The Five Elements Of Religion In Cunningham's Article

Cunningham discusses five elements of religion in his article. I think all of them are extremely potent and can not stand alone. The five elements are this: religion and thoughts, feelings, actions, individual and social existence with religion, and values. You can’t fully have a religion without all five of these elements. Just looking at values, or just looking at thoughts without feelings will not give you a full idea of what makes up a religion.
“The fact of a relationship between religion and thought remains constant (Cunningham, 14).” This quote alone sums up where thoughts stand in terms of professing a religion. Without yet taking into consideration feelings, your thoughts are how you determine your beliefs and what you see as a higher being. While your judgments are what help you to trust and have devotion, thoughts can also be the thing that keep being from believing because we have this idea of something that is solely based off faith and isn’t tangible. Although I don’t think thought is first and foremost as a characteristic of religion, just as the quote says, you can’t deny that there is a relationship between religion and thoughts.
“This experience is on that inspires feelings of fear, awe, terror, and love (Cunningham, 14).” I …show more content…
We can not push people into a religion. We can teach and share but the individual must make the decision on their own. While individual worship and time alone in your religion is important, it is also beyond critical that people of religions gather in communities. We are told to hold each other accountable just as the monks do to provide support for one another. Individual and social existence and religion seems to be the most controversial, and I think this is because it is dependent upon the religion and where they stand with individual