Spirituality is a different personal and subjective experience of religious beliefs and practices. It is the subjective way that one experiences and lives out religion [ 7 ]. Spirituality may or may not lead to the construction of religious affiliation and community [ 7 ]. Rationality is defined as having or exercising the ability to reason [ 8 ]. In other words, it is the ability to think logically and analytically and to rely on and enjoy thinking in analytical and logical ways [ 9 ]. Rationality is the quality or characteristic of being reasonable, based on evidence or logic.
Adolescence refers to the transitional period between puberty and adulthood expanding mainly over the teen years [ 10 ]. Cognitive and social processes in psychological theories can assist psychology experts understand better the work of religious beliefs in adapting to and understanding their role in psychotherapy. People from many religions do not use information and data gathering techniques and strategies but rather use heuristics to form judgments about ideas.
This conformation of own group bias toward other groups can assist such judgments and protect them from any disconformity of the evidence. Belief in a religion provides a discipline and knowledge of a catastrophic and ambiguous world. Many religions emphasize forgiveness, which is useful in resolving any rivalries and social issues. One more helpful and useful religious belief is an omnipresent spiritual attachment figure. Harmful influences of religious faith include its practicing coercive control to maintain conformist belief and its promotion of an external locus of control.
Another perspective that psychological health experts practice contrary to the religious belief is free information acquisition and self-progress, and directs individuals to attain capabilities essential to alter and structure their lives. Therapist and mental health professionals are far less likely to align to a religious belief as compared to the general population or psychiatric patients.
According to Richard Dawkins, "not only is science opposed to religion; religion is opposed to science. It teaches people to be satisfied by the explanations religion provides which are mostly trivial, faiths based and non-empirical and ignore or oppose the scientifically and statistically accurate, quantified explanations. It teaches them to accept power, revelation and belief instead of always insisting on proof. Beliefs like these promote blind devotion and child indoctrination which are both immoral [ 12 ].
Researchers Lynn et al. Using data from a U. The authors also determined the correlation between intelligence and religiosity on a national level. The researchers found out a correlation of 0. In clinical view, there is no actual clear and distinct line between normal belief and a pathological one. Historically, Psychologists such as Freud himself believed all faith to be pathological [ 14 ] whilst the current definition of delusion in DSM-V excludes religious doctrine from pathology completely [ 15 ].
From a subjective viewpoint, a directional view to delusional thinking emphasizing conviction, preoccupation, and extension rather than content might be helpful in determining what is and is not pathological.
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Religious beliefs are all out of the scientific realm therefore can be easily labelled as delusional or pathological from a philosophical viewpoint. Arguments Against Theism in Philosophy of Religion. Continental Philosophy of Religion in Continental Philosophy. Divine Attributes, Misc in Philosophy of Religion. The goal I pursue is to redefine the study of religious epistemology on the basis of an ethnomethodological extension of Wittgenstein.
This approach shows that the nature of religious belief and its relation to facts, proofs, and empirical reality are matters that are dealt with by ordinary members of society. The examination of this lay epistemology reveals that -- far from being a settled and established entity -- religious belief is a polymorphous phenomenon. Religious belief is a pragmatic resource whose I defend this thesis by analyzing accounts pertaining to a contemporary religious apparition claim.
Religious Topics in Philosophy of Religion. The problem with organised religion is not that it is organised; the problem is that it is not organised enough. It offers an alternative to organised religion: Religion and Society in Philosophy of Religion. Do we ever have an obligation to choose to hold beliefs, religious or otherwise? James first takes up the relationship between volition and belief: Does it make sense to speak of choosing to believe a proposition? His answer is that it does, in the sense that we can choose to act in ways which encourage the production of a believing For example, we can be selective in attending to evidence, and we can incline ourselves toward belief by acting as though we already believe.
By avoiding certain influences and subjecting ourself to others, we can encourage the development of belief. In so doing, we in effect treat ourself as a third person, and our behaviour is analogous to what we might engage in when encouraging others toward favourable evidence. The question of moral responsibility then becomes appropriate in our own case in a way analogous to that in which it does with respect to our belief-producing actions toward others. Just as the deception of others raises moral questions, so does the deception of ourselves.
