What is Religion

Since the 18th century, we in the West have laid far too much emphasis on accepting certain creedal positions about God. Faith has come to be identified with belief, and intellectual assent to a theological option. But this is a peculiar development. In most traditions - certainly in Judaism and Islam - religion is not about accepting a complicated belief system, but about doing things that change you. You are expected to behave in a certain way. Muslims, for example, fast during Ramadan and give alms, which are supposed to increase their compassion and sense of identity with the poor. The Koran is very sceptical indeed about theology, which it calls zanna: self-indulgent guesswork. God is indefinable; no establishment or institution can have the last word on the divine.

We often think about God in too simplistic a way, as a being 'out there' that watches over us. But this has just been one way of approaching the divine. Increasingly people find this type of theology incredible, so they give up on religion. My own view is that we have intimations of holiness and sacredness that are transcendent and ineffable. That means that they can never be enunciated rationally. God is not a reality like an atom that can be demonstrated by facts and logic. God is an entirely different kind of reality.

Repeatedly, for example, the most eminent Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers insisted that God is not another being, not even the Supreme Being. It is better to say that God does not exist, because our notion of existence is too limited to apply to God. God is Nothing, not another being. As one very great Greek Orthodox theologian has it: 'God is not one of the things that are. God is not one of the things that exist.' And in the same way, the Buddha always refused to define Nirvana, and Confucious on principle never mentioned the Tao.

The experience of an indefinable transcendence, holiness or sacredness has been a fact of human life. Even though I don't share the traditional notion that many people have of God, I don't want to dismantle their faith, however. In fact, I don't think it matters what you believe in - and most of the great sages of religion would agree with me. If conventional beliefs make you compassionate, kind and respectful of the sacred rights of others, this is a good religion. If your beliefs make you intolerant, unkind and belligerent, this is bad religion, no matter how orthodox it is.

Karen Armstrong