The Encyclopedia of World Religions

ethics and religion S 137

The Essenes formed ascetic communities to which only males could fully belong. On enter ing the community, an Essene gave up his private property and adopted a way of life that was strictly regulated. He gave much attention to maintaining purity. Sources differ on whether Essenes accepted a RESURRECTION of the body, but they clearly believed in the immortality of the soul ( see SOUL , CONCEPTS OF ). They were also famous for being able to pre dict the future. Some have tried to connect the Essenes with John the Baptist and J ESUS . This seems unlikely. If the Essenes influenced rabbinic J UDAISM and emer gent C HRISTIANITY , they probably did so indirectly. Esther A Jewish woman allegedly married to the Persian emperor Ahasuerus, and a book of the B IBLE that tells about her. According to the book of Esther, Haman, the vizier of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, who ruled 485–464 B . C . E .), plotted to destroy the Jews. Esther, whom the emperor did not know was Jewish, and her cousin Mordecai managed to thwart the plot. On the day appointed for the attack on the Jews, the Jews destroyed their enemies instead. The book is not generally regarded as history. It probably derives from the time right before the Hasmonean revolt against the Seleucid Empire (167–164 B . C . E .). It is important today because it is the basis for the festival of P URIM . During Purim the book of Esther is read in the SYNAGOGUE with light-hearted revelry. eternity Unending time and a state beyond time altogether. In popular usage the word often means days without end, the way the afterlife ( see AFTERLIFE IN WORLD RELIGIONS ) in HEAVEN or HELL is often popularly understood. But in the philoso phy of religion, eternity is more likely to mean a state beyond time and space altogether, as the state of G OD , NIRVANA , or other ultimate, as infi nite, unconditioned reality. The term is also used for the state of souls after death, as in entering “eternal life.”

ethics and religion Right behavior in the light of religion. The word “ethics” means standards or norms of behavior expected by a society and justi fied by religion or philosophy in such matters as right and wrong, honesty, the legitimacy of certain practices (as in “medical ethics” or “business eth ics”), and, in “social ethics,” in respect to what a society as a whole should do about issues like poverty or whether war is ever justified. The line between ethics and a related term, morality, is fuzzy. But today “ethics” is usually taken to refer to the philosophical and religious study of right behavior, to the ideals of society, of certain professions, and of individuals in a public context, while “morals” refers more to a personal code of conduct. Any thoughtful ethical system begins with a view of the universe as a whole within which the ethics make sense. One could hold that ethics begins with the will of G OD , with “natural law” or the way the universe works, or an assessment of what the results of an action would be, or even with purely individual choice. Ethical views are divided by philosophers into two types. Deontological eth ics are “oughts,” coming from something that is considered prior or given: the will of God, the laws of nature. Teleological or consequentialist ethics are determined on the basis of the consequences or results of an action and whether it is good or bad in the eyes of the person making the decision. A deontologist might say, for example, that killing is always wrong because God has forbidden it, and therefore capital punishment or any killing in war is always sinful. Another of the same camp might say it is right if it is a matter of meting out true justice, since establishing justice is always God’s will too. A consequentialist might respond that it depends on how much good the capital punish ment would do, or whether the war is a “just war” and how much benefit winning it would bring. Many religious people would also say that the real will of God is love or compassion, not simple “do’s and don’t’s,” and that different circumstances may call for different ways of exercising love or caring about the real good of others, and they may range from indulgence to firmness when people need firmness. Another issue is intention: Do we judge