Explicating Religion's Place in Society

¶ … Soul Based on Young's discussion in chapter 1 of The World's Religions, religion has been understood and described primarily as a way for man to contextualize his existence and to reconcile that with the notion of a higher power. There are also certain basic things that virtually all religions do, such as provide answers to questions concerning how the world was created, what man's role is in it, and what fate awaits man after his physical demise.

In this sense, religion merely provides answers to many of the questions that man might have regarding the cosmos and the place of man within a larger, more universal existence. Thus, I believe that it is accurate to define or describe religion or the sacred as man's organized interpretation of questions of a divinity and man's existence. That which man holds sacred is largely that which religion considers sacred. There are a lot of sociologically organizing factors of religion as well.

Still, the sacred to the individual who eschews religion is that which plays an integral role in whatever form of spirituality he or she chooses to practice. Personally, I do not consider myself religious because I do not need a manmade intermediary between myself and the divinity. The ways that I connect to the sacred are largely through prayer. Any form of direct communion with the divinity for someone who is spiritual represents something that is sacred. In its most basic definition the term sacred means holy.

Therefore, whatever is sacred to a spiritual person who is not religious is that which they utilize for the purpose of their spirituality. In summary, religion is man's intervention with the divinity, while there are sacred things that spiritual people access to directly relate to the divinity without manmade rules for doing so. Those rules constitute the basis for religion.

There are a number of reasons that Moody cites the tale of The Hymn of the Pearl in The Five Stages of the Soul section of his book entitled, The World's Religions: Worldviews and Contemporary Issues. One of those reasons is to emphasize the viewpoint that the soul of man is divine in nature, and is not innately of the world.

One of the salient reasons that Moody includes this story in this particular part of his book is to stress that the soul will eventually return to a divine state, and that it's time on earth is temporal. Perhaps more importantly, this tale suggests that mankind's penchant for neglecting and forgetting his divine nature is something that is not necessarily bound to happen, but will anyway -- in some form, shape or fashion.

Quite simply, it is difficult for man to maintain his godly or divine beginnings all the time when he is encased within the flesh and the physical world. Therefore, The Hymn of the Pearl suggests that since the soul is engulfed in physicality during its tenure on earth, it is more or less natural for it to forget its divine origins.

This story relates to the first of the five stages, which Moody labels the Call (Moody and Carroll, 1997), because it is that stage in which individuals realize that there has to be something more to life than material pursuits and monetary gain. The Call is that stage when people tend to question everything that they have achieved and desired to achieve throughout their lives.

The protagonist in The Hymn of the Pearl experienced such a moment when he realized that there was more to his soul, and that his soul was actually floundering in all of the materialism present in the physical world (Mead, No date). I can identify with this story somewhat. If anything, it seems a little obvious to me and reminds me of.