Religion

General term for social ideologies and social organizations that believe in and worship supra-natural deities; a social, historical and cultural phenomenon that appeared at a certain historical stage in the development of human society, in which the faith in God and their related knowledge and practical life are combined. The core of religion is man’s faith in God. The basic elements of religion include religious ideas, religious feelings, religious behaviors, religious organizations, and religious artefacts. Religious ideas and religious feelings are the basic intrinsic elements of religion; together with the other basic elements, they constitute the complex social and cultural system of religion. Religion, which arose in the later period of primitive society, has undergone an evolution from the spontaneous religion of primitive society to the man-made religion of class society, from polytheism to monotheism, and from clan religion, national religion to world religion. Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are the three major existing world religions.

Religion is a fantastic reflection in people’s minds of the natural and social forces that control people’s daily life, as Engels pointed out in Anti-Dühring: “All religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in people’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces.” The emergence of religion has its roots on earth, in the fact that people’s daily life is controlled by external forces and in the limitations of human knowledge. The limited nature of man’s knowledge of himself, of nature and of society renders him incapable of a correct knowledge of the external forces that control him and gives rise to fantastic reflections. The low productive forces and the lack of knowledge in primitive society made the natural forces at first obtain fantastic reflections, and later on the social forces that dominated man as an alien force were also reflected in fantasy as gods. In class society, the system of exploitation and class oppression are important roots of the existence and development of religion.

As an ideology, religion has a relative independence, historical inheritance and laws of development of its own, and is intertwined with the political, economic, cultural and national questions of a certain society and has a great influence on the society. Religion will wither away of its own accord with the disappearance of its social roots, but this is a tortuous and long process. Religion will continue to exist in socialist countries for a long time. In China, the constitution provides that the citizens have freedom of religious belief, and the state administers religious affairs in accordance with the law, upholds the principle of independence and self-governance, and actively guides the harmonization of religion with the socialist society.