quote:

---

I sometimes feel duped during church, like a sheep, like it's all very silly (which makes me silly too).

---

quote:

---

I've recently been reading a book entitled, "The varieties of religious experience" authored by William James.

---

One of the nice things about James for the purposes of this board is that he had, in a manner of speaking, an open view of God and the future. By exploring external relatedness (external, such as a god, the Forms, etc.), he denied all actions are entailments. I hope folks here discuss him more (and bring more questions Dr. S!) especially since much of American religion today responds to pressures he wrote about 100 years ago.

quote:

---

To quote him, "But to find religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity; and the process of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner discord is a general psychological process, which may take place with any sort of mental material, and need not necessarily assume the religious form."

---

1) This assumes the self ought to and can be ordered/unified. It’s an optimistic assumption characteristic of James’ time (else why found the discipline of psychology?) but I don’t buy it.
2) This isn’t James’ final word on the topic. Yes, there are many ways of reducing internal stress, but it doesn’t follow that religion is merely “the opiate of the masses”. However, the fact that it has pragmatic truth value suggests that it is likely to be True (not exactly how James would phrase it, mind you).

quote:

---

Could it be possible that the collective religious experiences, which up until this point have satisfied very few emotional deficits in my own life, are a result of individual psychological disunity and result in a characteristic "relief" in the form of happiness?

---

Makes sense to me. This is the critique offered of charismatic-leaning churches from within evangelicalism. To wit: they offer attendees an emotional experience through peppy music and clapping, dancing, waving of hands, weeping, etc., but the psychological relief this brings is notoriously short lived. It keeps people addicted to "mountain top" experiences and the next Christian concert or holy laughter experience instead of seeking after God with their minds and bodies.

quote:

---

I sometimes feel duped during church, like a sheep, like it's all very silly (which makes me silly too).

---

Amen! I think church is silly too, actually, and the thought strikes me fairly often. Singing to no one as if He’s there? Eating His body? Chanting in unison? There are reasons for these things, but they’re all still rather silly on the surface. I think most of what we do for God is like the drawings that parents place on their refrigerators because their kids drew them. We’re all as hopelessly far away from God as the 2 year old's stick figures are away from a real person, and the rituals of church mostly remind us of how He stooped down to draw near to us.

But feeling “duped”? Maybe they’re trying to dupe you, but it sounds as if you’ve resisted. In my opinion, you’re astute to recognize that any psychological comfort brought to you through a church service is of temporary--and perhaps--questionable use.

The history of Christian experience belies the notion of psychological unity through services. On the contrary, I think the best church services present us with God, in front of Whom our brokenness and sin are all too apparent. Look through the Bible for people’s experiences with God or his surrogates and see if people felt psychologically whole and happy in His presence. <Insert obligatory reply that everything we need to understand about God we can see in Jesus and Jesus made everyone around him feel warm and cuddly! and wasn’t he just a cute little teddy bear of a messiah? And did I mention you should buy a copy of _The Search for Significance_ and read it 10 times? >

Put as clearly as I can, I believe modernist America presents us with a problem (angst, stress, psychological discomfort) and a false answer (seek power over the angst and psychological wholeness through experiences).

quote:

---

Does the desire to be part of something meaningful (eternal) actually mean that there has to be something eternal or even metaphysical?

---

Good philosophical question. I’ll leave it to the philosophers on the board to tackle.

Terry
"Be God's"

quote:

---

Does the desire to be part of something meaningful (eternal) actually mean that there has to be something eternal or even metaphysical?

---

I am no philosopher, but I can quote one .

Kierkegaard might ask you: "Who can ask this question?"
One existing or one not existing? (This is to address the second part of your question. "Is there something metaphysical?")

I suppose we could say one not existing, but that doesn't help us much. Then we dive headlong into absurdity. Some may doubt it, but I really do try to avoid doing that where possible.

The first part is not so easy to address (not that the second was really easy, or even satisfied fully). The Greeks assumed that there is something eternal for very good reasons. We can see that there is something in the human that transcends the physical. The argument Socrates used goes like this:
There is a difference between what is governed and what governs.
A human governs that which belongs to his trade: for instance a woodcarver governs a knife and saw.
A human also governs that which belongs to his own body.

The funny thing is here, that Socrates then moves in the direction that the human is not the body but that which governs it. Transcending the body at this point there is a connection with other things which were assumed to transcend the physical and temporal. From here it was speculated that soul (that human which governs the body and transcends the physcal) is eternal.

Now, of course, there is an implicit metaphysic at work here, but noneless, some sound movements seem to be recognizable. We do experience a transcending of our physical bodies. We do also generally acknowledge a general capacity for the human individual to transcend other creatures. Along this line we can even see that in some sense, we are able to think about ourselves, self-reflect, and this seems to be a way of transcending ourselves. Does this get us a "proof" for the eternality and preexistence of the soul? Maybe not a hard core proof, but certainly an argument for the plausibility of it.

Sorry, that was convoluted. If I were actually a philosopher, there would have been theses, major and minor premises, and so forth. Not only that it might even have taken the form of an argument rather than merely a discussion of a possible argument.

Hey, while I am revealing my ignorance, can someone tell me the formal difference between a major and minor premise?

Thanks.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

quote:

---

Simple question:
How does one sift through the adolescent-/hormonal-like rollercoaster of religious opiate that characteristically permeates church teachings on evangelism and repentance? How do I know that my conversion was genuine and not a satisfying high that's followed up by periodic shots? (By the way, the responses have been genuinely helpful and I've already ordered "The Search for Significance"...hope all of you have stock in amazon.com b/c my library is exploding).
forever questioning,
Doug

"I solemnly swear to tell the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth; so help me God."

---

What up, Snuglas.

To me, the fact that a conversion experience involves some sort of emotional high does not necessarily make it disingenuous. Yes, we should be wary of relying solely on "feeling" in our spiritual decision-making, but emotional highs and lows are to be expected.

I guess I should ask you this: What do you mean when you refer to the "adolescent-/hormonal-like rollercoaster of religious opiate that characteristically permeates church teachings on evangelism and repentance?" This seems like a generalization that isn't necessarily justified. Can you explain in more detail what gives you this impression?

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

quote:

---

For instance, because I study science (and have even a moderately adequate brain in my skull), macroevolution is a pile of horse-poopy. This (and the design inherent in irreducible complexity) is voluminous evidence for a higher being.

---

quote:

---

What I haven't encountered is a forum like this to satisfy my philosophical hunger.

---