Intro to Religion (index)
Welcome to my course Intro to Religion.
There are many ways of studying religion. One way is theological. This way begins by assuming the axioms of a particular religion and from them deduces the nature of the divine, the nature of morality, and the nature of salvation or liberation. Another way is philosophical. This way presents logical arguments for or against the truth or rationality of particular religious beliefs.
The way we will study religion in this course is scientific and phenomenological. We will study religion as a human phenomenon without assuming that religious claims are true or false. We will study the facts about religion. We will study theories about how religion began and how it functions. We will study the human experience of religion. We will study religious views on the divine, cosmic origins, the human condition, ethics, and salvation or liberation. In short, we will study religion as a fascinating thing that humans do, without trying to guess anything about what the gods do.
Wholly separate from my goals for my blog, my goal for this series is to write an Intro to Religion course that, if read separately from this blog, would not reveal the faith position of its author.
And so this course has no creeds about the nature of the divine or the path to salvation. But it does have methods.
One method is sympathy. To understand religion we must walk a mile in the shoes of the believer. We must understand religion as it appears to the believer. We must also avoid the temptation to scoff at beliefs and practices that seem bizarre to us. The Pentecostal will laugh at the shaman who enters “the spirit world” by way of drugs and heavy drumming, and the shaman will laugh at the Pentecostal who speaks “in tongues” and writhes on the floor with the “Holy Spirit.” But scoffing will not help us understand each other.
To understand someone’s faith, we’ve got to see what they see in it. You might still conclude that they are wrong, but religious practices are done for a reason and you’ll want to know what that reason is. We need not even respect the beliefs or practices of a particular religion, but we will try to understand them.
Another set of methods comes from the social sciences. Fields like anthropology, archaeology, demography, cultural studies, history, linguistics, psychology, and sociology have a lot to say about where religion comes from, how it works, and how its believers see the world.
In this course we will explore:
- the human and social experience of religion
- theories of the origin of religion
- theories of the function of religion
- the psychology and neuroscience of religion
- religion as a marketplace of ideas
- religious concepts of the divine
- religious views on the origins of the world
- religious views on the human problem
- religious views on ethics
- religious views on salvation and liberation
- religious views on the problem of evil
- religious views on scripture
- religious rituals
- religious art and media
- science and religion
- religion and government
- recent trends: secularization, religious revitalization, and fundamentalism
And here is an index of the posts in this course:
- Intro (this post)
- What is Religion?
- Why Study Religion?
(more to come)
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Luke, you’re on FAAYAAHH! Easily the most ambitious atheist blogger.
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“To understand someone’s faith, we’ve got to see what *they* see in it.”
I imagine some of the faithful might retort that the most essential aspects in the phenomenology of their piety are a function of accepting certain truth-claims, such that regarding those claims with agnosticism forecloses the possibility of genuine understanding, however sympathetic the effort to understand may be.
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this looks great
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Certainly, my topic of interest will be this “recent trends: secularization, religious revitalization, and fundamentalism”
I will like it primarily because of the ambiguity of the “fundamentalist” term and will be keen to see how the tutor resolve the spectacle.
But I don’t think secularization, if by “secularization” you mean a godless and decadence cultural tendency, to be a recent phenomenon, particularly if we take into account the the full human history on Earth.
It has always been there, especially among hyper-cultured, ultra-sophisticated section of the society, e.g, ruling elites, intellectuals and well moneyed indviduals. It is too hard for these sort of guys to believe in God. It is not my interest here to figure out why, just to tell that it is wrong to believe that Secularism is recent.
Of course Jewish Secularism is different to Hindu Secularism is different to Christian Secularism or Islam Secularism, as a Secularist from Islam will be rejecting Allah and a Christian Secularist will be rejecting Jesus, and given the different atmospherics or nature surrounding the specific deity or a central figure of each religion,inevitably each Secularism will result into different outcomes, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually or even materially, in the life of a Secularist.
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There are things you cannot see with sensorial organs. You need another kind of eyes. For studying religion you have to widen your search by getting into metaphisical world. The book I have recently written may help in this direction and I want to draw it to your attention. The title is “Travels of the mind” and it is available at http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TravelsOfTheMind.html
If you have any question I am most willing to discuss about this topic.
Ettore Grillo
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I would not particularly worry about that as a believer – truth claims are not the essence of my faith even though, as an apologist, it is largely the yard I play in.
