century, Catholicism pursued a policy of adapting to the conditions of bourgeois society. Since the Renaissance, there has been a growing trend toward secularization, characterized by a steady decline in the influence of religion and by the liberation of various aspects of social and personal life from the control of religion.

Secularism is particularly widespread today. At a time of radical social transformations and scientific and technological progress, religion is experiencing a profound and irreversible crisis. Religion is acknowledged as the state ideology in fewer countries. As a result of the separation of church from state and school from church, religion controls a steadily narrowing sphere of society’s intellectual and cultural activity. Religion is no longer a dominant form of ideology. Its prestige and the number of its adherents are noticeably declining, and what remains of religiosity is increasingly superficial.

The scientific and technological revolution has undermined the religious picture of the world and strengthened man’s confidence in his capacity to use his own powers to solve the problems confronting him. In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, it becomes increasingly obvious that religion has outlived its historical role as a form of social consciousness. Characteristic of contemporary religious consciousness is a conflict between traditional and reformed versions of faith. The opposition between religion and the scientific world view has been underlined by attempts to eliminate the conflict between science and religion and reconcile them by freeing religion of archaic elements, mythology, and naïve anthropomorphism.

The factors that undermine religion coexist with the factors that nourish and support it. The rise of state-monopoly capitalism is accompanied by an intensification of social contradictions, exploitation, and the oppression and devastation of the individual. The inverted world, of which religion is the spiritual offspring, is exemplified by state-monopoly capitalism. The achievements of science and technology do not automatically lead to the extinction of religion, the existence of which is rooted in social relations. In capitalist society the scientific and technological revolution is accompanied by a series of negative social consequences, which religious ideologies blame on science and the rational intellect. The crisis of capitalism, which is foundering in contradictions, is interpreted as the crisis of man, who has forgotten god. The proposed solution for the crisis is not politics but religion.

To modernize religion, or adapt it to a changing world, there have been attempts to interpret religion, in conformity with a “theology of revolution,” as a spiritual force that stimulates social activism. However, this approach does not radically change the social character of religion. Belief in god remains the concomitant of lack of belief in human powers, extinguishing social protest by providing illusory consolation. The longer capitalism outlives its historical role, the more the ruling classes rely on religious justifications for capitalism’s existence. In the epoch of imperialism, all means of bourgeois propaganda are used to inculcate religion in the people, since religion is considered one of the principal means for counteracting the spread of a scientific materialist world view and communist ideology.

Profoundly scientific and materialist, the Marxist-Leninist world view is opposed to religion as an expression of illusory, inverted consciousness. Communism, which has revealed scientifically sound prospects for the establishment of social justice and which has transformed socialism from a utopia into a science and into social reality, is the opposite of religion. Communism is genuine humanism, which does not recognize the humanism of consoling lies or self-deceptions. “To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness” (K. Marx, ibid, vol. 1, p. 415).

The emergence of socialism was accompanied by the development of a social system fundamentally different from the “heartless world” and “soulless order” for which religion is an illusory compensation. The feeling of religious community and a tie with god serves as illusory compensation for the weakness of social ties among people, an inherent characteristic of antagonistic socioeconomic formations that is eliminated by socialist transformations.

As long as religion survives in socialist society, believers have the constitutionally guaranteed opportunity freely to participate in religious worship. The church is separate from the state, which does not interfere in the relationship of citizens to religion and religious beliefs. Thus, the state abides by the slogan of freedom of consciousness, which has been defended by Marxism-Leninism at all stages of its history. At the same time, socialist society is characterized by efforts to create the preconditions for liberating the consciousness of citizens from religious views. Scientific atheistic propaganda is conducted. The broad masses of the people were not attracted to freethinking and atheism in the historically limited forms in which they were manifested in antagonistic social formations. In a socialist society, religion confronts the opposition of mass atheism.

Marxist atheism goes beyond the limitations of the Enlightenment critique of religion, which failed to overcome idealist illusions that to change the world it was sufficient to change human consciousness. Warning against “playing up to” religion, V. I. Lenin also opposed any escapades in the “political war on religion.” In his opinion, “subordinating the struggle against religion to the struggle for socialism” was essential (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 17, pp. 417, 425).

The preconditions for a regular, lawlike evolution toward a society free from religion are established by the creation of the material and technical basis for communism, the constant improvement of socialist social relations, and the rising level of culture of the working masses. Historical experience confirms Marx’ idea that “religion will disappear to the extent that socialism develops. Its disappearance must take place as a result of social development, in which a major role belongs to education” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Ob ateizme, religii i tserkvi, Moscow, 1971, p. 470).

