Ninian Smart: From The Gold Bible to William James´ Mysticism.

Sal hil • 5 days ago but he was critical of Peter Burger for "assuming the non-existence of God."[1] Religious Studies is, however, interested in why people believe that their religious statements or experience is true Cute, but easily refuted. Religions can already tell you why their followers believe and why their doubters don't believe. If you don't like those answers, then Berger is right, you've got to assume the non-existence of God for the sake of doing any meaningful 'religious studies'. That doesn't mean you've got to deny God, although it's a tough endgame to avoid. Let em explain. So, ever notice that mental health professionals have a tough time having normal relationships? That's partly because they've spent thousand of hours breaking human sentiments such as "love" down into their bare components and so the illusion don't work for them anymore. Explaining religions as human constructs will have the same effect in the long run for those who pursue. I grew up Mormon hearing stories about the gold bible. I was at best on the fence with belief, my Mom an opportunist believer and my older brother pretty much a sincere believer, but we never went to church so I'm not saying that one for sure. My aunt and uncle, mom's sis, were big time church goers. I think about all of them a lot. I try to understand them, but as you can see (on other posts I've made) I'm making sense out of it in terms of need and psychology. Thinking in these terms all the time pretty much assures I could never personally take belief in a gold bible seriously. Because I can't, even if I feign a certain respect for the belief of my bro, it's going to be a tense conversation with him because virtually impossible to not come across as patronizing. So when Christians say religious studies is the work of the devil, you've got to see their point, no matter how much you insist you aren't judging or denying God ro their beliefs. 1 • Reply • Share › Avatar brmckay Saltyhills • 10 hours ago • edited from the OP - "but [Roderick Ninian Smart] he was critical of Peter Burger for "assuming the non-existence of God."[1] Religious Studies is, however, interested in why people believe that their religious statements or experience is true Saltyhills responding to the OP - "Cute, but easily refuted. Religions can already tell you why their followers believe and why their doubters don't believe. If you don't like those answers, then Berger is right, you've got to assume the non-existence of God for the sake of doing any meaningful 'religious studies'." I looked up the two type of religious experience, "numinous and mystical" which it turns out according to Wikipedia William James made three points about. "Regarding the authoritativeness of mystical experiences, James makes three points: first, mystical experiences are authoritative for the individuals who experience them; second, they have no authority over someone who has not had the experience; third, despite this, mystical experiences do indicate that the rationalistic consciousness does not have sole authority over matters of truth." Smart was right to discount the assumption that "God does not exist". At the very least it being an unscientific posture. My personal quibble with the term "existing" applied to God, is one of semantics. The context responsible for existence, does not itself actually exist. But the essential no-thingness causes a lot of trouble for anybody not already heavily invested in intuiting the nature of infinitude. 1 • Reply • Share › Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop brmckay • 2 hours ago • edited You are hot on a trail, with your use of the term "semantics" and then "existence." I don´t see that you stay on track with your terms, however. It is clear by your phrasing, that you mean "have material form" by "existence." That´s scientific materialism, however, that normally makes fallacious assertions incoherent with philosophical truth and empiricism both. In short, materialism does not provide an adequate philosophical definition of "existence." You approach that when you address James´ larger context of truth. James´ work is important and interesting. I was just looking at his presentation of testimonies. He demonstrates a break with David Hume´s self-contradicting ideas that have prevailed since he stayed with his assertion that invalidates any foundation to scientific lawfulness. While Hume´s assertion has been left hanging because of its inconsistency and implicit invalidity in empiricism, it does have some applicability to examining semantics. And that applies to Hume´s second and third other assertions, that in effect witnesses to miracles are unreliable because miracles by definition are not credible. James examined and presented various testimonies of mind cure, mostly related to Mary Baker Eddy´s Christian Science, and understood that there is coherence in their content and apparent corresponce to reality in terms of quantity of people and resources involved in the social phenomenon. James´ own focus is limited. However, those healing testimonies in his work already meet a larger criteria for empiricism. They occur in relation to people experiencing God, in addition to Christian features or epiphenomenal features, directly or indirectly. That´s helpful in assessing then, that God´s existence is better understood through philosophical methodology, with epistemology helping situate science in its spectrum. I gather that´s where I would situate your preferred concept of "infinitude." I´ll proceed here with the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" helps in conceiving God as the "Tesseract" to our reality in mathematical-geometric terms. There is also a related argument from, "What is the predicate of our own minds?" that has both a direct epistemological consideration and the historical-sociological. Thus, the Kalam Cosmological argument uses the essential features of material reality as the complement to the predicate values of their predicate cause. That presents the features of God´s role in existence. Material existence is now defined by scientific philosophy cosmologically, with time, space, and matter-energy all having a beginning at the Big Bang event (hypothesis). God, then, as predicate cause, is timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. We see the effects in material experience in events now categorized as Transpersonal Psychology and Transcendental, that imply the supernatural depending on semantics. • Edit • Reply • Share › Avatar Saltyhills brmckay • 3 hours ago Smart was right to discount the assumption that "God does not exist". At the very least it being an unscientific posture. There are two basic ways the assumption "God does not exist" might be taken. if the statement implies philosophical naturalism, then I can understand a protest. The statement usually only implies methodological naturalism, which would simply bring religious studies into line with any other objective kind of research project. When a doctor, eh hum, at least a doctor who doesn't watch Fox news, sees black lungs and a profile of chain smoking, possible causes such as angry deities or grand conspiracies aren't entertained. That doesn't rule out the possibility that God cursed the patient's lungs. We just have no way of consistently taking that possibility into account. So we assume it away for the sake of doing what we can. I do understand there are candidates for other "kinds of knowledge" put forth by various parties. Not a fan of James. Thought "varieties" was dumb, but whatever. Suppose James is right. Now, how do you apply this when comparing two different religions, or explaining features of a religion? My personal quibble with the term "existing" applied to God, is one of semantics. The context responsible for existence, does not itself actually exist. But the essential no-thingness causes a lot of trouble for anybody not already heavily invested in intuiting the nature of infinitude. kind of a different subject. But for the sake of this discussion, we could say God does or doesn't exist, or something in between, and then just say our explanations of religions don't take God into account -- whatever his or her status. Not because we are necessarily biased against God, but because there is no consistent way to bring the guy (or gal) into the picture. Part of that is due to the nature of so-called lived experience -- it's subjective, and outside the scope of my tools to access. Say I'm a professor. How am I going to give the kids a multiple choice test that in part involves evaluating the content of a religious figure's mind or subjective experience? 1 • Reply • Share › − Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop Saltyhills • a few seconds ago I see the excellence in your point making the distinction between philosophical and methodological naturalism with relation to "God doesn´t exist." I tried to locate "Burger," and found "Berger", who appears to be a theist anyway. It would have been methodological on his part, apparently. That´s a helpful formulation to understand the course of the New Atheists, for whom their method has become "madness," what they would otherwise deny is actually "philosophical" given statements by a few of them that "philosophy is a kind of science," "God is a delusion (science is reality and truth)," "religion is poison (made famous by a non-scientist)" and "philosophy is dead." New Atheism is really a perspective in popular forums, that makes observations like Chris Hedges´ of its religious nature astute. They are simply not literate in key aspects of social thought, which in fact complexly involves religion and the philosophy of religion. Their assumption in effect of religious naturalism is what we are then inferring, ironically. As far as I know, haven´t seen that term used before. Thus, they are poorly informed about basic issues. I just got a glimpse at some of Rev MLK´s thoughts, scholarship really, that science involves knowledge and power principally, while religion involves wisdom and control. Certainly in the case of Comparative Religious Studies, the issue of social studies´ interpretivism, aka antipositivism, becomes a key subject to treat. As for your continuing concerns about how to apply "this (James´ insights on the authoritativeness of mystical experiences as a legitimate non-rational truth)", I´d say that the established relationship and your disengagement from an embedded perspective means you as a person keep building conceptual and communicative bridges as you muse. In the University, the secular view rules. People with embedded, unexamined views may be challenged, or may get uncomfortable, or the like. For me as an empirical theist with UU foundations, I realized that UUism is smart, but seriously limited for my full engagement as a modernized Christian. As for your "multiple choice test", the professor needs to establish a scholarly context. Someone´s going to have an interesting proposed system by now of mystical experience, and that becomes the format for categorical thinking and reasoning. I found an article from the J of the Scientific Study of Religion, for example, regarding psilocybin. Then I found this by N Smart, of all people, talking about RC Zaehner´s work on three categories of mysticism, for another.