Religion is the most
comprehensive and intensive manner of valuing known to human beings.
Religions have common characteristics. Paul Tillich thought of the essence of
religion as existing in that which was of ULTIMATE CONCERN. "The Ultimate Concern is that
which demands complete surrender of the person who faithfully accepts the
Ultimate. (…) it is an act of both the conscious and the unconscious, unconditional,
infinite and ultimate concern.”
Myths are an integral part of our ultimate concern. One might be able to replace one myth with another, but s/he could never completely remove mythology from human consciousness. In fact, Tillich argues that even a “broken myth,” cannot be replaced with a scientific substitute because myths are the symbolic language of faith”
Religions give answers related to the following
topics: the notion of a deity or absolute (ultimate concern and importance);
the nature of human beings; divine providence, destiny, fate; the meaning of
human history; the problem of evil; humanlife and suffering – afterlife-life, life
after death, world concept, ethics – moral code. With regard to e.g. the West-
Judaism-Christianity it is characterized with a belief in one god, in linear
history and sacred scripture – the book. How the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
traditions argues for God’s existence? There are A. Revelation- scripture-
direct instruction from the deity; B. Reason; C. Experience Religious experience of the divine (absolute);
D. Psychic Phenomena-Death and Immortality; E. Pragmatism - faith
There are different kind of religions:
Monotheism- a belief that there is but one god.
·
Theism- one god separate from the
creation
·
Pantheism- one god existing in the
creation-i.e., world=god
·
Panentheism- one god, the world is
part of god who is greater than creation
Polytheism- is a belief that there are many gods.
Agnosticism-is no clear or definitive knowledge of whether there is a god or not
Monism is the view that all is of one essential essence, substance or energy. Monistic theism, a variant of both
monism and monotheism, views God as both immanent and transcendent
… and the post modern relativism where descriptive ethical relativism
has led to normative ethical relativism.
In general, according to religions God is:
Supreme Being
|
All Just
|
Eternal Being
|
All Loving
|
All Perfect
|
All Merciful
|
Beneficent
Being- All good
|
All Kind
|
All Powerful-
Omnipotent
|
All Charitable
|
All Knowing-
Omniscient
|
All Forgiving
|
All Good
|
All Understanding
|
All Present-
Omnipresent
|
All Sympathetic
|
Moral codes
All societies need moral codes in order to survive. Without moral rules there is disharmony and chaos that no society can long survive. It is one of
the most characteristic features of a religious tradition to have a moral code.
of course there is a lot of question to think about
for instance, what about the doomsday clock? the world is coming to an end?
"Historically, philosophical reflection on religious themes had two foci: first, God or Brahman or Nirvana or whatever else the object of religious thought, attitudes, feelings, and practice was believed to be, and, second, the human religious subject, that is, the thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and practices themselves." (oxford handbook)
10 RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER RELIGIONS: What is
the prescribed manner in which believers are to regard other religions and the
followers of other religions?
source: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/scccweb/etexts/phil_of_religion_text/
image credits nn 1,2,3
UPDATE - REMARKABLE COMMENTS
(after posting a nice long discussion followed. the highlights copied here)
B O'Brien I'm sorry I haven't had time to address this; it raises some interesting questions. I think Tillich was on to something. However, the analysis does largely leave out Buddhism, and the questions attributed to Mr Pecorino display some western cultural bias.
A Salmon Paul Tillich, as you know, was the most famous of the de-mythologizers, theologians (Tillich was Lutheran) who pointed out that all of the myths, including the resurrection of Jesus and that of Adam and Even, were not historical or true as fact. Tillich also argued against the Christian notion of personal immortality. The world-wide revival of religious fundamentalism in the 1980s (which helped produce the new anti-science GOP) swept much of their work aside. Too many want to believe that the Biblical myths are true for emotional reasons to make Tillich influential today. (...) Tillich also tries to redefine "faith," which typically means belief without evidence. Faith is "ultimate concern," Tillich proclaimed, which meant that atheists who were so concerned had faith, a conclusion which few atheists had any interest in.
B O'Brien TO A Salmon -- Faith in the religious sense didn't mean "belief without evidence" until the modern era. Tillich (and I've read his book Dynamics of Faith, so I actually do know something about him) in a sense was trying to go back to an earlier understanding of religious faith, not "redefining" it.
A Salmon Well, the earlier Hebrew meaning signifies trust, not belief in. The New Testament writers inherited a different context where one religion was not universally believed to be true. Faith in the New Testament involves belief without evidence, a hope in "things unseen," but by this time the Hebrew view of God as having a literal body had largely disappeared, so one was asked to have faith in an invisible being.
B O'Brien //Faith in the New Testament involves belief without evidence, a hope in "things unseen," // A lot of the writing of early and not-so-early Christian theologians contradicts that. Augustine certainly wouldn't have agreed, nor Anselm, nor a lot of others. The whole idea of "truth" being synonymous with "factual" and requiring "evidence" is a relatively modern notion.
A Salmon Truth for the writers and believers of the New Testament is doctrine. If you do, as some zealots do, spell it with a capital letter, it sinks in more: "the Truth." This view continues today among fundamentalists in particular. They have "the truth" and want you to know that Jesus is "the truth," etc. As for Old Testament faith, the story of Abraham and Isaac is an example. Abraham is not asked to believe that "God" is real or exist but rather to trust "God" in God's unethical command, by ethical standards elsewhere, to kill or murder his own son. Later God is depicted ordering genocide. None of those who believed in that God were recording as raising moral objections or deciding to disobey.