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Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma (collection of articles), vols. 1–12. Moscow, 1950–64.
Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma, issues 1–17—. Moscow, 1966–74—.
Hegel, G. W. F. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2. Stuttgart, 1928.
Marett, R. R. The Threshold of Religion. London, 1909.
Durkheim, E. Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris, 1912.
Weber, M. Gesammelle Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, 2nd ed., vols. 1–3. Tübingen, 1921–22.
Jung, C. G. Psychologie und Religion. Zürich, 1940.
Hellpach, W. Grundriss der Religionspsychologie. Stuttgart, 1951.
Handbuch der Religionswissenchaft. Edited by G. Mensching. Berlin, 1948.
Mensching, G. Die Religion: Erscheinungsformen, Strukturtypen und Lebensgesetze. Stuttgart, 1959.
Wach, J. Religionssoziologie. Tübingen, 1951.
Eliade, M. Traité d’histoire des religions. Paris, 1959.
International Bibliography of the History of Religions. Leiden, 1954.
Glasenapp, H. von. Die fünf grossen Religionen, 3rd ed., vols. 1–2. Düsseldorf, 1952–57.
Otto, R. Das Heilige, 30th ed. Munich, 1958.
Heiler, F. Die Religionen der Menschheit in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Stuttgart, 1959.
Heiler, F. Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religionen. Stuttgart, 1961.
Leeuw, G. van der. Einführung in die Phänomenologie der Religion. Munich, 1925.
Wells, D. H. God, Man, and the Thinker: Philosophies of Religion. New York, 1962.
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V. I. GARADZHA

religion

Chiefly RC Church the way of life determined by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience entered upon by monks, friars, and nuns

religion

Religion

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first part of this provision is known as the Establishment Clause, and the second part is known as the Free Exercise Clause. Although the First Amendment only refers to Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses also binding on states (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S. Ct. 900, 84 L. Ed. 1213 [1940], and Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S. Ct. 504, 91 L. Ed. 711 [1947], respectively). Since that incorporation, an extensive body of law has developed in the United States around both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.To determine whether an action of the federal or state government infringes upon a person's right to freedom of religion, the court must decide what qualifies as religion or religious activities for purposes of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons. The religion or religious concept need not include belief in the existence of God or a supreme being to be within the scope of the First Amendment.

As the case of United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S. Ct. 882, 88 L. Ed. 1148 (1944), demonstrates, the Supreme Court must look to the sincerity of a person's beliefs to help decide if those beliefs constitute a religion that deserves constitutional protection. The Ballard case involved the conviction of organizers of the I Am movement on grounds that they defrauded people by falsely representing that their members had supernatural powers to heal people with incurable illnesses. The Supreme Court held that the jury, in determining the line between the free exercise of religion and the punishable offense of obtaining property under False Pretenses, should not decide whether the claims of the I Am members were actually true, only whether the members honestly believed them to be true, thus qualifying the group as a religion under the Supreme Court's broad definition.

In addition, a belief does not need to be stated in traditional terms to fall within First Amendment protection. For example, Scientology—a system of beliefs that a human being is essentially a free and immortal spirit who merely inhabits a body—does not propound the existence of a supreme being, but it qualifies as a religion under the broad definition propounded by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has deliberately avoided establishing an exact or a narrow definition of religion because freedom of religion is a dynamic guarantee that was written in a manner to ensure flexibility and responsiveness to the passage of time and the development of the United States. Thus, religion is not limited to traditional denominations.

The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion has deeply rooted historical significance. Many of the colonists who founded the United States came to this continent to escape religious persecution and government oppression. This country's founders advocated religious freedom and sought to prevent any one religion or group of religious organizations from dominating the government or imposing its will or beliefs on society as a whole. The revolutionary philosophy encompassed the principle that the interests of society are best served if individuals are free to form their own opinions and beliefs.

When the colonies and states were first established, however, most declared a particular religion to be the religion of that region. But, by the end of the American Revolution, most state-supported churches had been disestablished, with the exceptions of the state churches of Connecticut and Massachusetts, which were disestablished in 1818 and 1833, respectively. Still, religion was undoubtedly an important element in the lives of the American colonists, and U.S. culture remains greatly influenced by religion.

Establishment Clause

The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from interfering with individual religious beliefs. The government cannot enact laws aiding any religion or establishing an official state religion. The courts have interpreted the Establishment Clause to accomplish the separation of church and state on both the national and state levels of government.The authors of the First Amendment drafted the Establishment Clause to address the problem of government sponsorship and support of religious activity. The Supreme Court has defined the meaning of the Establishment Clause in cases dealing with public financial assistance to church-related institutions, primarily parochial schools, and religious practices in the public schools. The Court has developed a three-pronged test to determine whether a statute violates the Establishment Clause. According to that test, a statute is valid as long as it has a secular purpose; its primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion; and it is not excessively entangled with religion. Because this three-pronged test was established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1971), it has come to be known as the Lemon test. Although the Supreme Court adhered to the Lemon test for several decades, since the 1990s, it has been slowly moving away from that test without having expressly rejected it.

