Final Religion - Book Report/Review Example

?Mogrin Almogrin Religion – Final Exam 24 April Answer to Question A. In our current world, different religions exist in different countries, with isolated forms of religious experiences. Each religion has established their own cultures, beliefs and missions. According to Joachim Wach, “religious experience can be any kind of experience, from visions and voices to intense feelings of love and devotion that the person having the experience believes to be religiously significant”. (Wach, p. 128) Religious experiences of St. Paul, Muhammad and Shakyanumi claimed an important role in founding three of the most popular religions in the world: Christianity, Islam and Buddhism respectively. Each of them experienced enlightenment in different ways. St. Paul became the messenger of God. His first encounter was when he was set out on the road to investigate the Jews in the synagogues to see if they were members of a Jewish movement called “The Way” (p. 127). This movement believed in Jesus and Saul does not believe in Him. But a bright light appeared before him, the voice of Jesus called Him and this experience called him to become one of the followers of the movement. And there began Christianity. On the other hand, Muhammad’s first encounter was when he was in a cave and suddenly he heard this magnificent voice and asked him to recite. Muslims called their divine one as “Allah” and through the angel Gabriel, Muhammad became “the prophet” called by Allah. By then he taught the central core of Islam, the Five (5) Pillars of Islam to receive approval of Allah. Both St. Paul & Muhammad had the same religious experience: heard voices and gave them instructions to fullfill two major goals, to unite the people and follow the truths about God (Christianity) and Allah (Islam). These two men were chosen because God knew they are special, and this is their purpose in the world. On the other hand, Siddharta Gautama didn’t encounter a divine one or heard voices from above. He achieved enlightenment through meditation. Although he was born royal, he chose a different path of life, he chose to discover and experience the world as it appears that time. He wants to understand why there are sufferings. How can a person be empowered without suffering? Buddha realizes that his task is to invite and influence others follow a path that will lead them to enlightenment. He believed that there are four (4) noble truths in life and to overcome sufferings in this world, one should successfully do the eight-fold path. By following the eight-fold path, one can reach nirvana or heaven. Anyone can follow the eight-fold path even a Christian or a Muslim can but in different contexts. In Buddhism, there is no divine one, Buddha is considered an important icon of this religion for reaching and succeeding worldly desires and other evils. Unlike in Christianity and Islam, there exist a divine one, God and Allah. Buddhism believes that we are the ones who created sufferings in this world, so it is only us who can end it. There were three important authors to which religious experiences were categorized. First is the feeling of absolute dependence by a Christian theologian named Freidrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768-1834). He said that it is the moment in consciousness when we become aware that our lives are conditioned and limited by all kinds of factors. One common instance where each and everyone feels this, is when we are caught in the middle of crisis, like if one of our loved ones is very sick and that doctors are telling you there is no chance of survival anymore. We feel anger and yet we reach out for God. We firmly believe that He is our last chance to ask for the impossible possible. We pray to God to heal our sick loved ones. This is showing our absolute dependence on Him, that even non-believers still pray to Him during crisis. The type of religious experience that was encountered by St. Paul and Muhammad is called the feelings of awe or wonder (numinous). They both heard voices from above that led them to conversion of their beliefs and became followers of God and Allah respectively. This type of religious experience was coined by Rudolf Otto (1896-1937). Another author, Ninian Smart, believed that there is another type of religious experience, the mystical experience. Buddha is a good example for this type. His experience is non-dual, meaning Buddha was enlightened through his own meditation, concentration and willingness to reach nirvana. And lastly, the feelings of confirmation wherein most people identify themselves into because it involves the feeling or kind of intuition that their religious beliefs are true. B. The two main categories of religious experience are the Shamanic Ecstasy and Mysticism. Shamanic ecstasy is the oldest type of religious experience. A shaman is aided by spirits especially in healing and other activities important to the community. The good example for this type is the American Indians. They believe in different Shamanistic elements like the fire, animals, wind, spirits of their dead loved ones etc. This is common among tribes. This type is more nature related, bad and good omens, taboos, gods and goddesses. But there are some shamanistic elements / experience in the encounter of Muhammad and Buddha. At the Night Journey of Muhammad, the angels and spirits of previous prophets were part of shamanistic elements, while Buddha, experienced supernormal powers and discovered supernatural truths by using trance techniques. The other category is mysticism. In Walter Stace’s Book, “Mysticism and Philosophy”, he believed there are two types of