Religion has played a crucial part in the lives of human beings
ever since when. The Abrahamic religions
would place this right from the first human being that is Adam. Whatever said and done any religion is just a
belief system that can neither be proved or disproved and since anyone can
believe in anything Islam puts it bluntly in Surah Al Kafirun 109 : 6 - "
To you your religion and to me mine."
This would also indicate that it would be pointless to do anything else
like argue or fight about it.
Religiosity is a general term that is used in the
scientific study of religion to refer to the beliefs and behaviors of
individuals that address ultimate or transcendent concerns and sometimes just
considered to
be synonymous with such terms as religiousness, orthodoxy, faith, belief,
piousness, devotion, and holiness. I
would simply put it as something that is more visible and more tangible that
way. Hence you can identify a person’s
religious belief merely by his or her outward manifestation in the form of
dress and/or other related social trappings.
Thus humans have had a clear divide in
matters of religion which can be easily seen in the outward manifestations of
appearance, behavior and even speech. To
me this is the easier part. For example,
even a child of six can complete the Ramadan fasting faithfully for an entire
month or pray five times a day. And it
is also not uncommon to see children wearing crosses or going to the church
every Sunday. But wait, if such outward
manifestations of religiosity are that easy to follow then it must be a piece
of cake to be a “religious” person but mere outward manifestations alone in any
religion do not make anyone religious.
The second and more difficult of being
religious has to do with spirituality aspects and tenets which deal with the
more practical aspects of the values
prescribed in each religion. The
Christian faith, for example, demands its adherents to follow the Ten
Commandments. Loving your neighbor as
yourself is something that is almost impossible. Other acts of goodness like caring for your
neighbors, society and the environment are more easily said than done. One common value is well outlined in what has
been termed as the Golden Rule. The odd thing here is that this is one area
which all religions preach the same thing but it is not that easily followed. The degree of adherence to any article of
faith also differs between people of the same faith. Some take it more lightly than others. Muslims are generally very “fussy” about the
Friday congregational prayers. Followers
of other religions may not have similar forms of congregational prayers but may
be more religious in following the true essence of what their the religion demands in terms of values.
Most people feel that a sensible
balance between the two aspects of religiosity and spirituality can be
maintained. Of course that would be
ideal I suppose but look around the real world and see how much of these two
aspects are really balanced. There are
people on both ends of the spectrum as well as others who are in between. Whatever said and done it is up to each and
every individual concerned to decide where to position oneself. Therein lies the choice.
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