Philosophy of Religion

1. Transcendent personalities, e.g. angels, gods, spiritual guides, ascended masters, etc. (as you describe)
2. Natural forces, e.g. Tao (as you describe) 
3. Philosophies, e.g. Marxism or atheism  

Thanks for posting this; I think it is a good definition! I completely agree that there is no need for family resemblance and that the ’grandness requirement’ explains the vagueness. I have a few other comments/questions though:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

1) Your definition focuses on cognitive content, but maybe some sort of additional 'character condition' would be helpful—it could be that that phenomenology of the propositional attitudes involved are relevant as well (examples of these attitudinal characters could be internalization or immunity to criticism). At least I think this is intuitive in most people’s understanding of what it is to be religious.

2) I would prefer not to call your account a ‘theory’—I think it is an account or a definition. One would expect a theory of religion to explain what religion really is (e.g. a neural virus, a true presentation of the world, a projection of human values,...) . Many people in the study of religion think (wrongly, I believe) that definitions of religion are short versions of theories (so that definitions are always theory laden). I think your analysis shows that this is not so.

3) Isn’t “surpasses what sense perception reveals” too arbitrary to be a good criterion for something being supernatural (if that’s what you intend)? Wouldn't it mean that supernaturalness is relative to history of science or that we do not know whether something is really supernatural?

4) How would you classify Aristotle’s metaphysics (including unmoved mover and all) on your definition? (In my mind this hooks up to my first suggestion.)

Turn back the clock a century. You have graduated from university and accepted a post with one of the great British trading companies that operate out of Hong Kong. To reach China from England, you must travel by ship. En route, your ship will stop in Italy, Egypt, India. Wherever it stops, you have a few days to explore the countryside and pursue your interest in comparative religion.

Italy is strange but also familiar. With its crucifixes, candles, incense, priestly vestments, carnivals and saints days, Italian Catholicism may seem a bit exotic. Still, it is Christianity, the most common form of religion in Europe. Its churches, priests and doctrines are not all that different from what you imagine when you think of religion in the West.

In Egypt you encounter Islam. Mosques replace churches. Friday not Sunday is the holy day, and religious images are forbidden. But Islam also has its saints and festivals. Islam is, like Christianity and Judaism, a religion of the Book. All three are monotheistic religions rooted in belief in one, transcendent God, who exists apart from his creation and reveals His will through prophets whose words are recorded in canonical, sacred texts: Torah for the Jews, the Bible for Christians, the Koran for Muslims. For believers in all three religions, their faith is the mark of membership in an exclusive religious community. 

In India you encounter Hinduism. Here, too, there are temples, rites, and festivals. The division between Brahmin and warrior castes recalls a familiar division between priestly and secular authorities. But instead of one God there are many—goddesses as well as gods, and a seemingly endless variety of both. Stranger still, devotion to one does not preclude the worship of others. Instead of one sacred Book, you find a seemingly endless list of scriptures, commentaries, folktales and myths. There are, to be sure, similarities between their content and what you find in the sacred Books of the monotheistic religions of Europe and the Middle East. There are, however, no rabbis, priests or judges with the power to determine which are canonical and which are not. 

You may note, too, that Hindu creation myths do not describe a singular event. Instead of a one, definitive pronouncement, "Let there be light," creation in Hindu thought is an endlessly repeated dream. Mystics of all schools seek to free themselves from the dream by losing their mortal selves in the great Self that is God. In this archetypically mystical religion, the mystic's search for that true Self has replaced submission to God's revealed Word . 

Then, at last, you arrive in China. Here, again, there are temples, rites and festivals; images like those of Catholic saints or Hindu gods and goddesses; fire, incense and offerings. When, however, you ask, "What is the religion of China?" you hear two surprising answers. Some say that China has three religions: Confucianism and Daoism, both indigenous to China, and Buddhism, imported from India. The other says that China has no religion. The three religions aren't religions at all, but schools of moral philosophy. The customs of the masses are only superstitious magic.

 If you live long enough—to the middle of the twentieth century—you will also hear some scholars say that there is, after all, one Chinese religion . It is not, however, a monotheistic religion; there is no single high God. Like Hinduism, Chinese religion is polytheistic and only in one of its many dimensions—the worship of ancestors—exclusive. But in contrast to Hinduism, there is no Creator who exists apart from His creation. The world does have an invisible dimension, the realm of spirits; all spirits—whether gods, ghosts, or ancestors—exist, like the human beings they resemble, inside the one, self-sustaining, natural order of things. 

 In Chinese religion, mysticism aims, not to escape from a world seen as a dream, i.e., as a snare and illusion, but instead to become one with the constantly changing cycles of Nature. Ritual is seen in functional terms, either as essential for maintaining social or cosmic order or, more pragmatically, as a means of achieving the long life, wealth and numerous descendants that define worldly success. 

You were asking for counterexamples. Chinese popular religion may just provide one. Yes, there is a belief in invisible, spiritual beings. But are they supermundane? In terms of traditional Chinese cosmology, they are part of the same, uncreated, self-sustaining universe as the human beings they resemble. They are, thus, no more supernatural than, for example, electrons and quarks in the cosmology of contemporary physics; they, too, are invisible but part of the natural universe as science conceives that universe. 

One could, of course, simply assert that the Yin world of Chinese spirits is supermundane vis-a-vis the mundane Yang world of visible human beings. There is, however, no more ground for this assertion than for the claim that invisible electrons or quarks exist in a separate world from that inhabited by visible human beings.

In every religion I’ve read about, I found two poles:

1. An esoteric pole for a select few high priests or wisemen who rely on complex teachings, intuitive rationality and metaphors (understood as metaphors) for understanding and “mystical” experience. This is an associated with an inward experience.
2. An exoteric pole for the masses who rely primarily on simpler literal teachings and analogies (often taken as historical facts) for understanding and “religious” experience. These are generally based on #1, but are presented and experienced outwardly.

I think that this demarcation can be made in every religion. Some religions will dispute this saying that they are purely exoteric and that the teachings were written directly by their god(s) without human involvement. If you accept this, then that’s your business, but if you don’t then the esoteric side is, at the very least, those who contributed to the origins of that religion. But I think the esoteric-exoteric spectrum goes well beyond this least case.

I think that the term “religion” covers both of the two poles, but usually is describing pole #2 (“organized religion”). The failure to make this distinction results in much of the confusion in this thread. Every religious experience or outlook falls somewhere between these two poles. Oftentimes, the same text or oral tradition is designed to have two meanings simultaneously (an exoteric and an esoteric layer).