mysticism: introvertive and extrovertive. Introvertive is characterized as “the unitary consciousness” and extrovertive as “unifying vision” (p. 144). However, R.C. Zaehner revised Stace’s types of mysticism. He believes that we must distinguish it among nature mysticism, soul or monistic mysticism and theistic mysticism. Nature mysticism is the experience of the mystic’s ego or self-expanding to include the whole universe or dissolving into nature so that without and within are one. Yet, there is no perfect typology for mysticism. Neither Zaehner’s nor Stace’s type of mysticism applies to Buddha because there is no encounter with God / Holy One. I think that mysticism is culturally conditioned. It is changeable. The religious experience of a Christian is different from that of a Muslim. Yet, there is only one God that they worship and both want to attain salvation and holiness. 1. Answer to Question # 2 A Religion has been the favourite area of debate of psychologists. And two of the most popular psychologists who studied religion with psychoanalysis are Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl Jung (1875-1961). According to Freud, religion in general and religious experiences in particular is a projection of unconscious wishes and desires. He believed that religion is one way humans redirect psychic energy and socially acceptable forms. He believed that our psychological motivations in following our religions reflect our emotional relationship of our childhood depending on parents. In an ordinary social setting, we follow and look up to our parents for we believe they have wisdom and know what’s best for us and whatever they say or command us, we follow because we are afraid to be punished. Freud found the similarity on this perspective with religion; we depend on it by following its rule and worshipping God. Being involved in a religion means security on our part. Those feelings of love, guilt, sacrifice and security symbolically reflect actual childhood relationships (p. 148). Sigmund Freud concluded that the true liberation of humanity could only happen when human beings outgrew their need for religious illusions and faced reality squarely. In a sense, Freud does not believe that religion is an illusion where people try to escape the real world and keep it covered by unrealistic, mystical experiences that happens only once in a whole. B. But Carl Jung established a counter-theory of religion against Sigmund Freud. He believed that the unconscious is filled with creative energy and it contains archetypes that are recurring patterns in which the human ego (individual self) finds itself in relation to the collective unconscious. He believes that the individual ego of a child growing to a man passes 3 main stages namely: dependency, autonomy and integration. On the first stage, dependency, is the infancy and childhood stage wherein the unformed ego is dependent on its environment, in particular, the mother. Autonomy corresponds to adolescence and young adulthood where it seeks independence from parents and decision making is an integral part of this stage. But sacrifice, struggle and suffering are experienced by the individual to gain that individual. Last stage is the integration of self and environment in a more organized form. In other words conformity to inner peace and harmony emerge because of its own lack of wholeness. Jung’s approach to religion is more “light-hearted” that Freud’s. The development of our individual ego is through “self-archetype”. Religion and God are essential to us. An example indicated in the book, Allah is the self-archetype communicating wisdom and guidance to Muhammad. And for us who believe in God, He is our self-archetype wherein we inherit in our hearts the ten (10) commandments that must be followed to prevent us from sinning. We symbolize heaven with God and hell with Satan. C. If we analyse the different social locations of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, we can see the difference on how they thought of individuals with regards to religious cultures. Individual’s upbringing on religion is symbolic for them, Freud used the symbol of a father to relate to our God whereas Jung theorized that we use our self-archetype. Freud concentrated only on the childhood stage, because in this stage, same with Jung, is dependent on mother or father for support. Yet, Jung expanded this theory by making it three stages of growth of individual ego. Freud stressed that religion is a projection of our unconscious desires and wishes and that this is due to the repressed childhood experiences of parental relationship. Freud grew up in Germany and he has trouble with his parents while growing up. This country that time is not open to religious activities especially with Jews. It’s the other way around on Jung’s life. He grew up with good relationship with his parents and there he recognized each stage of his life as meaningful. 