If we produce, as we do, evidence that the belief in powerful beings
has been evolved, and yet that these beings are certainly not
propitiated by sacrifice, and seldom if ever by prayer, that they are
only won by conduct, and by rites not involving sacrifice, Mr. Frazer
can reply, 'Perhaps; but by my definition that kind of belief is not
religion.' Then what is it? 'What else can you call it?' Its existence,
if proved, is fatal to Mr. Frazer's theory of the origin of religion
in the despair of magic, because the faithful of the belief of which
I speak do not usually implore the god to do for them what magic has
failed to do. Their belief satisfies their speculative and moral needs:
it does not exist to supply their temporal wants. Yet it is none the
less, but much the more, a religion on that account, except by Mr.
Frazer's definition. If religion is to be defined as he defines it,
'a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man,' and so
on, religion can only have arisen as it does in his theory, setting
aside a supernormal revelation. But if we do not deny the name of
religion to the speculative belief in a power superior to man, and to
the moral belief that he lends a supernormal sanction to conduct, and
to the emotional belief that he loves his children, then the belief is
religion, but something other than religion as defined by Mr. Frazer.
Nobody will deny the name of religion to such a belief. Mr. Frazer
says: 'I would ask those who dissent from my conclusions to make sure
that they mean the same thing by religion that I do; for otherwise the
difference between us may be more apparent than real.'[49]
I mean by religion what Mr. Frazer means--and more. The conciliation
of higher powers by prayer and sacrifice is religion, but it need not
be the whole of religion. The belief in a higher power who sanctions
conduct, and is a father and a loving one to mankind, is also religion;
few, if any, will dispute the fact. But this belief, if unaccompanied,
as in Australia, by prayer and sacrifice, cannot be accounted for on
Mr. Frazer's theory: that religion was invented, for worldly ends,
after the recognised failure of magic, which aimed at the same ends
fruitlessly. It is only by limiting his definition of religion, as he
does, that he can establish his theory of the origin of religion. It
is only by omitting mention of the evidence for what nobody else can
deny to be religion, that he can secure his theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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