The many diversified beliefs (taken literally) of world religions found in the second pole can have little to do with each other and only have a “family resemblance”. The esoteric ideas of pole 1, however, have much in common across the world. I feel that Jim Stone’s original universal description of religion is better suited more narrowly for #1 above where many of the criticisms of this definition cite the term “religion” more closely associated with pole #2. The problem, of course, is that pole #1 aims for the ineffable, whether these ineffable truths are real or merely imagined, descriptions of them can fill many volumes but never reach completeness.

As one gets deeper and deeper into the ideas in pole #1, one finds congruency with the metaphysics that some philosophers practice. But, only those metaphysicists with a top down model of causality (or a non-causal ontological hierarchy). A reductionist’s bottom-up metaphysics has little to do with pole #1, but surprisingly can be congruent with pole #2 (with the exception of the existence of divinity[s]). Pole #1 is satisfied only through a top-down spiritual experience or belief that is deemed real, necessary or intuitive. Pole #2 can be satisfied with a contingent universe. For example: the universe is the way it is because god made it that way and that’s that.

Thus far, I have used a mostly sociological perspective, but this relates to philosophy as well which included religion discussions up until recent centuries. An example from the history of philosophy/theology to clarify the subtle difference between the two poles (in light of what is perceived to be necessary versus contingent truth) is to look at the famous Leibniz-Clarke correspondence. Clarke (allegedly a proxy for Sir Isaac Newton) argued for a contingent metaphysics: Clarke/Newton’s god was the first actor in an equilibrium of absolute space-time. Leibniz argued for a necessary metaphysics: Leibniz’s god was the first rational decider among a disequilibrium of relative space-time. To Leibniz’s view, the alternative (Clarke’s god) made arbitrary (thus contingent) creative decisions.

Jim, I think that if you add this distinction (esoteric/necessary vs. exoteric/contingent) to your theory, you will avoid the present confusions. If you agree with me that this demarcation is useful, then to go much further than I have, I recommend Ralph Slotten’s Exoteric and Esoteric Modes of Apprehension for a 2-dimensional model (where mine is only a 1-dimensional spectrum). Slotten further divides “eso-exoteric (exoteric B, or tropological) and exo-esoteric (esoteric B or specular) readings or levels.”¹ But Slotten’s new language is not merely intended to apprehend religion, but ambitiously, the whole of civilization.

Personally, I think “good art” covers both pole 1 and 2 where bad art only exists in pole 2. In this respect, one can make judgments on how good a religion’s “art” is thanks to this useful demarcation.

References:

1. Exoteric and Esoteric Modes of Apprehension, Ralph Slotten, Sociological Analysis, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 185-208 (article consists of 24 pages). Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3709801

Hi,

I think Jim Stone's idea that religion is a practice that places one in relation to a SR is useful but I also empathise with what Derek Allan wrote:

"This is why I see all attempts to develop a kind of general template for religions as leading at best to a kind of thin, dessicated theosophy.  And vague notions of "supramundane realities" or "love" are good examples of that.  They simply scratch around on the surface ..".

So what would it take to penetrate the surface, to really get to grips with what it means to transcend from the mundane to SR? To survive Derek Allan's critique the solution should model the phenomenon of transcendence from multi-disciplinary vantage points with laser-like precision such that it cannot wriggle free. It should also do so in such a way that explains existing data but moreover generates novel insights/predictions in unanticipated directions.

One way to model transcendence is to focus not on what transcendent states of mind are but on what they are not: all spiritual practices worth their salt agree that for transcendence to occur, there must be self-sacrifice, self-negation, via negativa, kenosis etc. (see Karen Armstrong’s book, The Great Transformation, but also Wm. James, Jorge Ferrer, George Ellis). If we define the self as the subject position within the mind, the evolved entity that experiences, inter alia, desire towards what is good and aversion to what is bad, in the Darwinian sense of good/bad for reproductive survival, it follows that self-negation means transcending evolved adaptive ‘Darwinian mind’. Desire/aversion and the self are two sides of the same coin.

Transcend Darwinian mind to what or where…? A parsimonious option is towards the raw materials Darwinian mind is made from. The term for the raw materials of evolution coined by Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba is ‘nonaptation’ – nothing in evolution is de novo. So transcendent mind could be nonaptive mind, selfless ‘non-Darwinian mind’.  Now non-Darwinian mind has no reproductive survival issues, like nonaptive oxygen or carbon or water, dead or alive, it doesn’t care. But Darwinian mind certainly cares and won’t stand idly by while spiritual practice riddles away at the self. Darwinian mind/self resists, big time, and it does so by increasing desire/aversion which is why the spiritual path is so hard (I can resist…. except temptation :)).

So far the model triangulates transcendence from psychological and evolutionary perspectives and Darwinian mind/self’s resistance to self-sacrifice provides an opportunity to add an affective neuroscience perspective. Most simply, humans as an ultra-social species walk a delicate line between competition and cooperation with one another. At a mechanistic level the evolved neural substrates of selfish/competitive motivations inhibit the evolved neural substrates of “unselfish”/cooperative/”altruistic” motivations unless the individual benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs (hence the quotes around “unselfish”, “altruistic” etc.). When Darwinian mind/self resists self-negation, it is the selfish neural substrates that are immediately activated and the “unselfish” ones become more inhibited. But if the person practices very hard, remaining resolutely indifferent to the efforts of Darwinian mind/self to divert them from the path of self-negation through potent motivations of desire/aversion, the neural substrates of selfish motivations will eventually suddenly, albeit partially,  give way and a transient partial transcendent experience will occur. Such a revelation/satori/awakening etc. may have all sorts of subjective features but two properties are commonly reported: (1) A transformation of the sense of self (sometimes described as an expansion, sometimes as a diminution, but invariably there is less ego, less self-concern, and more “oneness” with others/nature; (2) The mind is flooded with goodwill to others, with righteousness, guilt, compassion etc. –  with prosocial thoughts and feelings.  

Now organised religion and even purer spiritual practices make much of morality but according to this model, the flood of prosocial “moral” emotions that accompany transcendence are nothing other than the disinhibited expression of the neural substrates of Darwinian/evolved/adaptive etc. “unselfish”/cooperative/”altruistic” motivations. As evolved self-serving entities, the latter are equally bound up with self-interest/ego/reproductive survival etc. But in the first instance, i.e. relative to evolved selfish motivations, they are largely compatible with self-negation, superficially they pull in the same direction. For this reason, these “moral” prosocial motivations do not impede early inroads into transcendent territory. But unselfish is ~= to selfless (‘no self’) and advanced transcendent states are beyond morality - to reach them even the “moral” prosocial aspects of the self must be left behind. In this model morality is therefore somewhat incidental to religion, an unavoidable by-product on the road to full enlightenment.