This paper compares the ways in which revealed theology, natural theology and philosophical theology justify religious belief. Revealed theology does so with an appeal to revelation and natural theology with an appeal to reason and perception. However, this worked only on subjects who were susceptible to this sort of control, those who were somehow weak-minded, primitive, or impressionable. And here we see an early example of the comparative study of religion, as certain commentators noticed that a variety of practices, from Indigenous rituals to camp-meeting revivals, looked awfully like animal magnetism Mesmerism developed into an American science in the s, when Charles Poyen, a Creole sugar planter who learned about animal magnetism while in medical school in France, decided to put the practice to use.
And in this way, Ogden is careful to note, Poyen was not so different from the earlier generation of debunkers. The goal was not to enlighten the whole population but, rather, to leverage enlightenment and to keep enchantment around insofar as it was useful. As other scholars have argued, secularization is not about eradicating religion or superstition, but about managing them. So, US mesmerists sought the disenchantment of the world, but not the whole world. No more did it envision a modernity in which everyone was subject to incantations.
The population whom Poyen was most keen on keeping enchanted were the enslaved persons who worked in his sugar fields. Other Americans found other uses for mesmerism, though.
Though Poyen and his colleagues wrote manuals and developed methods, the science of controlling others remained inexact. Chapter three offers an extended consideration of Loraina Brackett, a blind clairvoyant who while in a magnetic state could travel to faraway cities, describing accurately the geography and sensory experiences of the place. William Leete Stone, already renowned for exposing humbugs, investigated Brackett. What he found, though, was that in order to induce belief in her, so as to leverage her credulity, he too had to use his imagination.
But, as Ogden describes in chapter four, people tried. It was a practical science. What does it mean to be free, to be a secular agent in this context? According to Latour, Moderns have two options: But, again, what exactly is the character of secular agency and freedom? By the s, Spiritualists had superseded mesmerists in popularity and influence in the United States. They are part of the same secularization story. Were Spiritualists really secular, working to bring about disenchantment?
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How does this type of disenchantment work? This is what mesmerists and Franklin had in common; they studied credulous subjects and reassured themselves of their own modern, rational, secular subjectivities. But now, for Spiritualists, mesmerists were the credulous ones. When he spoke to antebellum Spiritualists, he sometimes made the same anti-mesmerist arguments as the earthly Franklin had. Unlike credulous mesmerists, the Spiritualists and spirit- Franklin were modern. It is the best kind of interdisciplinary American studies scholarship, deftly navigating canonical American literature, critical theory, and archival sources, presenting them in sharp and engaging prose.
Its clearest critical intervention, at least for this reader, is in secularism studies. Secularization is not the disappearance of religion but the management of it, the processes of separating it from the secular and, just as importantly, the troubling slough-off third categories like magic and superstition. By zeroing in on credulity, Ogden both excavates a key nineteenth-century category and offers new analytical vocabulary.
Rationality and the Study of Religion - Research - Aarhus University
By focusing on mesmerists, she highlights previously understudied historical actors and texts, and when discussing more familiar material she does so with fresh lenses and questions. She treats her subjects, even fictional ones, with generosity and grace. The problem with the empowerment argument is that it assumes that freedom is a better master. These are not strictly nineteenth-century issues—subjectivity, agency, freedom.
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Duke University Press, University of Chicago Press, , Charlie McCrary is a postdoctoral fellow at the John C. The worst is when they appear in final exam essays and one wonders if all of their instruction has fallen on deaf ears.
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In fairness to our students, doing analysis within a religious studies classroom is a unique beast. It may seem comparable to discussions they have in a philosophy class or a history class, but there are subtle differences. Unfortunately, by the time most students have any sense of how to do religious studies , the semester is over.
Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
This problem is even worse in a World Religions class where the students must master course content at the same time they are learning to think like a religion scholar. While everyone must muddle through, certain students demonstrate assumptions and patterns of thinking that are uniquely aggravating to religious studies professors. Usually what makes these patterns so exasperating is that they conceal some form of intellectual laziness: The problem is not that the student has some unique perspective the professor disagrees with, but rather that they are deploying a rhetorical maneuver to avoid the hard work of critical analysis.
