Social scientists who study religion perform a vital function in helping journalists and the general public make sense of the rise of religious themes. They address influences in television, political conflicts, personal issues such as abortion and homosexuality, highly publicized "cult" tragedies and of course the apparent collision course that Christianity and Islam seem to be on!

The discipline of religion has much to teach us about how spirituality functions for the individual and society. Unfortunately research done by sociologists of religion seldom filter down out of the "ivory towers" to those "in the trenches."

We human beings, over the entire course of our existence, have been overwhelmed by the enormity, the complexity, and above all the dangers of our world. As a people, we are well aware that there are powers much greater than we.

To counter these threats to our existence, we had to invent a primitive form of religion employing talismans administered by tribal shamans or priests.

Even though we had an innate knowledge of "The Gods" these talismans were our guarantee against being completely swallowed up by the world at large. We had to "invent" spirits with enough power and wisdom to protect and guide us against others who might do us harm.

Then the means of controlling those spirits through our local witch doctor!

I use the term invent for the spiritual / religious experiences of our distant ancestors, but there is much more to it than that! There now seems to be as many different types of spiritual beliefs and practices as there are groups or tribes in the world. In spite of this diversity of belief systems, there is also an underlying commonality that is present in every practitioner of every belief there is!

This common denominator is very simply the overwhelming need to have that belief system in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!

Allan W. Janssen