This model does not only cast existing data in a new light, it also makes testable predictions, eg. Darwinian mind and non-Darwinian mind should have different neuroimaging profiles (measureable as entropy differences because adaptations are more complex and information rich than raw materials). It also speaks to free will – an agent enslaved by desire/aversion is not very free. Non-Darwinian mind provides a new reference point for what it means to be free.

These are the broad strokes of a scientist's attempt to get beneath the surface of transcendence. As mentioned a few posts above, a draft of a longer treatment forthcoming in J. Consciousness Studies is available on philpapers. Any comments?

Barak

• Ancestors
• Ascended Masters 
• Spiritual Guides
• God, Godde, Gods and Goddesses
• Nirvana, Sunyata
• Self-Enlightenment
• Etc.

Hi Derek and Peter

I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘the sacred’. Many contemporary theorists of religion react against the very notion, particularly the role it plays in Eliade’s work. One point that is made is that ‘the sacred’, if it is meant to represent some untheorisable element to religion, becomes insulation. It is an attempt to preserve ‘mystery’, one that is perhaps religiously inspired in the first place. I think that this makes sense. So, it depends what you mean by ‘the sacred’.

I would also be very hesitant to accept Peter’s claim “In short, religions have a God”. This seems to me to be reminiscent of Dennett’s claim that a religion without God or Gods is like a vertebrate without a backbone. I think that this takes us to some core issues. I mean Theravaden Buddhism does not really have a God or Gods, Confucianism does not really have such features, philosophical Daoism likewise. Australian Aboriginals are also an interesting point of reference as the beings of the Dreamtime are not Gods, nor are they worshiped (not in the way that Dennett thinks is necessary for religion). I am told that similar points could be made about other tribal traditions. Then there are a whole host of contemporary para-scientific religions that do not have God or Gods. What about UFO cults? What about the Human Potentiality Movement? What about Scientology? Scholars of religion like Michael Pye and Michael Jindra make the point well in their works: you do not need either God, Gods or super-nature for religion.

Its no good, of course, to suggest that those things that we call religion, but that don’t have God, Gods or super-nature are not in fact religions, as that just begs the question. We are asking the question: What is religion? I think this throws an interesting light over the psychoanalytically inspired atheists, particularly of a Freudian sort, which basically fail to get beyond a theistic conception of religion – as if all religion is ‘big daddy in the sky’ religion.

Further I am not sure about how far having rules of behaviour can go. Yes religions have rules of behaviour, but so does my local Leagues Club (further they have in-group/out-group distinctions). People can have rules about what they eat and what they don’t eat that are not religious, vegetarians do and again this act of eating and non-eating can be constitutive of in-group and out-group tensions. Some religions have no food prohibitions, some religions have many. Yes, there are some ‘holy-places’, where you cannot eat (like my local library), but then there are some where you can and where the taking of food is part of religious practice. To me simply having rules of behaviour or even having ones that define in-group and out-group, is just too broad, for me that would have to be refined: Australia has rules of behaviour, the various institutions I work at do too, so do my local associations.

Also the idea that religions have morality, is something that I would want to clarify. Morality or ethos? Certainly the idea that the Golden Rule is a universal seems false. The Greeks of the Homeric period did not seem to follow such a rule, nor did many of the pre-Christian European groups. What about the Aztecs? (just to refer back to another discussion in another string)

In regard to evolutionary accounts of religion. They are interesting enough – they show why a being like us may have evolved to have certain types of beliefs. Fine. But if this is meant to be an argument for irreligion or atheism then it seems to commit the genetic fallacy. Simply showing how a being constituted as we are could have evolved to believe a certain thing does not, of itself, show that the thing believed is not actual. Its also in the ballpark of circularity because you seem to have to have already decided that the whole thing is bunkum in order for it to do any work. Psychoanalytic arguments seem to suffer from similar faults – but I have gestured at them above.

On the issue of institutionalization. Not all religions are institutional. I think that Kwasi Wiredu makes this point.

One thing that I think we have to be aware of or be wary of in thinking about religion is that presupposition that what we have experienced in our own religion will somehow be recapitulated in every religion. That is not the case and I think the more empirical study one does of actual religions the more complex these matters become. But these are just loose thoughts late in the evening.

Philip

So the question that occurs to me is whether perhaps the concerns of said philosophers might not point to a limitation of philosophy itself. Perhaps - and this is a very heretical thought - understanding religion is not something that philosophy can do very well, especially philosophy of the Anglo-American kind that is so attached to explaining our experience in logical, “objective” terms (e.g. the idea of practices).

"Metaphysical" ideas of the kind I refer to are, I realize, very unfashionable at the moment (the philosophical topic called metaphysics is not metaphysical at all in my view) but I seriously wonder if in the end one can approach the nature of religion without it.

Okay, yeah, so I think philosophers have generally not engaged much theory of religion, but I am, like you, very interested in that side of things. I think you are right about the importance of practice in religion, religion is always just as much a doing as a believing. I think that philosophy of religion have often over-emphasised belief because of the importance of right-belief (orthodoxy) in Christian religion and philosophy of religion (for the most part) can be a parochial affair. And yes, tentatively agree that practices are orientated by beliefs, although I would qualify that by suggesting that some practices are orientated by narratives and where a narrative is mytho-poetic the doxastic side of things can be a little tricky – so myths are not necessarily believed as much as told, repeated and so forth. But I agree, that there is always a doing, even if its minimal doing.

I think we have to negotiate in terms of supermundane reality – on my understanding this does not necessarily mean ‘other world’ for it would seem to me to be the case that something like Brahmin or Nibbana is better to be considered the truth of this world and so immanent, that is, not fractured or broken off.

I think the question of differentiating religious from non-religious practice is actually fascinating. We generally project our sense of these matters onto other cultures in a way that creates political problems.

Philip

Hi Derek,

I am not sure that we can define religion in terms of practice, because I do not think that any particular practice is essential to ‘Religion’ even if some practices are essential to some ‘religions’. But I do agree with Jim about the centrality of practice. An interesting aside it is often said that the Hindu tradition is a tradition of orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy as multiple ways of believing are tolerated within that tradition (this is probably a little strong because I think that the multiple ways of believing leads to a multitude of practices – so…).

In terms of ‘the sacred’ perhaps we get into some difficult ground with some of the New Religious Movements, UFO cults which many would class as a religious phenomenon (no matter how wacky we find them): but do they posit something sacred? Its not clear. In any case that is not a central point. I think that the important point is that the problem that some people have with the notion of the sacred, in Eliade in and those that follow his line of thinking in particular, is that it seems to be a religiously inspired attempt to insulate religion from theory. Perhaps we can understand the motivation, fear of total disenchantment or something like that. In any case I think when people make a claim to an irreducible mysterium that we can worry about this sort of thing. What worries me about such the notion of an ‘irreducible mystery at the heart of religion’ is the potential of the mysterium to become a way of mystifying action, the way it could be pulled into some kind of justificatory discourse, as is regularly the case within religious movements. The mysterium can always underwrite abuse, it can be used to legitimate. It’s a short step from mysterium to mystification.

I don’t think that a focus on practice leads to a kind of ‘dreary old’ analytic philosophy of religion. What I think it does is lead to a way into a certain orientation on the world, by looking at the discourse that underwrites or is connected to the practice one gains some insight into an orientation. But the further point here: Analytic philosophy of religion seems very disinterested in the sort of issues I am discussed. It mostly just takes the form of religious apologetics, the defense of beliefs and doctrines, the attempt to show why ‘my’ religion is right, or why ‘my’ doxastic commitments are justified. We all know how it goes from our own student days; you take a course on philosophy of religion, expecting to learn something about religion and what you learn about is God. Okay these days there are a few atheists about but their horizons are just as religiously circumscribed. Religion is interesting, philosophy of religion can be quite dull. So, I take it I can speak for Jim here, what we are talking about is not so much philosophy of religion (although it does not exclude philosophy) but theory of religion, as conducted in religious studies departments. So, I think we are interested in people who are actually attempting to theorise religion from as broad and encompassing perspective as possible, rather than defend their own particular faith – and you don’t get much of that in philosophy, most philosophers of religion just don’t seem to want to consider theory of religion. Which is why Jim’s paper is interesting and original. Of course the atheists just seem to be the dialectical other of the theistic analytic philosophers of religion.

In any case to me looking at the connection between practice and discourse (or lack thereof) rather than focusing on belief, is not something overly analytic. And besides, you know I do not really care about whether someone is analytic or not, I try to judge contributions by their individual merits, I have broad enough experience with both Continental philosophy and Analytic philosophy to be able to appreciate both and pull both into my own projects, and religion is a substantial part of that. Although I do end up reading more theory of religion that philosophy of religion, possibly because I neither of a religion, nor an irreligion, to defend.

The Geertz thing, yes I think that the definition is broad, so perhaps patriotism might get pulled in. But I am not sure that this is a bad thing, because perhaps thinking that through will help us get clearer on the nature of religion.

Philip 

Shot through with distinctions that we reify rather than sublate. And so we become trapped in a coincidence of contradictories, beset by riddles and paradoxes like the mind-matter problem, unable to break out of our language games because we never think to examine our preconceived rules of engagement. Maybe, as you say, Hegel was right about this, I'd say so.

  

Dear Jim,

 Thank you for evoking so well the believer's experience of the Ganges.

I wonder what exactly this "super-mundaneness" is, on which your theory turns. You wrote:

 "Anthropomorphism may be inescapable, still it is consistent with a substantially super-natural or supermundane being,

even if the god is sometimes among us. At the least there is something unknown, mysterious, magical, removed about

divinities."

Of course subatomic particles and remote galaxies are "unknown" and "mysterious" in various ways. But I take it they are not examples of what you're referring to. If we turn, then, to "magical" or "removed": What exactly is "magic"? "Removed," in what way? What kind of "distance" are we talking about?

My own impression  is that religious believers don't want to think of themselves as projecting human attributes onto divinity. So when Xenophanes and Plato criticized the Homeric gods for having qualities that were merely human, Greeks who understood the complaint quickly ceased taking seriously that kind of divinity. (Except, of course, as "literature.") When the Upanishadic author wrote "Neti, neti" (not this, not that), Hindus who understood his point ceased to think of the divine in terms of what they could perceive with their eyes. I think the reason for this response, in Greece and in India, is  that believers want divinity to be (precisely) _supermundane_. (Though they are sometimes willing, as you say, to imagine incarnations by which the divine appears temporarily, or in one respect, in human form.) And it's this supermundane, non-anthropomorphic quality that makes divinity "magical" and "removed."

Of course, the critique of anthropomorphism has historically been a long and sometimes backsliding process. But it's hard for me to imagine how one could simultaneously embrace "philosophy" and take the Ganges to be literally divine. As opposed to temporarily suspending one's philosophical attitude, and temporarily entering into the state of mind of someone who takes the Ganges to be literally divine. Maybe you could explain this.

Best, Bob W.

Theosophy has no God. Do you never read about what you object to?   

Hi Phillip

I don’t have any major objection to the proposition that, in general and as a matter of observational fact, religions seem to generate “practices”. My problem is with defining a religion (partly) on this basis. 

Geertz’s formula is interesting, but if one puts out of mind for a moment that he is speaking about religion, he could be defining something else. What about, for example: “Art is "1) A system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” Works OK, I think?

I think defining religion via approaches like Geertz’s is fraught with problems. The subject matter is so varied that any definition broad enough to encompass all of it runs the risk of encompassing much else besides. 

How should one go about defining religion? I don’t have a satisfactory answer. The topic fascinates me nonetheless. Especially because the world in which we now live seems so far removed from anything religious. I can imagine an historian of the future writing something like this:

“The twentieth and twenty-first centuries were remarkable for their lack of interest in religious responses to human existence. They seem not so much to have dismissed the issue as to have forgotten that it could even matter. Their ceremonies for major events in life such as birth, marriage and death were just pale copies of those of previous religious cultures. They invented none of their own. And their philosophical speculations, such as they were, avoided anything that could be described as metaphysical, except in a trivial sense of the word.

Some speculate that this a-religious state of mind may have been due to factors such as a constant fascination with technological change, and, in the “advanced” nations, a comparative insulation from the harsh facts of existence. But none of these explanations seems adequate and the phenomenon remains a mystery to this day...”

DA

Hi Derek,

I am not sure I would want to agree with you about fundamentalism in the US. I would not make that judgment. I mean one might say that scientology is not a ‘serious religion’ but is not the way its practitioners take it, they take it very seriously indeed, it motivates them. Likewise with contemporary fundamentalism, you or I might not see it as ‘serious’ but then, whether or not it could be considered a ‘serious’ religion would depend on having a clear understanding of what religion is, and we do not seem to know what that is. Labeling it as ‘non serious’ seems a good way of popping it outside of the scope of inquiry in regard to the question of religion in the contemporary world and I do not see any grounds for doing that – unless of course one had already determined what ‘serious religion’ was, and where such presuppositions are suppressed they often turn out to be self-serving or arbitrary or both.

In general I can see no reason for setting aside fundamentalist movements in the question of religious consciousness and would worry that doing so would just prejudice the sample in favour of ‘liberal theology’ – which, personally, I am far more comfortable with, but I see no reason why I ought to be comforted by my considerations in this regard.

Africa is an interesting religious context – both Christianity and Islam are booming there, South America is more predominantly Christian but certainly the idea that there is a lack of religious consciousness there is wrong.

The ‘death throws of Islam’ idea is interesting. I think that if one looks at the uptake of monotheism in Africa and Asia then its hard to sustain this. Besides such a story is usually seen as going hand in hand with some kind of ‘myth of secularism’ the idea that liberal secular political philosophy on the one hand and scientific rationalism on the other are burning away the dark clouds of religion and so, as ‘Western’ education and political life spreads so religion will decline. Contemporary fundamentalist Islam is then seen as being in its death-throws  vis-à-vis this movement – Islam is like the vampire exposed to the sun, it thrashes about before dying. But while there is probably much to the idea that contemporary fundamentalist approaches to religion (Christian, Islamic  or whatever) are a response to modernity and secularity (they have to be a response to something) I think it is a leap to suggest that this represents the ‘death throws’ of religion. There seems to me to be a lot of presuppositions behinds such a claim – particularly the presupposition that ‘our’ ways will prevail. I see no reason for presupposing that – history will provide the answer.

The thing is that if one accepted the ‘death throws’ thesis then one might have said the same thing about religiosity in the 19^th century. If the ‘myth of secularism’ was true (actually there are two myths: 1. Prior to modernity there was an age of faith; 2. With modernity, secularity and science religion will wither) then one would have expected that from the Enlightenment onwards it would be all down hill for religion, but none of the sociological data confirms this and in fact the 19^th century seems to have evidenced a far greater ‘religious consciousness’ to borrow your term than the 18^th century. We could have said that this was the ‘death throw’ of religion too. But it would just seem strange to say this, because one might then want to say that the upsurge in ‘religious consciousness’ in the US since the 1980’s was a second death throw. Further one would have to explain the resurgence of religion in Russia since the 1989. Tricky stuff. It would be better to just try to understand the way religion configures and reconfigures itself according to fluxing social and historical conditions. That might lead to the thesis that the religion has a social and historical ‘essence’.

In terms of the fascination for technology I cannot see why that fascination discounts religion. In the last 50 years or so we have seen an explosion of scientific and para-scientific religious movements. Much of this blends popular culture with religion: think about Chaos traditions that suggest that so long as certain formal elements are present in your religious practice you can inject whatever content you like into it – so if you prefer a pantheon made up of your favorite sport stars then, so long as other requirements are met, why not? You want to replace the monotheistic God with James Brown then, so long as other formalistic requirements are met, why not? These people approach religion through psychology, they see religious practice as a way of modifying subjectivity or interacting with one’s psyche, ways of exploring ‘inner space’ as it were. Here the upsurge of ‘Jedi Knights’ in the Australian census is interesting as Phil Carroll had suggested very similar things in his work. You might not take these ideas seriously and I find them odd myself but the more relevant question is whether those who are committed to them take them seriously.  Or, perhaps more pertinently we might ask whether or not these are reconfigurations of religion that reflect our contemporary life, perhaps they are.

Also I think that your comment “I see a world mainly caught up with a fascination for things technological, with various forms of escapist entertainment, with a pursuit of creature comforts, with a vague fear that all that might be put at risk by unpredictable events, and with beliefs - if they can be called that - pretty much limited to what can be seen and touched and bought and sold” is a little too parochial. Okay that might be the case in the Anglo-European world, particularly the more bourgeois elements of it (the biggest part of it) but  is it generalisable?

Hi Phil

I'm enjoying our conversation, though we are clearly not seeing eye to eye.

In the end, as I imagine we could have anticipated, all depends on what one means by “religion”. If Hollywood Jedi Knights a religion make, then I guess, seriously, anything goes. The person who says "soccer’s my religion" would be as good a candidate as Francis of Assisi or Buddha. Personally I don't accept that, but I can see that if one is happy to define religion as a belief in virtually anything, plus practices, I am disarmed. (Actually, given the weakness of some modern philosophers for Hollywood fantasies – zombies, brains in vats etc – Jedi Knightism might have a bright future!)

Christianity, in my view, has been effectively dead for two hundred years – well before Nietzsche’s pronouncement in fact. The figures on 19^th century churchgoing etc don’t signify much in my view. Christianity got a handy shot in the arm from certain forms of Romanticism, and in any case religions don’t die overnight, especially when supported by worldwide organizations, vested interests, modern communications technologies etc. I think various forms of Christianity will be around for some time yet – quietly (or noisily!) withering on the vine. Ditto for Islam. Ditto for Buddhism and Hinduism too, I imagine.

Sometimes I wonder if the very notion of religion misleads us. After all, if in say 100 years, Western culture breaks out of what I see as its all-pervasive agnosticism and discovers a new revelation, there is no self-evident reason why that should result in something resembling the "great religions" of the past. Perhaps it might take a form we cannot even foresee. 

Derek

Hi Derek,

Europe was not completely Christian until quite late – indeed the people of the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) are a great example of this, there Christianity did not really have much influence until the 13^th century and the pre-Christian traditions have hung on. The Germanic world was still being Christianised in the 8^th century. If you look at conversion histories (see Carole Cusack on the conversion of the Germanic lands) you see that the focus of conversion was always the nobility and the fact is that as far a the Church was concerned so long as the King and the nobility of a region were Christian that region was Christian. Whatever the lower social orders believed and did was not really an issue. People were taught about heaven and hell, about Jesus and God, but no one really asked their opinions of it all. They just were not that important. Your average person from the lower social orders did not really go to confession. Most people went to Church on Sunday, most did not really know what was going on and many non-religious activities took place there – people traded goods during mass. The cathedrals are the “pyramids of Europe” it’s a good expression – the pyramids were built predominantly through the desire of the pharaoh. The point is not that the Church did not dominate European culture through the medieval period its just that the idea that during the middle ages we have solemn piety from all the social orders misrepresents things. Most other aspects of cultural history are approached with a degree of suspicion, turn a suspicious gaze on this aspect of cultural history – power was vital to the story of Medieval Christianity. Power is vital to the post-medieval narrative of the age of faith.

Prior to conversions doxastic unity was not an issue and there is good evidence from Northern European pre-Christian traditions that many people were irreligious and suffered no real diminution of social standing for it, so there were terms that basically translate as ‘Godless’, further amongst those who had chosen to follow a certain God, say the German Frey, not all of them would have been devout followers. Things were probably much like they are today – about 10-15% of the population were really devoted.

In regard to what we ought to take seriously – there is some kooky stuff in the field of religion, it does not make it any less religious, Jim Jones and the people of Jones town – its closer to the genuine piety that you perhaps want, but its not particularly healthy minded stuff. Religion is everything from nominal Christianity right through to the White Night of Jonestown and everything in between. No, if I am thinking about religion and what it is I include the kooks – it distorts the sample to leave them out.

Phil

Hi Derek,

You seem to misunderstand both points, and the misunderstanding is more or less gross. 

I am not sure what kind of picture you have of what people were doing in those “wonderful cathedrals” when they attended mass; what were they listening to? The mass you might say! But even some of the people who gave the mass were struggling with the language of it, never mind those who attended it most of whom would not have understood any of it – indeed they could not even see most of it, as there used to be a wall/barrier separating the priests performing the mass from the assembled ‘faithful’.  Classical Latin was not commonly understood, those who understood Latin were mostly familiar with pig-Latin, or vernacularised Latin, this is also true of a large number of clergy outside of the large cities and most nobility. For many of the smaller towns there would have been some question about whether the priest even understood what was being said in the mass they were reciting. Even in the larger urban centers classical Latin was not well understood, although I am not implying that senior clergy in places like Paris did not understand the language they used. During the mass many of the ‘faithful’ socialized, traded goods and even played games – piety indeed; a wonderful expression of ‘religious consciousness’.

What else can be said? Well, if you were living near an urban centre you might have had the benefit of attending one of these ‘wonderful cathedrals’ where you could have gone to hear, but not so much see, a priest muttering a language that you and sometimes they, did not understand. But if you lived outside one of these centres you probably would not have sacrificed much of your time to go there.

I did not say that Christianity was only ever a religion of the nobility what I said was that for the longest part of the middle ages (6^th to 11^th Century) that there was little concern from the Church what ordinary people believed or did or to educate them about the detail of the Christian message – God, Satan, Heaven, Hell  and a Bible that they could not read – that is what they got - although to say they got the bible misrepresents things as these were extremely valuable items, what they got was the knowledge that there was a bible. Vernacular bibles only emerge very late in the piece,  14^th century (although there is a very early Gothic version, and vernacular dictionaries only in the 16^th century. How much care do you think that Rome had for how well the various princes and so forth understood the bible or Christianity? So long as they were loyal to Rome that is all that really matter. Indeed how many noble folk do you think could read the bible? How many could read? How many of the copyists in monasteries do you think could read it (and understand it)? And the latter were part of the clergy. I am not suggesting that the cathedrals were empty, all I am suggesting is that the general attendance was not due to the kind of piety or ‘religious consciousness’ that you talked about. Even amongst the educated the level of commitment seems to span from instrumentalist (handy connection to Rome an important seat of power) to the pious.  Great architectural works are not necessarily a symbol of piety either; they can symbolize much more besides. The way you seem to be reading it is as if religion and belief provide some kind of total explanation for the building of Cathedrals and for people attending church, which is like trying to explain 9/11 as purely the product of religious belief – it’s a monolithic explanation that fails to take into account a more fulsome range of issues, particularly material issues. The Cathedrals were not just built so that there would be a place to perform a mass and for people to enact their piety and people did not attend simply to enact their piety.  

I think that this sort of notion is based on a kind of mythologised understanding of the past where prior to modernity and the reformation there was an age of faith where all ‘religious activity’ was truly pious activity and had no instrumentalist or non-religious motivation but that with the reformation, modernity and so forth this all changes and things become more and more inauthentic, more and more instrumentalising until we reach the cynicism of contemporary culture. It’s the kind of paradise lost understanding of history. Its what I worry about in your comments about a ‘new revelation’ that will take us back to something – but whether that something actually existed or not I think is questionable. Modernity and the reformation brought change and indeed they brought religious change but that’s not really the point. One thing that we can say for sure about the reformation is that efforts to ensure doxastic unity become increasingly fervent in the counter-reformation. Of course the earlier Albigensian crusade (which resulted in the Inquisition) is a prelude to this, but that is 13^th century, rather late, and its all about power, not piety or religious consciousness. But a concern for doxastic unity and a concern for what people believe only really become important when there are viable competitors on the scence (such as the Cathars and then the reformers).

In regard to the ‘nincompoops’, it does not matter whether you think that they are nincompoops, your opinion of their commitments is not at all relevant. But such groups are of relevance to the sociology of New Religious Movments (often just called NRMs). What is relevant is that these ‘ninconpoops’ are practicing something that they call religion, what they are doing is, to them, ‘religious’. Now I deliberately picked what ‘I’ see as some of the most bizarre manifestations of contemporary NRMs as an example of what lies on the spectrum and did so because you raised the issue of ‘seriousness’. I think that, next to these ‘nincompoops’ our fundamentalists look positively serious – and indeed our fundamentalists have a very serious agenda – but they don’t meet your criteria of serious religiosity!  Besides the very use of terms like ‘serious religion’ and ‘nincompoops’ seems to indicate rhetorical language, the serious versus the non-serious, the sensible versus the non-sensible or nincompoops.  These are just crass dismissals that place arrogance and opinion over thought. One thing that the sociology of NRMs does well is stand back from what is believed by any NRM to look at what is occurring. The ‘Jedi’ (they don’t worship Jedi they simply use the Star Wars mythos) are very interesting for the sociologist of religion because what is implicit in what they are saying is that there need not be anything external to the subject that is the referent of religion.  What does that tell us about religion? What does it tell us about the contemporary understanding of religion? Now given that it is just one manifestation, a funny one, in a more complex way of thinking about religion and the psyche that emerged in the 1970’s (and ultimately drew on sources from the early 20^th century that flow into other interesting religious movements) it is certainly worth thinking about – people in the last 50 years have reconfigured their understanding of religion in such  way that things like this can register on our census data. Whether or not they are nincompoops is not relevant, how they have been able to do so, the mediating influences that permit it, are relevant. Crass dismissals just don’t help.

