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elics
Relics are objects venerated because of their
association with a saint, martyr or even a holy
place. These objects are often used in religious
rituals �prayer books, breviaries, rosaries, crosses
and the like), and religious tourists �see pilgrims)
may purchase them or replicas as souvenirs.
Relics often attract pilgrims or become attractions
�such as pieces of the cross, Muhammad's footprint
and the skull of St. John the Baptist). In the Middle
Ages, the competitions between churches in
Europe was so fierce that relics were often
manufactured or even stolen from one church
and taken to another.
religion
BORIS VUKONIC Â ,CROATIA
Numerous religions in the world cannot be
described in a simple definition. Most generally,
religion is an organised system of beliefs, ceremonies,
practices and worship that centre on one
supreme god or deity, or a number of gods or
deities. Religion is primarily an attitude towards
the world, and everything is seen in this respect.
Faith is not reason, and thus God cannot be
created by reason, nor can faith be explained by it.
A believer of one faith may have the same or
similar experience as a believer of another, yet
followers of each express themselves in different
ways on the rational, emotional, moral and every
other plane. Almost all people who follow some
form of religion believe that a divine power created
the world and influences their lives.
A general intensification of religious belief seems
apparent in many parts of the world, accompanied
by a weakening of belief in the established church.
Apart from the eight major religions �Judaism,
Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto,
Daoism and Confucianism) there is an enormous
number of beliefs, cults, myths and sects in the
world. To be religious no longer means to blindly
follow all that the church says and does. Today,
religion can be a personal belief in an entire
system, or in the meaning of this or that ritual. A
certain degree of alienation, which is so char-
religion 497
acteristic of the modern societies of the developed
world, is reflected in a similar way; by the springing
up of new meets and mythologies, assuming
specific contents and often adopting dubious
values. Theologians have put forward the thesis
that it was in religion that free time, rest and
travelling were discovered, so it is logical that these
should become topical and necessary themes of
religious teaching and even pedagogy.
Religion has found the starting point for its
perspective on tourism as a form of free time in the
need to explain theologically its meaning in human
life and to provide the ethical principles on which
tourism should rest, just as it previously expounded
the meaning of work for human life as a whole and
defined the ethical principles of work. In ideological
views, the attempt is made to rely on original
texts in the Bible, the Qur'an and other sacred
texts. These views are founded on the claim that
the role of tourism is to provide people with a
chance to become familiar with the natural world,
with animate and inanimate nature as God's
creation. They are thus able to use their free time
for their own spiritual enrichment, even their
moral renewal, by exploring the ultimate cause and
meaning of their existence. Moreover, the `myth of
the weekend', at least in Christianity, enters into
the concept of the `seventh day' because this is the
day of rest in the Biblical image of the creation of
the world.
In the Christian interpretation, it is impossible
to suppose that people will find their
realisation in leisure, since that would mean a
split personality. According to this view, free time
and leisure are a unique and unified time given to
people by God, which should thus be used to serve
God. Leisure time, a part of free time in which
people will express their most intimate inclinations
and devote themselves only to that which satisfied
them completely, is the ideal time for people to find
the peace they need to give themselves to God and
receive Him.
The main connection between the religions and
tourism can be seen in pilgrimages, the
religiously motivated journeys which have been
an important part of most religions. Almost every
major religion requires its followers to go to holy
places. Depending on the degree of their religious
belief, people are prepared to undertake journeys