That sounds exactly right, Dave. Religion in this sense, could be thought of as socially agreed upon "scheme of meaning". or *William James*: There is no atheism, as religion is defined to include any fundamental perspective on life.
That is certainly what I meant when I proposed the analogy of the 3rd level being "the religious level" Thanks, John On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 11:37 AM, david <[email protected]> wrote: > From the magazine "Philosophy Now": > > > > "Everyone reading William James’ (1842-1910) seminal 1902 book The > Varieties of Religious Experience > will be impressed by the huge variety of religious ideas. Nevertheless, > that variety is to a considerable extent caused by James’ very broad > conception of religion. Jamesian ‘religion’ encompasses all the > fundamental visions of life, including political, ideological and > philosophical stances. Such a view is popular among those who approach > religion from a psychological or sociological perspective, as James did. > We clearly detect this view in James’s definition of 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 the divine.” (The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study > in Human Nature, Penguin edition, p.31.) > > What James called ‘Emersonian optimism’ or ‘Buddhist pessimism’ also > betrays a relation to the divine, so these positions are ‘religions’, > according to his definition: > > > > > 'We must therefore, from the experiential point of view, call these > godless or quasi-godless creeds ‘religions’; and accordingly when in our > definition of religion we speak of the individual’s relation to ‘what > he considers the divine,’ we must interpret the term ‘divine’ very > broadly, as denoting any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete > deity or not.' (p.34.) > > > > > This brought James to a conception of religion as 'man’s total reaction > upon life.' (p.35.)" > > > > > > You can read the whole article here: > https://philosophynow.org/issues/78/The_Varieties_of_Atheist_Experience > > > > > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > -- "finite players play within boundaries. Infinite players play *with* boundaries." Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