Philip

Hi Phil

I’d have all kinds of objections but I’ll let that pass.

One thing you might be able to help me with though is this: These days I seem to notice an increasing tendency among apparently intelligent adults – especially males – to treat Hollywood fantasy as if it were the real world – for example, philosophers who spend serious time pondering about Hollywood zombies, brains in vats, “The Matrix”, swampmen, etc. And now you tell me there are actually people whose “religion” is the “Star Wars mythos”, for heaven's sake.

I mean what are we talking about here? This is the world of tawdry Hollywood fantasy – of “entertainment product” as they disarmingly call it – dreamt up with one, and only one, thought in mind: commercial gain, dollars, box office, the sacred bottom line.

I can certainly understand the appeal of this stuff to children (I liked it myself when I was a child) and perhaps early teens, but to adults? Do you think we’re witnessing an epidemic of infantilism among apparently mature adults?  Is today’s “supramundane reality”, as Jim Stone calls it, the bogus, juvenile world of (often vicious) films and video games? Yeats, I recall, once asked:

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Maybe we have the answer...

DA

I hope that, as a new member of Philpapers my input will be useful. I am personally interested in normative religion as part of the solution to present  global problems, but I side with those who understand religion as describing a family of practises and factual beliefs.It is only after 'religious'practises and factual beliefs are regarded as sociological and anthropological phenomena that  man's religious experiences can be   adapted to global benefit.

I have read with interest most of this year's posts on this topic, and was encouraged to reread in 'The Mende of Sierra Leone' the chapters on religion , and on secret societies. The author, Kenneth Little, a social anthroplogist, explains that what modern educated people call 'supernatural' is not regarded as substantially so  different from natural.The Mende around the 1940's and later believed in the factuality of a sky god who is a creator of all, but the more active spirit beings , who are degrees of personalisation of the Supreme God who is not an immanent being, are ancestral spirits, nature spirits associated with natural phenomena,mischievous and nameless spirits also associated with the natural environment, and the 'spirit' associated with various  secret societies which Kenneth little says exemplifies
 
'a more or less conscious attempt to endow spiritual force and power with an active personality achieved by means of masks and various kinds of body gear. In this conception spiritual power has been 'canalized' for purposes of social expression and action.Objectively, the power thus personified is simply a social construction depending on the collective behaviour of the members of the cults subscribing to it. In the minds of the people , however the supernatural qualities of the (society) spirit are intrinsic to it.'

--------'The quality of awe and respect shown towards this kind of spirit and its cult paraphernalia is emotionally distinct from that evoked by other spirits.'

In the following chapter Kenneth Little explains how the secret societies are 'of primary significance in determining ritual behaviour and social attitudes, because the sanctions in nearly every sphere of the common life derive from them.'
Specific societies deal with  'different fields of the cultural life and their regulation'  but  'collectively they provide an institutional structure which bears resemblance to the medieval church in Europe.'

I therefore conclude that 'religion' can be defined upon a sliding scale according to the degree to which the religious experiences and behaviours are indicative of, and control, what the society endorses as necessary aspects of the culture.This sliding scale  definition allows for emergent cults and religions however nincompoop they are  and also allows for comparatively powerful institutions such as an established church. Any religion, from the nincompoop to the established must provide certain private rewards and punishments or the people will not adhere to it. But the rewards and punishments are not the core of a religion: the received expression of a society and its culture are the core of a religion.

Hi Steven

The comment of mine you may be referring to is this one, I think:

Perhaps some people only discover the "need" that a religion meets when they experience their religious conversion. 

I was perhaps overstating the case a bit (I was reacting to what I called a kind of "supermarket" approach to religion – Jim Stone’s view that religions “figure centrally in satisfying the sort of substantial human needs that people generally want religions to meet (e.g. long life, immortality, the end of suffering). ...".)

Basically though I don’t resile from my point. Even the Buddha was originally awakened from the “things of this world” unexpectedly – by the sight of the sick man etc.  And St Paul’s conversion was apparently quite unexpected. Ditto for Mohammed I think

Presumably, a person would need at least to be receptive to revelation, but I wonder a bit about the familiar idea of people “in search of a faith to fill a vacuum in their lives” etc.  It makes religion sound a bit like a little tonic to take when one has most of the other things but still doesn’t quite feel 100% happy. I’m not religious but I doubt if true religious faith is like that.

This may be off your point.  I am thinking aloud a bit here.

DA  

>>Presumably, a person would need at least to be receptive to revelation, but I wonder a bit about the familiar idea of people “in search of a faith to fill a vacuum in their lives” etc.  It makes religion sound a bit like a little tonic to take when one has most of the other things but still doesn’t quite feel 100% happy. I’m not religious but I doubt if true religious faith is like that.<<

I don't know. I think for a lot of people it is exactly like this. Buddhist doctrine is often compared to a medicine, and there is no doubt that many people are looking for such a medicine in religion. The danger is that we fall into the trap that Dan Dennett does and assume that this implies that it is a quack medicine, no more than the abandonment of reason and logical discrimination in favour of a cheap and tawdry consolation. In fact, of course, it is perfectly possible for a religious belief to be completely true and also a source of consolation.

In this respect I could mention that I converted to Buddhism (from total religious scepticism) on the first afternoon I came across it, since I had already arrived at the Buddhas metaphysical position (or, rather, a position that implies the truth of his teachings) before I knew what it was. This proves that you are right, religion is more than just a receptivity to revelation, and more than simply a faith in a comforting fairy tale. It can also be a response to coldly honest philosophical analysis. I feel this is also demonstrated by Chalmers' work on consciousness. 

 
   

 

Yes. It seems that an initial enthusiasm for religion usually originates in some sense that our ordinary wsyiwyg view ot the world is inadeqate. I'd only say that this inadequacy is clear from a study of physics and metaphysics, and not only from a lack of meaning (or somesuch) in our personal lives. But maybe this is taking us OT.    

Eileen - Sorry, I missed your post. I wonder why you have such a low opinion of religion, and suspect you may mistake the trappings for the substance. But I've no time to get into this now. I'll have to take a raincheck on an argument.    

Jim Stone:  "In short, religions relate practitioners to a reality that
transcends the mundane world revealed by sense perception; we
might call it a 'supermundane reality.' "

I think the last concept has not received the attention it deserves, although it's been adverted to by several: John Mc Creery 2009-10-30; Herbert Huber 2009-11-03; Derek Allen 11-04. Most recently, Ms E. Cameron quoted Kenneth Little,

''in 'The Mende of Sierra Leone' the chapters on religion , and on secret societies. The author, Kenneth Little, a social anthroplogist, explains that what modern educated people call 'supernatural' is not regarded as substantially so different from natural.''

