Defending Religion

Last time in class we were suppose to defend religion against Freud's attacks. What surprised me was that no student purposed the possibility that a religion might be true, that there might be a transcendent reality. Surely there is at least one student in the class who believes in a transcendent reality. By the way I'm not sure that term "transcendent reality" has been defined well enough but I will use it for lack of a better term. Probably no one purposed this because they were afraid of attack or ridicule. Discussing what is scientific and discussing what might be are two different discussions. However, I believe it is possible to approach spirituality in a scientific way, though not in a way that is likely to satisfy most skeptics.

Should you worship God?

Today the question came as to whether Freud was right in thinking that worshipping God is an unhealthy thing done by an immature mind. I mentioned that I think worshipping an external deity causes one to remain a spiritual child. Continuing that train of thought, I do not think it is good for our species to be subordinate to any other class of being. The class of being does not matter: if aliens came to our world I would think that we should not be subordinate to them even if they were very much superior to us. The same applies to any non-corporeal being or beings that might exist. I think such subservience would limit our human potential, I think such subservience does limit our potential.

When a person worships deities that are external to them, deities that are out there somewhere in space, then inevitably that person is put in a position inferior to the deities. Such a position limits human potential because then some things are deemed to be within the domain of the Gods and not within the domain of humanity. If one's spiritual path includes deities then it is best if they are ideals, or role models. We should aspire to be the Gods that our ancestors were content to merely worship.

That being said, I admit that not everyone is ready for such a bold religious path. Different people are suited for different religions(or vise versa?). Even though different people are suited to different religions, I am not claiming that all religious ideas are equal. God worship might be a phase in one's spiritual development without being the end point of that development. Though many are not yet ready for a spirituality where God and Human are conjoined, I don't see any way forward other than promoting such ideas.

Defining Religion

Reading Deitrick's article about religion and how it means different things to different people and how it is sort of an amorphous concept has caused me to doubt that a definition of religion is very useful. However, since I am a religious studies major and I'm graduating this spring it seems like I should have some definition of religion handy. If some one asks me what I got my degree in and I tell them religious studies, and they ask me "How would you define religion?", it would seem pretty silly if I could not answer. I guess I could go the route where I say that I don't think there is any one definition of religion and that it is a loose cluster of concepts, but I will still need to describe what I think religion is before I'm done. It is probably best if I come up with some quick definition of religion that is satisfactory to me, if for not other reason than to be prepared to spit it out if I'm ever asked. So I guess I need to come up with one before this semester is over.