Barbelith Underground > Head Shop

Nighthawk, One can easily admit that experiences have a biological basis and still make non-scientific claims for them... I can say that an art-work is sublime, for example. If someone said 'ah, but look, these parts of your brain are showing increased activity, so its all in your head', I'd suggest they were somewhat missing the point. Of course our neurobiology engenders our psychic lives, but that doesn't make my appalled reaction to, say, recent events in Ipswich 'all in my head', does it? One could certainly describe it in those terms, but noone would suggest that that was the most important, or only legitimate way of understanding the experience.

Agreed, more or less. Except in the cases of Ice-cream, painting, summers day, etc, we not only have the evaluated experience articulated in speech, and shown in the brain scan, but there is the ice cream, painting, summers day that can be understood without the particular evaluative experience. With god the issue is, that sure you can have brain activity that indicates “religious experience” but there is no evidence (like there would be for ice cream, painting, summers day) for the referent of the experience. Dreams are experiences that may seem “real”, but no one would say that because you have a dream about a giant who eats things in reverse that there is necessarily such a creature that you can observe waking in the world. The obvious religious reply would be something like “god caused those bits of my brain to light up” or “god gave some people the capacity to have these experiences and others not” (which one could imagine horrible social consequences), the point is (if the research bares out), I think that god is superfluous to the “religious experience” in the brain, you don’t need god to explain the phenomenon.

I really like your examples Nighthawk, and I think there is something there, especially in the notion of evaluation, taste, preference and expression. This is, I think, something Dawkins tends to miss, but I basically think it is due to his reactionary position in the face of continental thought. As far as going through Dawkins argument, I guess I was thinking of something more analytic; “Dawkins says this here, does it make sense?” kind of thing. It seems to me these discussions get stuck on what “religion” is.

Wittgenstein:

"What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence" (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 7)

I think Wittgenstein being referred to as a mystic, though a popular enough description, is not exactly what he had in mind (I could be wrong). I think Wittgenstein is taking a rather agnostic position on that which we cannot express rationally.

Two-headed:
: why do you think that I think there is a "soul"? Here we go again. More imagining of what I must obviously believe as a religious person based on what you know about other religions.

I'm sorry, I was conflating "soul" with your notion of "spiritual learning" above:

Internally, as my direct experience of confrontation with what I choose to refer to as "The Divine" prompts personal growth, development and understanding. Externally, as this constant spiritual learning curve shapes the decisions I make on a day-to-day basis, in turn shaping the life I have made for myself, and therefore impacting to some degree on the lives of all those within my orbit.

I shouldn't have used the term "soul" rather "spirit". What my question was getting at is what is "spiritual learning"? What is the learning that you are writing about, is it learning about the spirit, or is there a spirit that learns? What is this notion of spirit?

As for Afro-Caribbean religions, they are in fact not recognized by other major faiths as valid, but are the subject of a great deal of anthropological study; and are of course legally protected as a form of religious expression (in the US).

I think it should be fairly evident that the category of experiences we call "religious" as encompassing the practices, rituals, ceremonies, myth, etc is a fairly recent phenomenon in the West. It wasn't until the 18th century, really, that practices other than Christianity were widely called "religious" in the West. There is debate on if Buddhism should be included or not. For example you will see courses on Buddhist philosophy at some universities that study texts, the coherence, thought, implications in what the texts say, for example the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna. On the other hand, in a Comparative Religion course, or Anthropology, folks will often look at the daily rituals, practices, artifacts, etc. That we call Buddhism a religion at all, and study the practices, is a rather recent development.

I am surprised someone hasn't done an etymology of "religion" here. It comes from the Old Latin "religio" which means something like "taboo" or "restraint" which derives from "re"- to return, and "ligare" "to bind", that is a "return to bondage". The term is a Western notion, which is why some Buddhists don't like folks calling what they do "religious", precisely because doing so is seen as another kind of intellectual imperialism.

The Wiki article on Religion offers up the general ways that folks approach religion. I more or less see religion as a social phenomenon.

Yet I am not allowed to call it religion, simply because it is not recognised as such by western culture. If this means I am cast as "twice a victim" then so be it. I stand by my right to have my own religious freedom and expression, thank you very much, regardless of what you, the Pope, Richard Dawkins or Jimmy Tarbuck might think of it.

Your allowed to call it anything you want. With some understandings of religion, any ritual activity can be understood as religious (going to work for example, or shopping, or a sporting event, or a political rally, etc). Many Academic departments of religion study Afro-Caribbean religions, just as they study Native American religions, South East Asian Religions, etc. But, I think it is obvious from the terms used to designate these various religions, they are understood principally as socio-cultural-geographic.

No one, as far as I know, is assaulting your First Amendment Rights, freedoms, etc, at least on this board. We are trying to understand what you call religion.

My problem with this thread is the seeming inability to understand that the religious experience is not synonymous with the structures of institutional religion - they do exist as separate things in the world - therefore an effective critique of one does not undermine the value of the other.

What is the "religions experience"? Or to ask in another way What experiences are correctly described as "religious"? or, if you like, How do you know when you have an experience it is "religious"? Is the religious experience of a spiritualist comparable to that of a Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, etc? It seems to me that it would be if we call all of these experiences "religious." Is “religious experience” absolutely distinct from “institutional religion”, you make a distinction, but on what basis? I think that could be a helpful discussion.