B O'Brien Don't confuse modern understanding of "truth" with how people understood "truth" 2000 years ago. It's a perilous thing to look at how modern people understand "truth" and scripture and assume that's how it was always understood. Also a lot of the more horrific OT stuff comes from a 7th century BCE "revision" according to a lot of scholars, reflecting dissension and conflict within Jewish life at the time. It's old propaganda, in other words, aimed at long-dead people facing a long-gone situation.
A Salmon Truth for post-Christian, post-Enlightenment people means commonly an awareness of conditions and facts, such as biological and astronomical and language solution, but not in an absolute way. We determine what is true now through science, especially, and scholarly research throughout the disciplines generally.
"Historically, philosophical reflection on religious themes had two foci: first, God or Brahman or Nirvana or whatever else the object of religious thought, attitudes, feelings, and practice was believed to be, and, second, the human religious subject, that is, the thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and practices themselves." (oxford handbook)
Below are the questions for a religion to be answered, as elaborated by Mr
Pecorino
1 THE ABSOLUTE: what do the believers hold as
most important? What is the ultimate
source of value and significance? For
many, but not all religions, this is given some form of agency and portrayed as
a deity (deities). It might be a concept
or ideal as well as a figure.
2 THE WORLD: What does the belief system say
about the world? Its origin? its relation to the Absolute? Its future?
3 HUMANS: Where do they come from? How do
they fit into the general scheme of things?
What is their destiny or future?
4 THE PROBLEM FOR HUMANS: What is the
principle problem for humans that they must learn to deal with and solve?
5 THE SOLUTION FOR HUMANS: How are humans to
solve or overcome the fundamental problems ?
6 COMMUNITY AND ETHICS: What is the moral
code as promulgated by the religion?
What is the idea of community and how humans are to live with one
another?
7 AN INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY: Does the
religion offer an explanation for events occurring in time? Is there a single linear history with time
coming to an end or does time recycle?
Is there a plan working itself out in time and detectable in the events
of history?
8 RITUALS AND SYMBOLS: What are the major
rituals, holy days, garments, ceremonies and symbols?
9 LIFE AFTER DEATH: What is the explanation
given for what occurs after death? Does
he religion support a belief in souls or spirits which survive the death of the
body? What is the belief in what occurs
afterwards? Is there a resurrection of
the body? Reincarnation? Dissolution? Extinction?
source: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/scccweb/etexts/phil_of_religion_text/
image credits nn 1,2,3
UPDATE - REMARKABLE COMMENTS
(after posting a nice long discussion followed. the highlights copied here)
B O'Brien I'm sorry I haven't had time to address this; it raises some interesting questions. I think Tillich was on to something. However, the analysis does largely leave out Buddhism, and the questions attributed to Mr Pecorino display some western cultural bias.
A Salmon Paul Tillich, as you know, was the most famous of the de-mythologizers, theologians (Tillich was Lutheran) who pointed out that all of the myths, including the resurrection of Jesus and that of Adam and Even, were not historical or true as fact. Tillich also argued against the Christian notion of personal immortality. The world-wide revival of religious fundamentalism in the 1980s (which helped produce the new anti-science GOP) swept much of their work aside. Too many want to believe that the Biblical myths are true for emotional reasons to make Tillich influential today. (...) Tillich also tries to redefine "faith," which typically means belief without evidence. Faith is "ultimate concern," Tillich proclaimed, which meant that atheists who were so concerned had faith, a conclusion which few atheists had any interest in.
B O'Brien TO A Salmon -- Faith in the religious sense didn't mean "belief without evidence" until the modern era. Tillich (and I've read his book Dynamics of Faith, so I actually do know something about him) in a sense was trying to go back to an earlier understanding of religious faith, not "redefining" it.
A Salmon Well, the earlier Hebrew meaning signifies trust, not belief in. The New Testament writers inherited a different context where one religion was not universally believed to be true. Faith in the New Testament involves belief without evidence, a hope in "things unseen," but by this time the Hebrew view of God as having a literal body had largely disappeared, so one was asked to have faith in an invisible being.
B O'Brien //Faith in the New Testament involves belief without evidence, a hope in "things unseen," // A lot of the writing of early and not-so-early Christian theologians contradicts that. Augustine certainly wouldn't have agreed, nor Anselm, nor a lot of others. The whole idea of "truth" being synonymous with "factual" and requiring "evidence" is a relatively modern notion.
A Salmon Truth for the writers and believers of the New Testament is doctrine. If you do, as some zealots do, spell it with a capital letter, it sinks in more: "the Truth." This view continues today among fundamentalists in particular. They have "the truth" and want you to know that Jesus is "the truth," etc. As for Old Testament faith, the story of Abraham and Isaac is an example. Abraham is not asked to believe that "God" is real or exist but rather to trust "God" in God's unethical command, by ethical standards elsewhere, to kill or murder his own son. Later God is depicted ordering genocide. None of those who believed in that God were recording as raising moral objections or deciding to disobey.
B O'Brien Don't confuse modern understanding of "truth" with how people understood "truth" 2000 years ago. It's a perilous thing to look at how modern people understand "truth" and scripture and assume that's how it was always understood. Also a lot of the more horrific OT stuff comes from a 7th century BCE "revision" according to a lot of scholars, reflecting dissension and conflict within Jewish life at the time. It's old propaganda, in other words, aimed at long-dead people facing a long-gone situation.
A Salmon Truth for post-Christian, post-Enlightenment people means commonly an awareness of conditions and facts, such as biological and astronomical and language solution, but not in an absolute way. We determine what is true now through science, especially, and scholarly research throughout the disciplines generally.
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