I appreciate that Jim S. was trying for neutrality in avoiding the term 'supernatural,' but 'supermundane' may be equally open to question. On the one hand, as Derek Allen suggested, the love between Romeo and Juliet  may qualify; the term is hopelessly loose. On the other hand, the term 'transcend'  and Jim's statements such as,

"It comprises a level of reality deeper than what sense perception (even assisted by scientific instruments) reveals, and its nature is best discovered by other means, e.g. meditation."

suggest a strict sense: that the world as described by the natural and physical sciences is one which religious persons allegedly go beyond, using special methods to do so. Jim introduces a bifurcation, which, to the believer, does not exist, at least in the way Jim describes it. (Obviously practices connected with what's held sacred are by definition, not routine and 'mundane'.)

Jim S, so far as I can see,  has given no answers to queries on this issue, and I've looked at a portion of the auxiliary paper he posted.

A basic question is, Can there be a neutral definition? Jim S says, indicating his intention along those lines,

"As all such beliefs [in the supermundane] may be false, there may be no reality that transcends the mundane world revealed by sense perception. All religions may be fundamentally mistaken. There is nothing in my account that a complete atheist couldn't accept. "

Derek A made the point well in this example:  "It's like saying that falling in love is "carrying out certain ... conventional courtship practices associated with a belief in the superior qualities of a particular human being."

Again, a certain type of psychological account might be couched in such terms, but at the cost, as DA suggested, of ignoring experience (where truth of belief is assumed). More fundamentally, the well known 'emic' 'etic' issues are raised. Since I am no anthropologist, I'll leave this anthropological debate to McCreery, Cameron, and others.

In philosophical terms, the set up proposed by Jim S. seems almost inevitably to suit the a priori position of the skeptic. Whether the love of Romeo and Juliet strikes Jim S. as 'supermundane,' I don't know. Perhaps not. But, if we take 'supermundane' in a strict sense, the religious person is set up for the classic Ayer-ian retort, "Ah, you're involved in metaphysics," and the next step is what Hume recommended for books dealing neither with mathematics, nor fact.

Jim S's account, despite its merits and lucid defense, seeks neutrality, and thus misses a key feature of most religions (perhaps all; I'm not discussing essence v. 'family resemblance'):  A holistic reality (notwithstanding the existence of 'planes' or subcategories). The statement,

In short, religions relate practitioners to a reality that transcends the mundane world revealed by sense perception; we might call it a 'supermundane reality.' 

is fundamentally inaccurate, if read in the most obvious way, i.e., extensionally (de dicto).  It's like saying, "The Greeks believed that the goddess Aphrodite was connected with the second planet circling the sun."

Philip Quadro: 'I think we have to negotiate in terms of supermundane reality – on my understanding this does not necessarily mean ‘other world’ for it would seem to me to be the case that something like Brahmin or Nibbana is better to be considered the truth of this world and so immanent, that is, not fractured or broken off.'

Jim S.   Right. So 'supermundane' means super-ordinary, not super-
natural .  Indeed, many religious people on this planet do not have the western idea of 'nature.' It really would be strange to describe Nibbana or The Tao as supernatural.   Neither is miraculous.

It's unclear if Jim is  endorsing "immanent, not fractured or broken off."  The gloss of 'superordinary,' unexplicated, seems not to solve the problems mentioned in my most recent post. Further it's entirely possible that "immanent" for Jim, implies a difference of kind;  this would be consistent with his earlier statements.

And one might ask, Why is 'the truth' about this world 'superordinary'?  The Taodejing, at several points, links the Way and the ordinary.  Although there is some skepticism with regard to the senses, the following passages support the use of the term 'ordinary'.

[Merel translation]
12  In this manner the sage cares for people:
He provides for the belly, not for the senses;
He ignores abstraction and holds fast to substance.

46  When a nation follows the Way,
Horses bear manure through its fields;

59  Manage a great nation as you would cook a delicate fish.

http://www.chinapage.com/gnl.html

.

Peter said, Harold - I don't quite see your objection. I'd say the whole point of using 'supramundane' is to avoid reifying the bifurcation suggested by 'supernatural'. We could say that that quantum mechanics is 'supramundane' in relation to our everyday fanatasy of tables and chairs, since it is a more nearly fundamental view. This is all it would mean, I think, that for a fundamental view we must see beyond what normally appears to be mundane and natural to what is actually mundane and natural.

Hi, Peter
You're taking a similar line to Derek, who proposed that love was supermundane.

You say, quantum mechanical processes are.

I think Jim is quite unclear on this, but there are a number of indications that he does indeed posit some sort of 'bifurcation.' He says the order of things to which religious people relate, "transcends" the ordinary; it's not connected to sense experience. He speaks of a "metaphysical" principle. He mentions access by special methods, e.g. meditation; in other words, hardly the 'ordinary' or mundane methods of either scientists or laypersons.

But these are issues of textual interpretation and Jim can settle them, if he cares to.

The philosophical problems I've raised : 1) How does one characterize the 'world' of the religious person. Is it 'above' ours, as 'super' suggests. Is it the depth of ours; or a type of richness, as when your TV picture goes from black and white, to color.

2) If it's not different from the 'naturalistic world,' how does it support ethical values, norms of behavior for the adherent?

A specific form of the problem of 2a) does the concept of 'truth [raised in connection with Buddhism]', to which the adherent directs her mind and her behavior, do the job of supporting an ethic?

3) Jim clearly has in mind the religious person acting voluntarily so as to 'fit' with, or so as to constitute a fit with this supermundane reality. It's clear in Daoism that some sort of fit is always there: Those who make fun of the Way, are acting in a way congruent with it. Congruence with truth, one might say, is ordained; proposed deviance from it is momentary, like the adventure of the person who, convinced he's dreaming, steps out into traffic on a busy roadway. There is, in Daoism the suggestion that 'not doing' is a way of dealing with apparent incongruities with the Way.

There are a number of dilemmas, here, and I doubt that Jim's account, at least so far, has successfully avoided coming to grief with some of them.

The problems go on and on. Rebirth is a natural phenomenon if it happens. Ritual, for from being the central 'religion-making' factor is of no importance in some religions and may even be discouraged. The tea ceremony has strong religious connections etc etc.  
 

"When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice." (Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors)