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Religion and humaneness
MOST religions invoke the idea of a deity or divine
intelligence in some form or another that may seem foreign
to the actual human condition. But, if the separation
between the human and the divine is turned on its head,
it looks much different from what is generally supposed.
Regardless of the actual existence of the divine, knowledge
of it is always mediated through human thought and action.
Humans are capable of taking some of the worst situations,
such as catastrophes, and transforming them into something
positive or extraordinary while using the idea of divine
powers in the process. Learning to cope with disaster may
lead to resilience, but also individual transformation. Ideas
and myths about the interaction between humanity and the
divine go back many thousands of years, and are invoked
again and again when earth shaking events occur.
While divinity, which means ‘having the
nature of a deity’ and humaneness may
appear separate in practice they are both
channelled through the individual human
experience and emotions.
‘The view of the event as an ‘act of God’ might resonate
appropriately with a person’s emotional state and at the
same time fly in the face of reason’, says philosopher Dr
Guy Bennett-Hunter, an Honourary Research Associate at
Durham University and a Research Fellow at the University
of Aberdeen.
Religion and religious experience is used in many ways to
provide a sense of purpose and in the case of the Javanese
in Indonesia and the Muslims and Buddhists in Thailand,
what they experience is the basis for how they interpret
it religiously, which helps regulate their actions. ‘No one
coping with the aftermath of a tsunami will be worried
about whether the divine attributes are consistent’, says
Bennett-Hunter, ‘…religion will be the means by which they
re-evaluate the meaning of their existence in light of their
situation’.
Even if researchers learned nearly everything needed to
plan for or mitigate disasters the problem of how people
would respond individually still exists. This is often based on
the relationship they have within their respective religious
communities. ‘It is suggested that the word ‘religion’ derives
from the Latin ligare (to bind). Instead of religion preventing
care for victims of disaster,
…we might hope that religion would
function as its Latin root implies and
bind people together, leading them to
work together for the benefit of their
whole community,
says Bennett-Hunter. In disaster risk reduction this could
not be more crucial.