Religion is not a word that could be defined by one strict meaning. It is, in a sense, limitless. The terminology can be applied to sports, “Football is my religion”. It can be something someone does routinely, “I religiously go to visit my parents”. Yet the most common practice of the word religion typically deals with a set of beliefs, regarding after life, gods, and how your time on earth should be spent. People desperately try to define religion. Reason being, simply because people want to explain the unknown, they want answers to questions they cannot begin to fathom. What is good, in relation, what is evil? What is the meaning of life? What happens after death? Does how I live my human life affect my after life? Answers to these
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In the book, Sacred and Profane: Religious Clergy by Kevin Delany, religious leaders describe money in ways that allow it to take on meanings that blend elements of the sacred and the profane. Delany explains, “If money is thought of only in the secular accounting sense, when a person makes a donation of money, he or she now has less money as a simple mathematical formulation.” (Delany) Sacred could also be a person or figure, for example, “founder or great figure at the beginning of the tradition,” such as “Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-Tzu have all been identified as founders of religious traditions at one time or another.” (Cunningham) Objects associated with religions, or peoples personal belongings, could also be “sacred”. Christians have many “sacred” objects, such as “the bread and wine of Holy Communion.” (Cunningham) Time is yet another example of something that can also be very “sacred”. In Muslim traditions the time of day you pray is vital, or even in Judaism taking the time to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem is an important dedication of time. Of course it is no surprise that places like “churches and synagogues” are “scared”, but also entire cities such as “Jerusalem, the holy city in the holy land,” or the “Wailing Wall” is profoundly “scared”. (Cunningham) Yet the “sacred cannot be adequately described in any aspect of human experience” without “ceasing to be religious”. (Cunningham) So, just like religion, the “sacred” and “profane” are also difficult to
In the book, Sacred and Profane: Religious Clergy by Kevin Delany, religious leaders describe money in ways that allow it to take on meanings that blend elements of the sacred and the profane. Delany explains, “If money is thought of only in the secular accounting sense, when a person makes a donation of money, he or she now has less money as a simple mathematical formulation.” (Delany) Sacred could also be a person or figure, for example, “founder or great figure at the beginning of the tradition,” such as “Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-Tzu have all been identified as founders of religious traditions at one time or another.” (Cunningham) Objects associated with religions, or peoples personal belongings, could also be “sacred”. Christians have many “sacred” objects, such as “the bread and wine of Holy Communion.” (Cunningham) Time is yet another example of something that can also be very “sacred”. In Muslim traditions the time of day you pray is vital, or even in Judaism taking the time to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem is an important dedication of time. Of course it is no surprise that places like “churches and synagogues” are “scared”, but also entire cities such as “Jerusalem, the holy city in the holy land,” or the “Wailing Wall” is profoundly “scared”. (Cunningham) Yet the “sacred cannot be adequately described in any aspect of human experience” without “ceasing to be religious”. (Cunningham) So, just like religion, the “sacred” and “profane” are also difficult to