The Influence Of Religion In The Educational Process

The influence of religion in the educational process

To talk about religion and the influence that it has in the educational process, the concept of religion must be understood first; Thus Emile Durkheim, one of the parents of the sociology of religion, in the study of this phenomenon, contributed reflections that still show their validity and are subject to problematizations. The concept of religion proposed by Durkheim (1997) mentions that:

A religion is a solidarity system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things, that is, separated, prohibited; beliefs and practices that unite in the same moral community, called Church, all who adhere to it. The second element that appears in our definition is no less essential than the first; Well, showing that the idea of ​​religion is inseparable from the idea of ​​Church, it makes it present that religion must be eminently collective thing.

On the other hand, the Bible itself is not totally positive or totally negative regarding religion, although it makes some references does not affirm or deny; However, if it gives indications of this in some verses … "let’s consider each other to encourage love and excellent works, without abandoning us," "those who worship God should have the same beliefs," among others; In this way, taking into account these main definitions of religion, a more joint definition can be accepted, which tells us:

Religion A system of human activity composed of beliefs and practices about what is considered divine or sacred, both personal and collective, existential, moral and spiritual type.

There is talk of religions to refer to specific forms of manifestation of the religious phenomenon, shared by the different human groups. There are religions that are organized in more or less rigid ways, while others lack formal structure and are integrated into the cultural traditions of society or ethnicity in which they are practiced. The term refers to both personal beliefs and practices and collective rhythms and teachings.

Religions for centuries have influenced the development process of the human being, both for good and for worse, and today in the world with many different religions with each other.

The number of religions currently is not known, but it is believed that it is around 4500 different. It is impossible to know the exact amount because the number also ranges quite a lot since there are with very few followers and many of them appear and disappear quickly.

The most faithful religions are:

• Christianity with more than 2.000 million faithful
• The Islam that has more than 1.000 million faithful.
• Hinduism with about 1.000 million followers.
• Buddhism with about 800 million.
• The traditional Chinese religion that exceeds 400 million followers.
• Indigenous with about 300 million.
• African American with about 100 million.
• Sijismo with about 25 million.
• The juche with about 19 million
• The spiritism that follows 15 million
• Judaism that has about 14 million followers

There are also more than 1 in the world.300 million inhabitants who do not profess any religion.

The statistics of the world’s religions are very approximate. Outside Christianity, few religions try to show statistical records of their memberships and even Protestants and Catholics use different counting criteria.

Thus, for example, in the Catholic Church, everything baptized is in case a member while in the Protestant churches only those who have "united" are counted. Statistics compilation is further complicated for cases such as China where a person can be at the same time confucionist, Taoist and Buddhist and in Japan be at the same time Buddhist and Sinto.

Already by the end of the 20th century, through a census that was carried out worldwide, it could be registered, statistical data that show that most of the population, professes a religion, and that the fastest growing religion was the Christian religion.

However, it was believed that, "within a generation, the entire world population will become Christianity". This has not materialized, especially since there has been an unexpected phenomenon: in recent years there has been a strong dropout of Christianity due to secularism (in Western Europe), communism (in Russia and Eastern Europe) and materialism ( In America), which has resulted in an explosive growth of non-creation, particularly in the traditionally Christian world. However, in the last two decades, non-creation has been decreasing slightly.

The religious world has been fragmented, not only by internal divisions, but also by the emergence and surprising proliferation of new religions, many of them arising from the great religions established. In fact, there are currently about 10.000 different religions.

In Latin America, at the end of the twentieth century, Christianity maintained its hegemony with 93.7%. Currently, analysts distinguish six great blocks within Christianity: four traditional, which are Catholicism, Protestantism, orthodoxy and Anglicanism; and two recent blocks: the ‘marginal Christians’ (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses) and the ‘independent churches’ that mostly representing non -white indigenous churches mostly represent. All of them are present in Latin America.

With all this we can say that religion greatly influences the lives of many people. The reality is that the future of humanity depends on the future of religion.

Great thinkers ago said that religion was going to disappear, to the point that in the year 66 the magazine Time Saco in its lid the question “God has dead?", The answer:" If he was not dead he surely agonized and he didn’t have left "; However, all those thinkers and Time magazine was wrong, religion is alive.

He is living in the millions of people who go on pilgrimage, in the millions who bathe in a sacred river to purify themselves, in the thousands of faithful who come to see the Pope. Religion is mainly alive in 84% of the world’s population that has a religious affiliation. Of every 10 people on the planet more than 8 has a religious identity.

Religion has become public. Public When terrorists attack the twin towers, it is publishes when a president speaks of religion or a Pope talks about homosexuality or abortion. Religion is back, not for nothing the editors of the "Economist" titled their latest book "God is back, and everything indicates that God stays for a while"; However, a restlessness, a fear almost, arises, and the restlessness is that we are not prepared, we are not educated, we are not ready to live in a religious world. How many of us know, for example, where most Muslims live on the planet?, It is not in the Middle East, how many we have read the Qur’an, how many have we studied the gospels, but studied seriously, with a certain critical eye not how catechesis is studied.

The reality is that religion is one of the few areas of knowledge that would seem to be allowed to be ignorant, but if the primary, secondary, the university is ended and never read in this educational process a couple of pages of Shakespeare or Galeano or Onetti, it is thought that something fails in the educational process; But if the Quran, the Bible or others are not read, nothing happens; It’s like weird … No one bases his life on Borges’s Aleph, but thousands and millions of people if they base their life on the Koran, they do believe that the gospels speak of God made man who dies for our sins.

In universities it is required that students pass philosophy, or language or mathematics, whatever the road, but an introduction to the religions of the world is not required. If you go for a walk on the street we really do not cross with a Hegelian or a Marxist or a Tizian; But, if we cross a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Catholic, a Christian; Yes we cross with someone, a neighbor, who is surely religious.

So fear is that we are not prepared, and since there are not prepared there are consequences, there are conflicts that last, there are people who die, reinforce fundamentalisms and fundamentally, we limit our humanity.

We think that religion complicates things, it is a complication, but that happens if you cannot speak a religious language, one cannot communicate with the other; We fall into the "respect the religion of the other", without realizing that this position is one of the most black, because this position reinforces fundamentalism, because when one says "we respect that religion" in the background what we are doing is taking a position in a theological debate that exists within Islam.

We limit our humanity, the believer believes, the atheist rejects and the agnostic is the one that "does not decide", it is more believer when the plane shakes and moves, but with the feet on the ground it is not. But there is something in common that the believer and atheist have, and they live in some way in world closed, while the agnostic is open, seeks to relate, seek to leave somehow of his bubble.

In the 21st century we have several proposals around religions, an option is tolerance; However, I do not like it, since tolerance seems arrogant and condescending to me is like saying “You are wrong, you are a delusional; But I tolerate you ”; Another alternative is respect, respect is better; But personally I don’t like it either, because respect implies a distance “those are your beliefs, I respect them; But I take a step back. I respect them ”; The position that I like and I think we must take is called spiritual humility, it is an openness to the religions of the world, it is a desire to learn from them.

We generally think of religions as countries, with soldiers that protect borders jealously, so that no one can leave or no one can enter, we feel traitors if we change religious belief and incorporate something into our lives from another faith.

Before we lived in homogeneous communities, now more and more people live in huge cities, and cities are places where one inevitably is coda with people who think very different things. The urban, internet, emigration, immigration, television, radio; All that leads to a phenomenon that knowledge sociologists call, cognitive pollution; That is, when one talks with another, dialogues with another face to face, it is more difficult to think that the other is a sinner or a perverse or that inevitably and goes to hell for what he believes; And that is why religion is not only something that is inherited, but is built; It becomes a decision of the individual; That is, one is Buddhist or Jewish-Muslman, not because he is born there, but because he is chosen to be, and that is why more and more people take communion but they do meditation; We can begin to aspire not only to multi-religious countries, but also to people, multi-religious individuals.

Yes, the future of humanity depends on the future of religion, but the future of religion depends on humanity.