Religious and Spiritual Worldviews

End

01 January 2017

Abstract

The Science of Religions Area of the Lusófona University and the ACM (High Commission for Migration) publish the volume Religious and Spiritual Worldviews: didactic guide to the traditions present in Portugal. The project of this small book/guide comes from a long journey carried out in the Area of Science of Religions of the Un. Lusophone, in constant partnership, both with academic and cultural institutions, as well as with religious institutions and leaders. This project, as presented here, had its origin in a proposal at a good time accepted by the ACM – High Commission for Migration (ACM, I.P.), and developed by the Area of Science of Religions of the Un. Lusophone. However, we had already developed some products of reflection and description that led us to what is presented here, both in the broad definition of "Cosmovisions"; or in the realization of the various fields of each worldview. And, as a path in the construction of what is presented here, we have to go back to 2014, the year in which we collaborated with the Lisbon City Council in the organization of the World Interfaith Harmony Week. That year, as a complement to a group of debates and exhibitions, we held the first sheets in which, in a synthetic way, we intend to present a vast group of religions and spiritualities. Two years later, the volume that ACM publishes is the maturation that resulted from the dissatisfaction and doubts that arose in that first moment. But this project is, above all, the result of the practice of dialogue between academics, researchers, and religious and practitioners that has been the main mark of the scientific work carried out at the Un. Lusophone. The texts, the "sheets" that are gathered in this volume are the result of a dialogue between the research team and the very groups that recognize themselves in them. In this way, the knowledge that we bring here also seeks to be dialogue. It is not just literary material that can result in dialogue, because knowledge, but dialogue in the methodology of construction of knowledge itself. And in this sense that the construction can – and should – also be dynamic in dialogue between the academy and religious and spiritual groups, we must, at this moment, thank all those who, over the twenty years of work we have already carried out, for our grateful gratitude in the possibility of maturing ideas, proposals and concepts.

Researchers

Alexandre Honrado António Caria Mendes António Faria Fabrizio Boscaglia Filomena Barros Francisco Filipe Henrique Machado Jorge João Ferreira Dias Joaquim Franco Mariana Nunes Mariana Vital Paulo Branco Paulo Mendes Pinto Paulo Macedo Pedro Candeias Rita Mendonça Leite Rui da Costa Oliveira Rui Lomelino de Freitas Simão Daniel Fonseca Thorg da Lusitânia Timóteo Cavaco

Associated Missions

ACM (Alto Comissariado para as Migrações)

Outputs

"Religious and Spiritual Worldviews: didactic guide to the traditions present in Portugal." Since the end of the previous century, it has been realized how fundamental it is to provide our fellow citizens with the tools that enable them to have a critical attitude based on knowledge and positions where prejudice does not prevail. This book meets this need, which has become more and more pressing due to the events that, Essentially, since September 2001 they have changed our perception of safety. The world of religions has come to be looked at with increasing suspicion by many political and social actors, deserving reinforced care on the part of academia and the leaders themselves. It is because of the risks of developing a society based on wrong and unconstructive values and representations that we increasingly need instruments that convey knowledge about the religious phenomenon in a clear, simple, but not simplistic way. This function is further enhanced as we see this small book as a didactic tool to be used in schools, whether by teachers and students, or even by parents. To go through the pages of this volume is to quickly and directly access validated and objective knowledge, in a simple and accessible language. Finally, this project also has a kind of didactic and pedagogical function in relation to the academic environment that built it. The long maturation around the construction of a descriptive model of realities as different as Buddhism and the various currents of Christianity, forced us, in the most frank and salutary scientific dynamic, to question the very notion of "religion". Of course, our reflection also involved the most common topics of the difficulty of defining "religion".Of course, our reflection also involved the most common topics of the difficulty of defining "religion". Whether in its etymological origin, or in its anthropological and social dimension, the complexity of this apparently simple word is a tremendous puzzle for the researcher. However, our dissatisfaction led us, especially, to the obstacles of perception and representation that the word "religion" implies in the most common language, in common sense, in the most common reader of this book, the one who is not familiar with academic debates. It was through the fear that we would mislead the reader that we moved away from the use of the word "religion". On the one hand, because it does not contain in its entirety a whole spectrum of meanings that in some Asian traditions would more easily fit into the notion of "philosophy", and which are dimensions, whether speculative, anthropological or even psychological. But, on the other hand, our main concern led us to another aspect: by using the word "religion", the reader could, unconsciously, activate his reading grid, his daily semantics, what he is most used to seeing behind that word. That is, the dominant religion is not only dominant in demography and culture, but it is solidly so in the structures of mentality and in its main expression, language. To refer to "religion" is to use previously defined markers of thought that connect us to a reality where it is valued the focus on institutions, sacred books, hierarchies, and even dogmas. By dealing with such different realities and with such disparate geographical and cultural origins, we realize how, even looking at the culturally closest reality can be biased and hostage to perception vices. The avoidance of the word "religion" by adding "spirituality" solves a significant part of the problems of categorization. Do you want the Buddhism, as well as Freemasonry, cannot be catalogued as a Religion, but they dialogue with some coherence with the idea of spirituality. But the spiritual dimension does not cover the entire horizon of problems that arise when placed in the same project. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Confucianism. And the main function, for example, of the structure of Buddhist thought lies neither in a revelation, nor in a truth, nor in the affirmation of a divinity or eschatology. When looking at the traditions born in Asia, we are transported to the field of methodologies, of life tools, of "ways". More than belief, they are methods of relating to oneself what in an Asian tradition the individual seeks and finds. Thus, he is not necessarily a believer, but a practitioner. Obviously, this reflection, which is basically a fact, has an immediate return in the way of thinking about the religions that came from the monotheisms born around the Mediterranean. Christianity is also "ways", although many Christians have moved away from a daily life that is marked by methods of life, whether they are spiritual exercises, prayers or other ways of bringing religious knowledge to everyday life. In this way, we assumed that the most important thing, as it is a didactic instrument, was to reach the forms of relationship of believers, members or practitioners, with the world around them. Obviously, the definition is interesting of belief, when there is one, but it is much more important to understand the way of seeing the world and humanity itself. Basically, collect the elements that allow the reader to get close to what can be a useful tool in the dialogue. It is from this compromise between knowledge and its transmission that the word "worldview" emerges as an option for "religion" and even "spirituality". A Cosmovision is, in practice, everything that defines the forms of relationship between an individual and everything that surrounds him, from the notion of creation, through humanity and the world, stopping at the interdicts and the ways of organizing time and space, without forgetting the defining texts of everything, when they exist. . Thus, a grid was born that brings together some aspects that are fundamental to understand how each group deals with its surroundings. And we refer to the "surroundings" because the main reason for adopting the notion of "worldviews" It is rooted in an ecological dimension, of involvement, complementarity, interaction and complexity. A worldview is ecology, because it is relationship and integration. The worldviews presented here are intended to be a synthesis of the way in which each group stands in front of what is important to it. Only from this point of view will it be possible for us to build dialogue.

References

http://religioesdomundo.ulusofona.pt/projectos-rec-xxi/2-cosmovisoes-religiosas-e-espirituais/

Funding and Institution

ACM (Alto Comissariado para as Migrações)