2. Answer to Question # 3 A. In our world today, evil things happen everyday. Evil is not only a person who commits crimes against other people, it can also be natural like earthquakes, floods, etc. Both moral and natural evils cause pain to all and these are always part of the religious prayers on how we can prevent it. A theodicy is literally seeking the answer for existential rather than the scientific “why”. Why do these evils happen around us? Theodicy is important in religious studies because it explains the phenomenon of nomos (social order) and anomie (social disorder). Religions all over the world have to face two major challenges, the moral and natural evils. We can’t control the occurrence of natural disasters but we can somehow prevent people to commit crimes. Catholics believe that disasters happen because we lack prayers and we are sinners. People become selfish at all aspects and somehow preachers look into disasters as signs from God that He is angry and this is our punishment. B. There are several types of theodicies namely karma theodicies, eschatological theodicies, theodicies of participation and dualistic theodicy. In karma theodicy, a soul transmigrates to another person’s body (reincarnation) and the soul carries with it the karma it had from the previous life. Whether bad or good things happen to this being, it is believed that he/she will inherit the same karma of the soul that transmigrated to his/her body. Like in the Theravada Buddhism, people are not alike in all aspects because of the different karma’s each inherited. Buddha believed with the cause and effect factors of the isolated events in our lives. When an effect goes bad, it is because the cause didn’t start good. According to this theodicy, humans cannot escape the mixture of good and evil in our world and the responsibilities attached to us by our society to promote nomos instead of anomie. Eschatological theodicy attempts a promising and positive effect for every pointless pain and suffering, that we can be triumphant. There are two types of these theodicy, “this-worldy” (that things will be made right in this world) and “other worldly” (claims that things will be made right in some other world like heaven) (p. 169). One example of this is the cargo cult in Melanesia. During the colonial rule, many people experienced deprivation and poverty. And the colonial rulers were not interested with native goods anymore. So they searched for the road to cargo and look forward to a time when the ancestors will return, the colonial masters will depart or share their wealth (p. 169). In this theodicy, religions of Islam and Christianity believed in the coming of the judgement day and that human history will end and justice will be restored. And there are only two places believed to be our destination, either heaven or hell. According to Wach, theodicy of participation deals with evil, suffering and misfortune by relativizing such events. It conditioned individuals to think of a “greater reality” that we participate in. It is believed that we become part of a bigger family / society and we put down our self-interests to adjust in more enduring interests of others. According to this theodicy, “we are only one very small part of a much larger process of life stretching back and forward into endless time” (p. 171). One example of this is the traditional Chinese religion identity formation that involves understanding oneself as part of a larger family unit that includes both the living and the dead. This theodicy is also present among the mystics where in the social unit is replaced by the nature, the One, the divine or the “suchness” of the process we call reality (p. 172). It can also take secular forms. Like how soldiers protect our nation from enemies. They are trained to identify with the nation, so they must protect it. In this theodicy, unselfish acts of kindness are always in the mind for the good of greater reality. Lastly, the dualistic theodicies believe that there is some sort of superhuman force that is responsible for evil. It is dual because there is good superhuman force which fights the evil superhuman force. Both Christianity and Islam believed the existence of two forces and their only goal is to defeat the evil force that destruct mankind. 3. Answer to Question # 4 A. Theological theodicy attempts to hold God’s qualities of omniscience, omnipotence and omni benevolence constant and still defuse various versions of the problem of evil. With these qualities of God, evil must not take place, but still there is. The monotheistic problem of evil can be solved by redefining God’s qualities and denouncing evil. In my personal point of view, God won’t let evil rule the world that’s why He chose these prophets to be His messengers like Muhammad and St. Paul. God is wiser than humans, things happen based on his plans. We completely depend on Him at all times, to become visionary and save the others. The true reality of humans depends on God and it continues to change us. Monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam are very particular on how to defeat evil in the image of Satan because these religions want to save its people, its followers from doomsday. And the continuous recruitment of people to be part of these holy movements is one way of empowering the power of good to overcome evil. So in simple terms, we are called soldiers of God who will protect mankind both believers and non-believers to reach salvation. B. There are three kinds of theological theodicies namely recompense, free will and soul making. In recompense theodicy, it nearly connected to karma theodicy, that for every evil thing a person did, he/she’ll be punished by God in a form of karma and God will be the sole judge. Reincarnation I believed that a soul will transmigrate to another body and it carries the same karma regardless if the body is innocent of its previous life. In free will defense, this kind of theodicy promotes freedom of choice whether to do good or not even if it leads to sin is better than without free will at all. This kind of theodicy is somehow dangerous because all people believe in free will. The teaching of the church will be disregarded. And lastly, soul-making theodicy holds that any world leading to personal moral development must include that, experiences of pain and loss. Our challenge is our spiritual and moral growth following God’s will. Read More