Religion : A Religious Experience

Although not the first scholar to examine the idea of religion, Jones utilizes the concept from the study of Self Psychology in order to determine if “transformative religious experience is mature or unhealthy” (Jones 2002). In chapter 5 of his text, Jones

The psychological source of religion. William James explains the psychological source in terms of “healthy minded” people and “sick souls.” He explains that the healthy minded seek religion, because it brings challenges and action towards perfecting the world. On the other hand, sick souls seek religion as a source of comfort and peace from the dividedness that one feels. Viktor Frankl explains that one has a “spiritual unconsciousness” in which one’s religion takes root. For a religious person, religion is the process of a search for meaning, and God is the ultimate source of that meaning. These two positions on the psychological source of religion really have nothing in common, other than they both reference a state of mind. James’ being healthy or sick minded, and Frankl’s being of a “spiritual unconscious.”

In William James’ 1902 book “The Varieties of Religious Experience” he opens with depicting the approach of his review. He clarifies that it would be of little advantage to construct the examination with respect to regular people who have bound religious encounters and emulate customs which have been passed on to them. Rather, he centers the review around 'religious virtuosos '. In addition, as he clarifies in his second address, the attention must be on individual religious experience instead of corporate, in light of the fact that it is more central. Actually, it is out of the extreme encounters of a little few that most religious developments (or "factions" as he terms them) have created. Part 3 builds up that individuals appear to have the ability to encounter the concealed furthermore an inclination to see it as being more genuine than things seen, listened, touched or tasted.

Concepts will be defined to make explicit the working terms in use. In this essay, James defines religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men.., so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine" . This definition is rather broad and vague, so I seek to narrow it down to “the existence of a higher power, moral order or god.” His thesis can be paraphrased as the following: When we have a genuine option that cannot be conclusively decided based on intellectual grounds,

Prior to understanding and describing religious experiences, it’s important to define the terms and typology of religious experiences. A point of contention for theologians is whether or not mystical or out-of-body experiences are religious in nature. To understand what the role religion plays in these experiences, for this context, you must define and understand what religion is and the major components that make it up. James states that religion “cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name” (35). If you were to ask someone about the essence of an object or a concept, different people would provide various components or parts of it. You would end up of with a list ranging from objective and subjective responses, but it would provide a better understanding of it because, like religion, no one thing or person can be summed up in a sentence or a word.

However, before exploring this idea, I must introduce William James’ conception of religion to find these disposed and amenable persons. In Varieties, James defines religion as,“the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider divine” (James, 32). In other words, religion is

In the book ‘the varieties of religious experience’, James concluded that religious experience testifies that “we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace”.  He defined such experiences as “experiences of the divine” and believed that religious experience was at the heart of religion. For James, religious teachings, practices and attitudes are second hand religion, which later develop as individuals reflect on their common experience. It is the actual experiences that directly point to God. However this theory does little to prove religious experiences simply because many of his claims do not stand up to critical analysis.

Throughout the semester, the lived religion approach has enabled our class to analyze what religion is to many different types of people from all sorts of cultures. This method has allowed the class to view each religion in its own unique form. Essentially, the lived religion approach opens the doors to what each different religion/culture can offer, and how each of those groups embody what they get from the religion in their day to day lives. Unfortunately, conventional approaches do not dive into these different religions deep enough to see what the culture practices contribute to a religion. This paper will attempt to answer the question of why does myth and ritual play such important roles when it comes to an

In the book, “ A Beginners Guide to the Study of Religion”, Herling highlights the clash that questions who has more knowledge in religion between an outsider and an insider. The insider being the person who physically and emotionally participates in said religion whilst the outsider being the one who studies and gains information about it from every corner from afar. Although this question is slightly unsolvable, it’s important for us as students to understand the concept of what our position means, why both insiders and outsiders are important, and which stance we should be taking in this course. This also in a sense links with Megan Roper’s TedEd talk about her position as both an insider and an outsider and how one should approach either

A new eagerness and ideas of the awakened brought disagreement and isolation over the nature of religious experience. Edward researched the fruit of revival and his conclusion descried the revival in his own fellowship. He surfaced with a perceptive, doctrinal rooted plan of evidences by which improve participants might detect the true meaning of their religious experiences. He didn’t want to describe the mental and spiritual state of the awakened. He desired to establish signs of those who were restored by the spirt of God. “A sense of god’s beauty, sweetness, or holiness that saints apprehend or taste.” (Kling, 1) He later developed a new mindset to understand the renew work of God’s spirit. He defended the revival as God’s work by the legitimacy of the conversations. There was great and amazing work of conversations and debut among the people. He admitted that there were misconduct and glut but suggested advice of a writer. “He proposed “signs” by which an experience might be judged legitimately the

Sigmund Freud believes that religion is a regression to narcissism (Beliefnet). Meaning, religion controls how the person feels and how he thinks. If a person does the will of the Father, he will be blessed. If he disobeys, he feels remorseful for doing something bad. Beliefnet provides for an example in order to fully explain this claim. For Kathleen Figueroa, getting dressed each morning is a battle between the goodness of God and the evil insider her (Beliefnet). When there are days that Mrs. Figueroa thinks that she should wear certain clothes as it would please God, doing otherwise would make her feel guilty all day long (Beliefnet). In this regard, Sigmund Freud asserts that religion is just an illusion and one must overcome

As we know many people have a stance on religion just like WK Clifford who has a very strong view about religion, but some do not agree. William James for examples thinks that, Clifford’s principles should be not to be applied to religious beliefs because as he points out moral questions cannot simply be settled by the facts. James argues that we have a right to believe in some cases, when supporting evidence may be lacking. James sees the basic idea of religion as having two parts that the best things are the eternal things, and that you will be better off in the here and now if you believe this. An example of something we almost all believe in without sufficient evidence, is the emotions we feel often every day. The many emotions we feel everyday such as happiness, anger, or even sympathy are very often morally relevant to us. Emotions are not settled by facts we just feel them and for sometimes no reason at all. Like

In Sigmund Freud’s, The Future of an Illusion, he studies religious foundations and the influence of religion on civilization and social principles. As he explores the psychological depths relating to religion, he also portrays a scientific and rational civilization. In turn, he reveals his hope for an ideal world where humans surpass their feelings of helplessness and insignificance to live in an improved civilization based on reason and the increase of knowledge. Through his analysis and ideas, Freud is able to incite feelings of doubt surrounding religious beliefs and their validity.

For example, William James studied religious experience and suggested that the spiritual process works to curtail people's negative behaviors (James, 1936). For James, spirituality helps individuals recognize their own earthly suffering as either a consequence of individual pathology or addictive behavior, or both. When people begin to criticize or consciously reject problematic individual behaviors as a permanent way of being, then they become open to the possibility of rising to a higher awareness. This higher awareness of his or her own behavior is then integrated as a part of the person's psychology. James was already considering the role religion plays in a person's consciousness early in the twentieth century.

To experience a new religion is to open one's mind to an entirely new world. For my World Religions course, I was asked to visit a place of worship for a religion other than what I was most used to. Upon considering being raised as a Pentacostal Christian, the first idea that came to me after hearing this was for Billy and I to go with our friend Arjun's family to a Hindu temple—since Arjun had moved away recently to go to college however, he was unable to attend.