I am interested to see how Luke unfolds this project from two perspectives for now:
1. how he can accomplish it while not allowing the reader to see his position on the “phenomena” studied. In the past, historians did not try to hide their bias – indeed part of the reason they wrote history was to enforce it. In the modern world, some seem to believe that historical analysis can be divorced from the historians worldview/beliefs about what is studied. I think pre-Enlightenment historians were more honest, and the latter may be deluding themselves.
2. how he deals with Christianity, since, from what he writes, it is increasing obvious that he didn’t “get it while he was in it”. His understanding of the range of Christian theology and its nuances shows no real study of something he was actually involved in. What does that say about his study of religions – say Islam – that he was raised totally outside of?
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“it is increasing obvious that he didn’t “get it while he was in it”.”
Wow, by those standards, who does actually get it? Do you get it? It must be quite a tough religion to understand.
When God was thinking “How do I get those humans to understand Christianity?” He must have thought:
“I know! I’ll make it really hard for them to understand! Yes! That will achieve my aims nicely.”
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Yes, hard to understand. No, I do not think
God thought that way at all. I am not going to get all “quotey” on this but it was the “sign of Jonah” to get people over the line, and then the Spirit of God was supposed to lead them gradually over time to truth. The truth is “spiritually discerned” – so the first step prior to having that Spirit to help you discern it is one of faith. [I would have another answer to that if I was a certain type of Calvinist]
Lewis had another answer to the simipicity (or lack thereof) of Christianity — truth is never simple and we shouldn’t expect it to be so:
Ok, I did end up getting “quotey” afterall
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John, the only problem with thinking that way is that this is what virtually all adherents to cults and strange “New Age-y” parapsychological phenomena say. They will say that psi energy is out there, but you must believe it first, and then you will see the evidence for it. Or auras, or crystal powers, etc.
This is nothing more than confirmation bias. When you already believe something, you are more likely to see evidence for it and discount evidence that contradicts it. If God was really setting out the processes for belief in Christianity, one might think that he might not use a robust human bias that would lead people astray as often as it would lead them to the “truth”.
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Again, this makes God a creator of religions rather than religions being folks who view His revelations, both general and specific, in like manner.
I have no reason to believe God set out any processes for belief in Christianity other than the Resurrection of Christ. That is the “take it or leave it” moment really – as Christ said His person (”who do you think I am”) was going to be the defining question.
Everything else is commentary
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So in other words, the truth does not matter at all. You’re saying that believing the resurrection gets you “over the line” and then the Holy Spirit leads you into truth from there, but that that truth is just “commentary.” So in other words, we might as well throw the search for truth out the window, because all that matters is what we think about the resurrection, and that’s just a leap of faith anyway.
So under this view, gullibility is a virtue. Great.
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Where do you even find the time to write this much, this quality? Insane. I’m glad to see you adding this section, and see what the phenomenological approach will yield for you. I’m sure you have a huge reading list, but a few I’d recommend that aren’t the most famous:
One methodological book: Wayne Proudfoot’s Religion Experience. He lays out very nicely some tools for the task you’re undertaking. Two short anthropology of religion papers: Clifford Geertz’s Interpretation of Culture and Melford Spiro’s Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation. Obviously as anthropologists they aren’t attempting to evaluate truth claims, but to examine just what religion is. Not a bad launching place.
Best to you.
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Thanks for the recommendations!
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No, not in other words at all.
Christ living (some atheists think this is a question against all the evidence), dying (some believe not), being corporally resurrected, and then ascending to heaven – while being replaced at Pentecost with the Holy Spirit is a “truth claim” I stake my life on. As Paul said, if that isn’t true then I am most to be pitied.
However, in general, I do not believe that the “truth” or “falsehood” of that claim can be proven in any way that would satisfy the skeptics here. While there might be only slight evidence for that truth claim – there are no facts against it. Nor, is it likely some new piece of evidence is going to pop up 2000 years later that will satisfy the “fact police”.
The truth that the Holy Spirit leads me into is, as Paul said as well, hidden from those who do not have its help – it is spiritually-discerned. I am an apologist – so I fight over truth claims all the time. I just realize that folks are not led to belief in Christ by facts, or proven truth claims. They are led to Christ by the voice of God acting around them and in them – and then by not “suppressing that truth” and paying attention.
Then, the Holy Spirit can take over and start the process of leading them eventually to “all truth”.
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