Jesus, Meet Santa

Christmas and the First Amendment have had a rocky relationship. A decades-long battle over the place of worship and tradition in public life has erupted nearly every year when local governments sponsor holiday displays on public property. Lawsuits against towns and cities often, but not always, end with the courts ordering the removal of religious symbols whose government sponsorship violates the First Amendment. Since the 1980s, however, the outcome of such cases has become less predictable as deep divisions on the Supreme Court have resulted in new precedents that take a more nuanced view of the law. In such cases, context determines everything. Placing a nativity scene with the infant Jesus outside a town hall may be unconstitutional, for example, but the display may be acceptable if Santa Claus stands nearby.

On the question of religious displays, the First Amendment has two broad answers depending on the sponsor. Any private citizen can put up a nativity scene on private property at Christmas time: citizens and churches commonly exercise their First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech to do so. But when a government sets up a similar display on public property, a different aspect of the amendment comes into play. Governments do not enjoy freedom of speech, but, instead, are controlled by the second half of the First Amendment—the Establishment Clause, which forbids any official establishment of religion. All lawsuits demanding that a crèche, cross, menorah, or other religious symbol be removed from public property allege that the government that put it there has violated the Establishment Clause.

The Supreme Court has reviewed challenges to government sponsored displays of religious symbols under the Lemon test. Based on criteria from several earlier decisions and named after the case Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1973), the test recognizes that government must accommodate religion but forbids it to support religion. To survive constitutional review, a display must meet all three requirements or "prongs" of the test: it must have a secular (nonreligious) purpose, it must have the primary effect of neither advancing nor inhibiting religion, and it must avoid excessive entanglement between government and religion. Failing any of the three parts of the test constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause.

Starting in the 1980s, the test began to divide the Supreme Court. Conservative justices objected because it blocked what they saw as a valid acknowledgment of the role of religion in public life; opposing them were justices who believed in maintaining a firm line between government and religion. In significant cases concerning holiday displays, the Court continued to use the Lemon test but with new emphasis on the question of whether the display has the effect of advancing or endorsing a particular religion.

This shift in emphasis first emerged in 1984 in a case involving a Christmas display owned and erected by the City of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in a private park. The display included both a life-sized nativity scene with the infant Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and secular symbols such as Santa's house, a Christmas tree, striped poles, animals, and lights. Pawtucket residents successfully sued for removal of the nativity scene in federal district court, where it was found to have failed all three prongs of the Lemon test (Donnelly v. Lynch, 525 F. Supp. 1150 [D.R.I. 1981]). The decision was upheld on appeal, but, surprisingly, in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 1355, 79 L. Ed. 2d 604 (1984), the Supreme Court narrowly reversed in a 5–4 vote and found the entire display constitutional.

The majority in Lynch stressed historical context, emphasizing that the crèche belonged to a tradition "acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, by the Executive Branch, by the Congress, and the courts for two centuries." The display, ruled the Court, passed each prong of the Lemon test. First, the city had a secular purpose in celebrating a national holiday by using religious symbols that "depicted the historical origins" of the holiday. Second, the display did not primarily benefit religion. Third, no excessive entanglement between government and religion existed. Perhaps most significantly, the Court saw the crèche as a "passive symbol": although it derived from religion, over time it had come to represent a secular message of celebration.

Lynch laid bare the deep divisions on the Court. By emphasizing context, the majority appeared to suggest that the ruling was limited to circumstances similar to those in the case at hand: religious symbols could be acceptable in a holiday display if used with secular symbols. The majority did not enunciate any broad new protections for governments eager to sponsor crèches. Nonetheless, the opinion did not satisfy the dissenters, who sharply criticized the majority for failing to vigorously apply the Lemon test. They noted that the city could easily have celebrated the holiday without using religious symbols, and they saw the crèche as nothing less than government endorsement of religion.

The emphasis on context became even more pronounced in a 1989 case, County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S. Ct. 3086, 106 L. Ed. 2d 472. In Allegheny, a Pennsylvania county appealed a lower court ruling that had banned its two separate holiday displays: a crèche situated next to poinsettia plants inside the county courthouse, and an eighteen-foot menorah (a commemorative candelabrum in the Jewish faith) standing next to a Christmas tree and a sign outside a city-county office building. Each religious symbol was owned by a religious group—the crèche by the Catholic Holy Name Society and the menorah by Chabad, a Jewish organization. Viewing the displays in context, the Court permitted one but not the other, and its reasoning turned on subtle distinctions.

The Court deemed the crèche an unconstitutional endorsement of religion for two reasons. First, the presence of a few flowers around the crèche did not mediate its religious symbolism in the way that the secular symbols had done for the crèche in Lynch. Second, the prominent location doomed the display. By choosing the courthouse, a vital center of government, the Court said the county has sent "an unmistakable message" that it endorsed Christianity.

But the menorah passed constitutional review. Like the crèche in Lynch, its religious significance was transformed by the presence of secular symbols: the forty-five-foot Christmas tree and a sign from the city's mayor that read, "During this holiday season, the city of Pittsburgh salutes liberty. Let these festive lights remind us that we are keepers of the flame of liberty and our legacy of liberty." Even so, members of the majority disagreed on precisely what message was sent by the display. Justice harry a. blackmun read it as a secular message of holiday celebration. In a more complicated view, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said it "acknowledg[ed] the cultural diversity of our country and convey[ed] tolerance of different choice in matters of religious belief or non-belief by recognizing that the winter holiday season is celebrated in diverse ways by our citizens." Whatever the exact message, the majority agreed that it did not endorse religion.

Since the 1980s the thrust of Supreme Court doctrine has been to allow publicly sponsored holiday displays to include religious symbols. This expansive view of the First Amendment grew out of the Court's acknowledgment that local governments can accommodate civic tradition. Religious symbols on their own are unconstitutional. A display including such symbols may pass review, however, if it features secular symbols as well. Context is the determinant: to avoid violating the Establishment Clause, a crèche or menorah may need a boost from Santa Claus.

The Court has stated that the Establishment Clause means that neither a state nor the federal government can organize a church. The government cannot enact legislation that aids one religion, aids all religions, or prefers one religion over another. It cannot force or influence a person to participate in, or avoid, religion or force a person to profess a particular religious belief. No tax in any amount can be levied to support any religious activities or organizations. Neither a state nor the federal government can participate, whether openly or secretly, in the affairs of any religious groups.

Federal and state governments have accepted and implemented the doctrine of the separation of church and state by minimizing contact with religious institutions. Although the government cannot aid religions, it can acknowledge their role as a stabilizing force in society. For example, religious institutions, along with other charitable or nonprofit organizations, have traditionally been given tax exemptions. This practice, even when applied to religious organizations, has been deemed constitutional because the legislative aim of a property tax exemption is not to advance religion but to ensure that the activities of groups that enhance the moral and mental attitudes of the community will not be inhibited by taxation. The organizations lose the tax exemption if they undertake activities that do not serve the beneficial interests of society. Thus, in 1983, the Supreme Court decided in Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S. Ct. 2017, 76 L. Ed. 2d 157, that nonprofit private schools that discriminated against their students or prospective students on the basis of race could not claim tax-exempt status as a charitable organization for the purposes of federal tax laws.It is also believed that the elimination of such tax exemptions would lead the government into excessive entanglements with religious institutions. The exemption, therefore, is believed to create only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state—less than would result from taxation. The restricted fiscal relationship, therefore, enhances the desired separation.

Religion and Education The many situations in which religion and education overlap are a source of great controversy. In the early nineteenth century, the vast majority of Americans were Protestant, and Protestant-based religious exercises were common in the public schools. Legal challenges to these practices began in the state courts when a substantial number of Roman Catholics arrived in the United States. Until 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court began to directly address some of these issues, most states upheld the constitutionality of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.

In the 1962 case of engel v. vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S. Ct. 1261, 8 L. Ed. 2d 601, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a prayer that was a recommended part of the public school curriculum in the state of New York. The prayer had been approved by Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders in the state. Although the prayer was nondenominational and student participation in it was strictly voluntary, it was struck down as violative of the Establishment Clause.

Agostini v. Felton

In June 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back restrictions that it had imposed twelve years earlier on federal aid to religious schools. In a 5–4 decision in Agostini v. Felton, 117 S. Ct. 1997 (1997), the Court ruled that public school teachers can teach remedial education classes to disadvantaged students on the premises of parochial schools—a dramatic reversal of the Court's earlier hard line.

Federal law provides funds for such services to all children of low-income families under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.A. § 6301 et seq.). But in 1985 the Court barred public school instructors from teaching title I classes on parochial school premises. In Aguilar v. Felton (473 U.S. 402, 105 S. Ct. 3232, 87 L. Ed. 2d 290), the majority ruled that the mere presence of public employees at these schools had the effect of unconstitutionally advancing religion. To comply with the order, New York parked vans outside of parochial school property to deliver the services, a system that cost taxpayers $100 million between 1985 and 1997.

In a 1995 challenge, New York City argued that intervening cases had invalidated the Supreme Court's earlier ruling. Upon accepting the case on appeal in 1997, the Court agreed. In her majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor held that Aguilar had been overruled by two more recent cases based on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind, 474 U.S. 481, 106 S. Ct. 748, 88 L. Ed. 2d 846 (1986), and Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1, 113 S. Ct. 2462, 125 L. Ed. 2d (1993). O'Connor said that the two cases—permitting a state tuition grant to a blind person who attended a Christian college, and allowing a state-employed sign language interpreter to accompany a deaf student to a Catholic school, respectively—made it clear that the premises in Aguilarwere no longer valid.

Although limited specifically to title I programs, the decision added fuel to another long-standing controversy. Proponents and opponents of school vouchers—a system under which parents would be able to allocate their tax dollars to their children's private school education—disputed whether the case indicated that the Court was moving toward embracing the voucher idea.

In 1963, the Supreme Court heard the related issues of whether voluntary Bible readings or recitation of the Lord's Prayer were constitutionally appropriate exercises in the public schools (abington school district v. schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844). It was in these cases that the Supreme Court first formulated the three-pronged test for constitutionality. In applying the new test, the Court concluded that the exercises did not pass the first prong of the test: they were not secular in nature, but religious, and thus they violated the Establishment Clause because they violated state neutrality requirements.

Although students in public schools are not permitted to recite prayers, the practice of a state legislature opening its sessions with a nondenominational prayer recited by a chaplain receiving public funds has withstood constitutional challenge. In Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S. Ct. 3330, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1019 (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that such a practice did not violate the Establishment Clause. In making its decision, the Court noted that this was a customary practice and that the proponents of the Bill of Rights also approved of the government appointment of paid chaplains.

The Supreme Court has also held that a religious invocation, instituted by school officials, at a public school graduation violates the Establishment Clause (lee v. weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S. Ct. 2649, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467 [1992]). Subsequently, the Court made clear that even indirect school support of a prayer given by students violates the First Amendment. In Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000), the Court held that a Texas public school district could not let its students lead prayers over the public address system before its high school football. The school district's sponsorship of the public prayers by elected student representatives was unconstitutional because the schools could not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion.

In 1980, the Supreme Court overturned a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments, copies of which were purchased with private contributions, in every public school classroom (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S. Ct. 192, 66 L. Ed. 2d 199). Although the state argued that the postings served a secular purpose, the Court held that they were plainly religious. Four of the Supreme Court's nine justices dissented from the Court's opinion and were prepared to conclude that the postings were proper based on their secular purpose.

Because the Establishment Clause calls for government neutrality in matters involving religion, the government need not be hostile or unfriendly toward religions because such an approach would favor those who do not believe in religion over those who do. In addition, if the government denies religious speakers the ability to speak or punishes them for their speech, it violates the First Amendment's right to Freedom of Speech. The Supreme Court held in 1981 that it was unconstitutional for a state university to prohibit a religious group from using its facilities when the facilities were open for use by organizations of all other kinds (Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 102 S. Ct. 269, 70 L. Ed. 2d 440). The principles established in Widmar were unanimously reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, 113 S. Ct. 2141, 124 L. Ed. 2d 352 (1993). In 1995, the Supreme Court held that a state university violates the Free Speech Clause when it refuses to pay for a religious organization's publication under a program in which it pays for other student organization publications (Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 115 S. Ct. 2510, 132 L. Ed. 2d 700).

Facing another education and religion issue, the Supreme Court declared in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 68 S. Ct. 461, 92 L. Ed. 649 (1948), that public school buildings could not be used for a program that allowed pupils to leave classes early to receive religious instruction. The Court found that this program violated the Establishment Clause because the tax-supported public school buildings were being used for the teaching of religious doctrines, which constituted direct government assistance to religion.

However, the Court held that a release-time program that took place outside the public school buildings was constitutional because it did not involved religious instruction in public school classrooms or the expenditure of public funds (Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 72 S. Ct. 679, 96 L. Ed. 954 [1952]). All costs in that case were paid by the religious organization conducting the program.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also held that states may not restrict the teaching of ideas on the grounds that they conflict with religious teachings when those ideas are part of normal classroom subjects. In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S. Ct. 266, 21 L. Ed. 2d 228 (1968), the Court struck down a state statute that forbade the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. The Court held that the statute violated the Establishment Clause because its purpose was to protect religious theories of creationism from inconsistent secular theories.

In Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 96 L.Ed. 2d 510 (1987), the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana "Creationism Act" which prevented any teaching of evolution in public schools unless the course was also accompanied by the teaching of biblical creationism. In his majority opinion, Justice william brennan wrote that the Lemon test had to be used to judge the constitutionality of the Creationism Act. The state contended that the law was simply designed to promote Academic Freedom by ensuring that students would hear about more than one theory on the origins of life. However, the Court noted that teachers were permitted to present more than one such theory before the law had been passed. The actual purpose of the law, then, had to be to make sure that creationism was taught if anything at all was taught. Brennan ruled that the act did not have a secular purpose and that it did not advance academic freedom. To the contrary, it restricted the abilities of teachers to teach what they deemed appropriate. Brennan also pointed out that Louisiana provided instructional packets to assist in the teaching of creationism but did not provide similar materials for the teaching of evolution. This demonstrated an interest in promoting creationism and religion.

In a 1993 case, the Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause did not prevent a public school from providing a sign language interpreter for a deaf student who attended a religiously affiliated school within the school district (Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1, 113 S. Ct. 2462, 125 L. Ed. 2d 1). Commentators have noted that this case demonstrates the Court's willingness to uphold religiously neutral government aid to all school children, regardless of whether they attend a religiously affiliated school, where the aid is designed to help the children overcome a physical or learning disability. As of 2003, it was not clear, however, whether the Court would extend this holding to more general forms of aid to children in religious and public schools alike.

Government and Religion The closing of government offices on particular religious holidays is unconstitutional if no secular purpose is served (Mandel v. Hodges, 54 Cal. App. 3d 596, 127 Cal. Rptr. 244 [1976]). But if employees won the closing through Collective Bargaining, it is permissible even without a secular purpose (Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Kent County, 97 Mich. App. 72, 293 N.W. 2d 723 [1980]).

Government display of symbols with religious significance raises Establishment Clause issues. In the 1984 case of Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 1355, 79 L. Ed. 2d 604, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a city to erect in a park a Christmas display that included colored lights, reindeer, candy canes, a Santa's house, a Christmas tree, a "SEASONS GREETINGS" banner, and a nativity scene. The Court decided the inclusion of the nativity scene along with traditional secular Christmas symbols did not promote religion to an extent prohibited by the First Amendment.

Since the mid-1990s, displays of the Ten Commandments in public buildings other than schools has become more common. Several judges drew national attention when they posted the Ten Commandments in their courtrooms, thereby triggering litigation. Alabama trial judge Roy Moore used the publicity from his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom to run for and be elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in November 2000. After taking office in January 2001, he briefly avoided controversy by posting the Ten Commandments in his chambers rather than in the Supreme Court's courtroom. However, Moore installed a 5,300 pound Ten Commandments monument in the judicial building on a summer night in 2001. A group of citizens objected and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. In November 2002, the federal court issued an order directing Moore to remove the monument. Moore refused and vowed to appeal the decision (Glassroth v. Moore, 242 F.Supp. 2d 1068 [M.D.Ala.2002]). In 2003, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision in Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F. 3d 1282. Despite a federal court order to remove the monument, Moore refused. Finally, in September 2003, the other members of the Alabama Supreme Court had the monument removed. Moore was suspended from office while a judicial inquiry commission reviewed his conduct.

Free Exercise Clause

The Free Exercise Clause guarantees a person the right to practice a religion and propagate it without government interference. This right is a liberty interest that cannot be deprived without Due Process of Law. Although the government cannot restrict a person's religious beliefs, it can limit the practice of faith when a substantial and compelling state interest exists. The courts have found that a substantial and compelling State Interest exists when the religious practice poses a threat to the health, safety, or Welfare of the public. For example, the government could legitimately outlaw the practice of Polygamy that was formerly mandated by the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) but could not outlaw the religion or belief in Mormonism itself (Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L. Ed. 244 [1878]). The Supreme Court has invalidated very few actions of the government on the basis of this clause.

Religious practices are not the only method by which a violation of the Free Exercise Clause can occur. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S. Ct. 1178, 87 L. Ed. 1628 (1943), the Supreme Court held that a public school could not expel children because they refused on religious grounds to comply with a requirement of saluting the U.S. flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In that case, the children were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they believed that saluting the flag fell within the scope of the biblical command against worshipping false gods.

A more recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ignited a firestorm of controversy. The appeals court, in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 292 F.3d 597 (9th Cir. 2002), ruled that Congress had violated the Establishment Clause when, in 1954, it inserted the words "Under God" into the pledge. Therefore, a California school district's daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance injured the daughter of an atheist father, for the pledge sent a message to her that she was an "outsider" and not a member of the political community. The defendants vowed to petition the Supreme Court to review the case. The Ninth Circuit stayed its ruling until the Supreme Court resolved the issue by either denying review or taking the appeal.

In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S. Ct. 1526, 32 L. Ed. 2d 15 (1972), the Supreme Court held that state laws requiring children to receive education up to a certain age impinged upon the religious freedom of the Amish who refuse to send their children to school beyond the eighth grade because they believe that doing so would impermissibly expose the children to worldly influences that conflicted with Amish religious beliefs.

In 1993, Congress passed the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which provides that "[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, "unless the government can demonstrate that the burden advances a compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive way. This statute was enacted in response to the Supreme Court's 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L. Ed. 2d 876. The Smith case involved a state law that denied Unemployment Compensation benefits to anyone who had been fired from his or her job for job-related misconduct. This case involved two individuals who had been fired from their jobs for ingesting peyote, which was forbidden by state law. The individuals argued that their ingestion of peyote was related to a religious ceremony in which they participated. The Supreme Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause did not require an exemption from the state law banning peyote use and that unemployment compensation could therefore lawfully be denied.

RFRA directly superseded the Smith decision. However, soon after it was enacted, many courts ruled that RFRA violated either the Establishment Clause or the Separation of Powers doctrine. In the 1997 case of City of Boerne v. P. F. Flores, 1997 WL 345322, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6–3 to invalidate RFRA on the grounds that Congress had exceeded the scope of its enforcement power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment in enacting RFRA. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment permits Congress to enact legislation enforcing the Constitutional right to free exercise of religion. However, the Court held that this power is limited to preventative or remedial measures. The court found that RFRA went beyond that and actually made substantive changes in the governing law. Because Congress exceeded its power under the Fourteenth Amendment in enacting RFRA, it contradicted vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal-state balance and thus was unconstitutional.

Although the Free Exercise Clause protects against government action, it does not restrict the conduct of private individuals. For example, the courts generally will uphold a testator's requirement that a beneficiary attend a specified church to receive a testamentary gift because the courts refuse to question the religious views of a testator in the interest of public policy. Similarly, the Free Exercise Clause does not protect a person's religious beliefs from infringement by the actions of private corporations or businesses, although federal and state Civil Rights laws may make such private conduct unlawful.

The government cannot enact a statute that wholly denies the right to preach or to disseminate religious views, but a state can constitutionally regulate the time, place, and manner of soliciting upon the streets and of conducting meetings in order to safeguard the peace, order, and comfort of the community. It can also protect the public against frauds perpetrated under the cloak of religion, as long as the law does not use a process amounting to a Prior Restraint, which inhibits the free exercise of religion. In a 1951 case, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for a city to deny a Baptist preacher the renewal of a permit for evangelical street meetings, even though his previous meetings included attacks on Roman Catholicism and Judaism that led to disorder in the streets, because it constituted a prior restraint (Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 71 S. Ct. 312, 95 L. Ed. 280).

State laws known as Sunday closing laws, which prohibit the sale of certain goods on Sundays, have been declared constitutional against the challenge of Orthodox Jews who claimed that the laws created an economic hardship for them because their faith requires them to close their businesses on Saturdays and who therefore wanted to do business on Sundays (Braunfield v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 81 S. Ct. 1144, 6 L. Ed. 2d 563 [1961]). The Supreme Court held that, although the law imposed an indirect burden on religion, it did not make any religious practice itself unlawful.

In United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 102 S. Ct. 1051, 71 L. Ed. 2d 127 (1982), the Supreme Court upheld the requirement that Amish employers withhold Social Security and unemployment insurance contributions from their employees, despite the Amish argument that this violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause. The Court found that compulsory contributions were necessary to accomplish the overriding government interest in the proper functioning of the Social Security and unemployment systems.

The Supreme Court has also upheld the assignment and use of Social Security numbers by the government to be a legitimate government action that does not violate the Free Exercise Clause (Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 106 S. Ct. 2147, 90 L. Ed. 2d 735 [1986]).

In the 1989 case of Hernandez v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 490 U.S. 680, 109 S. Ct. 2136, 104 L. Ed. 2d 766, the Supreme Court held that the government's denial of a taxpayer's deduction from gross income of "fixed donations" to the Church of Scientology for certain religious services was constitutional. These fees were paid for certain classes required by the Church of Scientology, and the Court held that they did not classify as charitable contributions because a good or service was received in exchange for the fee paid.

In Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization, 493 U.S. 378, 110 S. Ct. 688, 107 L. Ed. 2d 796 (1990), the Court ruled that a religious organization is not exempt from paying a state's general sales and use taxes on the sale of religious products and religious literature.

Similarly, the Court decided in Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 452 U.S. 640, 101 S. Ct. 2559, 69 L. Ed. 2d 298 (1981), that a state rule limiting the sale or distribution of merchandise to specific booths was lawful, even when applied to ISKCON members whose beliefs mandated them to distribute or sell religious literature and solicit donations in public places.

Military regulations have also been challenged under the Free Exercise Clause. In Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 106 S. Ct. 1310, 89 L. Ed. 2d 478 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause did not require the U.S. Air Force to permit an Orthodox Jewish serviceman to wear his yarmulke while in uniform and on duty. The Court found that the military's interest in discipline was sufficiently important to outweigh the incidental burden the rule had on the serviceman's religious beliefs.

However, a law that places an indirect burden on the practice of religion so as to impede the observance of religion or a law that discriminates between religions is unconstitutional. Thus, the Supreme Court has held that the denial of unemployment compensation to a Seventh-Day Adventist who was fired from her job and could not obtain any other work because of her refusal to work on Saturdays for religious reasons was unconstitutional (Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S. Ct. 1790, 10 L. Ed. 2d 965 [1963]). The Sherbert case was reaffirmed and applied in the 1987 case of Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Commission of Florida, 480 U.S. 136, 107 S. Ct. 1046, 94 L. Ed. 2d 190.

In the 1993 case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113 S. Ct. 2217, 124 L. Ed. 2d 472, remanded on other grounds, the High Court overturned a city law that forbade animal slaughter insofar as the law banned the ritual animal slaughter by a particular religious sect. The Court found that the law was not a religiously neutral law of general applicability but was specifically designed to prevent a religious sect from carrying out its religious rituals.

In Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 92 S. Ct. 1079, 31 L. Ed. 2d 263 (1972), the Supreme Court affirmed that prisoners are entitled to their rights under the Free Exercise Clause, subject only to the requirements of prison security and discipline. Thus, the Court held that a Texas prison must permit a Buddhist prisoner to use the prison chapel and share his religious materials with other prisoners, just as any other prisoner would be permitted to so act.

States have been allowed to deny disability benefits, however, to applicants who refuse to submit to medical examinations for religious reasons. Courts have held that this is constitutional because the state has a compelling interest in verifying that the intended recipients of the tax-produced assistance are people who are legitimately entitled to receive the benefit. Likewise, states can regulate religious practices to protect the public health. Thus, state laws requiring the vaccination of all children before they are allowed to attend school are constitutional because the laws are designed to prevent the widespread epidemic of contagious diseases. Public health protection has been deemed to outweigh any competing interest in the exercise of religious beliefs that oppose any forms of medication or immunization.

A number of cases have involved the issue of whether there is a compelling state interest to require that a blood transfusion be given to a patient whose religion prohibits such treatment. In these cases, the courts look to the specific facts of the case, such as whether the patient is a minor or a mentally incompetent individual, and whether the patient came to the hospital voluntarily seeking help. The courts have generally authorized the transfusions in cases of minors or mentally incompetent patients in recognition of the compelling government interest to protect the health and safety of people. However, the courts are divided as to whether they should order transfusions where the patient is a competent adult who steadfastly refuses to accept such treatment on religious grounds despite the understanding that her or his refusal could result in death. As of 2003, the Supreme Court had not ruled on this issue, and therefore there was no final judicial opinion on the propriety of such orders.

The use of secular courts to determine intra-church disputes has raised issues under both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court decided in the 1871 case of Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 20 L. Ed. 666, that judicial intervention in cases involving ownership and control of church assets necessarily had to be limited to determining and enforcing the decision of the highest judicatory body within the particular religious group. For congregational religious groups, such as Baptists and Jews, the majority of the congregation was considered the highest judicatory body. In hierarchical religions, such as the Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, the diocesan bishop was considered the highest judicatory authority. The Supreme Court consistently applied that principle until its 1979 decision in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S. Ct. 3020, 61 L. Ed. 2d 775. In that case, the Court held that the "neutral principles of law developed for use in all property disputes" could be constitutionally applied in intra-church litigation. Under this case, courts can examine the language of the church charters, real and Personal Property deeds, and state statutes relating to the control of property generally.

Religious Oaths Prohibited

The Constitution also refers to religion in Article VI, Clause 3, which provides, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The provision is binding only on the federal government.

In early American history, individual states commonly required religious oaths for public officers. But after the Revolutionary War, most of these religious tests were eliminated. As of 2003, the individual states, through their constitutions or statutes, have restrictions similar to that of the U.S. Constitution on imposing a religious oath as a condition to holding a government position.

Freedom to express religious beliefs is entwined with the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression. The federal or state governments cannot require an individual to declare a belief in the existence of God as a qualification for holding office (Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S. Ct. 1680, 6 L. Ed. 2d 982 [1961]).

Congress took an unprecedented step when it passed the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. (Pub. L.105-292, 112 Stat. 2787). The law seeks to promote religious freedom worldwide. It created a special representative to the Secretary of State for international religious freedom. This representative serves on a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an advisory organization. The act gives the president authority to take diplomatic and other appropriate action with respect to any country that engages in or tolerates violations of religious freedom. In extreme circumstances, the president is empowered to impose economic sanctions on countries that systematically deny religious freedom.

Cross-references

Charities; Ecclesiastical Courts; Flag; Immunization Programs; Parent and Child; Schools and School Districts; Scopes Monkey Trial.

religion

modes of divine worship. Freedom of religion is a HUMAN RIGHT.

RELIGION. Real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men.
2. There are many actions which cannot be regulated by human laws, and many duties are imposed by religion calculated to promote the happiness of society. Besides, there is an infinite number of actions, which though punishable by society, may be concealed from men, and which the magistrate cannot punish. In these cases men are restrained by the knowledge that nothing can be hidden from the eyes of a sovereign intelligent Being; that the soul never dies, that there is a state of future rewards and punishments; in fact that the most secret crimes will be punished. True religion then offers succors to the feeble, consolations to the unfortunate, and fills the wicked with dread.
3. What Montesquieu says of a prince, applies equally to an individual. "A prince," says he, "who loves religion, is a lion, which yields to the hand that caresses him, or to the voice which renders him tame. He who fears religion and bates it, is like a wild beast, which gnaws, the chain which restrains it from falling on those within its reach. He who has no religion is like a terrible animal which feels no liberty except when it devours its victims or tears them in pieces." Esp. des, Lois, liv. 24, c. 1.
4. But religion can be useful to man only when it is pure. The constitution of the United States has, therefore, wisely provided that it should never be united with the state. Art. 6, 3. Vide Christianity; Religious test; Theocracy.

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Types of Religious Systems

Bibliography

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REFERENCES

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Patient discussion about religion

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Religion

Establishment Clause

Jesus, Meet Santa

Agostini v. Felton

Free Exercise Clause

Religious Oaths Prohibited

Further readings

Cross-references

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Synonyms for religion

noun belief

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noun a system of religious belief

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noun a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny

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noun an institution to express belief in a divine power

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