The challenge for faculty lies in identifying these patterns and explaining to the student what we want them to do differently. This is especially the case when, say, grading a mountain of blue books. These labels are a heuristic.
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They provide a vocabulary to discuss these patterns more easily. Our labels are, of course, arbitrary. The purpose is not to perfect a taxonomy of poor approaches to religious studies but rather to create a tool that can expedite the process of learning to think like a religious studies scholar. These terms can be introduced early in the course and then referred to again, especially during discussion or when giving feedback on student writing. They could also be included on the syllabus or a course website for future reference.
Again, their purpose is to help students apprehend larger patterns in what makes a strong or weak argument when doing religious studies. Square Peg, Round Hole: This label refers to analyzing a religious tradition in terms of another religious tradition——and almost always this tradition is Protestantism. Instead of the Bible, Jews read the Torah. Instead of a pastor, Jews have a rabbi. Students are always making comparisons, whether we ask them to or not, so it behooves us as educators to embrace the comparative strategy when appropriate. It is hard to do this if we are constantly contorting the data so that we can measure it solely in terms of some other religious tradition.
This well-known fallacy takes its name from an anecdote in which a Scot claims that Scotsmen never put sugar in their porridge. In other words, any counter example to the original claim is dismissed ipso facto. As such, students may be tempted to reach for it when their preconceived notions about a religious tradition are challenged. But we cannot get into the hard work of doing religious studies until we have stopped making such excuses with the data.
Why are Muslims so intolerant? But the loaded question can also take a more subtle form. Instead of just trying to mask a claim, in a religious studies class it can also be used to abdicate the burden of analysis. Rather, the problem is that they function to dismiss the cultural significance formed around these experiences. The Dumb Ancestors Assumption: Related to medical materialism is a facile attempt to explain all accounts of the supernatural as a misunderstanding of mental illness or some other natural phenomenon.
This maneuver conceals a certain smugness that we have greater powers of reasoning and familiarity with the natural world than our ancestors. The Dumb Ancestors Assumption is particularly an obstacle when interpreting myths or accounts of the supernatural.
Our ability to imagine the significance of these stories is limited if our default assumption is that these are just-so stories told by intellectually primitive people to explain the natural world. The most common examples of Dan Brown Syndrome concern early Christianity and include simplistic mythicist claims about the historicity of Jesus or claims that Jesus studied mysticism in India.
Of course, there is evidence for many historical claims that contradict the official histories of religious institutions. The problem with Dan Brown Syndrome is that it eschews reasoned historical arguments in favor of contrarianism. This label refers to claims that we cannot engage in any sort of analysis or discussion unless we have perfect empirical knowledge.
This is one of the most galling maneuvers because, while these arguments are often framed in terms of critical thinking or the scientific method, their function is usually to dodge the hard work of analysis. If we can know nothing, claims the epistemological nihilist, then attempting to learn or understand anything is a waste of time. This list is just a preliminary exploration, and we encourage colleagues to add their own commonly encountered fallacies and biases in the comments below. Above all, we hope that by labeling these patterns, we can better communicate to our students how to sharpen their analyses.
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We all were students once and probably at least a little bit intellectually lazy until someone pushed us; we hope to do the same for our students now. Sometimes part of the work in articulating what it is one does intellectually or professionally is figuring out decisively what it is one does not do. Plus, this series is all about how to treat the anxiety or discomfort or annoyance that comes with the task challenge? Why would explaining our work be a task at all? The temptation to explain, I think, comes from our own anxiety over the prospect of being mistaken for theologians. Funny how anxiety works, though.
My own suspicion is that the label hits just a little too close to home. What this impulse prevents, however, is the ability to think about other kinds of analysis—at times more difficult to discern—from which we might try to steer clear. Critical inquiry need assume neither cynicism nor dissimulation to justify probing beneath the surface, and ought probe scholarly discourse and practice as much as any other. This charge is meant to silence critique. In that moment, a variety of roles are available: