We live - we are often told - in a secular age. Yet we also live in an age in which human affairs are influenced as never before by religion. From international terrorism to the multicultural society on our doorstep, our lives are affected every day by what people believe about the divine.
As a result, The Independent is currently running an excellent series on the world's great religions. Saturday's Independent came with the first part of an Encyclopedia of Religion, which included an interesting introductory article by John Bowker, and an article by Tony Blair on his faith foundation.
Blair rightly states the obvious but still contested fact that:
"... however much some people may dislike it, ... faith still matters to billions of people around the world. Even in the West, which in many places now has only a tenuous connection with its religious traditions, millions of people still believe. In most other parts of the world, religions are growing. Faith provides a structure for people's lives, values to guide their behaviour and aspirations and ideals which endow their existence with meaning. It is a force which in countless different ways motivates people to do good, though sometimes, it is true, motivates them to do great harm.
So we shall not fully understand what drives countless individuals and the many different communities they make up if we do not understand religion in its various manifestations."
Bowker concludes that:
"... religion should be taken far more seriously by those who are taking political or economic decisions - not just because religions and religious people can be so dangerous, but also because religions are a massively important resource for good. Religions can lead to wicked and destructive evils, but equally religions have the power to contest evil, to raise up the wrecked and desolate from their despair and to commit themselves to the renewal of the earth."
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Moby - Natural Blues.
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