Eliade "Sacred Space & Making thhe World Sacred"

In Eliades " Sacred Space & Making the World Scared" writing, Eliade focuses on the religious man, in a religious world, surrounded by the sacred and superior world. A world divided by the "sacred" and the "profane". The inferior world making up the profane, mundane and nonreligious or unholy world. Religion was a necessary cognitive concept rooted in a primitive survival mechanism. Eliade proves my beliefs that religion ultimately separates people...And why not make everything sacred? Why would a religious man want to be surrounded by the mundane manifestations of a profane world? The universe is a vast space and by creating a significant or "fixed point of origin" that reaches into the cosmos, the religious man can play out their psychological needs of connecting to someone more powerful than themselves.
Myths, like the bible, are designed to teach lessons, instill fear, & control and attempt to explain the unknown. Religion causes groups of people to feel and do things in a ritualistic manner, while suspending reality. Just as the Kwakiutl tribe believed their "axis mundi" or fixed point passed through three cosmic levels, the underworld, earth & sky...it was seen as the "door to the World above". What do you think they would do to a tribe member who believed differently? The tribes survival depended on all of them being on the same page! Whether it's cosmic pillars, Roman pillars, copper poles or an "axis mundi" in the form of the Milky Way; religious societies, tribes and groups needed to believe in something larger than themselves. Otherwise, who are they suppose to thank and bow to, pray and give thanks for their survival and life on earth. Like Eliade suggests, connecting with others in a sacred space is/was important for survival. Religious believers want to feel safe and surround themselves with like-minded thinkers and believers. Modernity gives way to new ideas and theories, but we are hardwired to follow the leader and not make waves. Theophony, or the appearance of a God can appear anywhere if your living in the sacred world. Perhaps within the folds of bark on a tree. Whatever you want to create in your mind can ultimately become your religious or spiritual reality. All religions seem to share common interests, but it's the idea of mines better that yours, is where conlfict and holy wars press on.

Religion in Society

Emile Dirkeheim makes many interesting points about religion in the selections from “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life”. He points out that religion can define how things in society can be determine as “wrong” or “right.” He discusses how religion can completely overtake a society and decides how the society should be run. Dirkeheim points out the differences between the sacred and profane and how they can affect an entire community. Religion can determine how a person lives their life. People are discriminatory to different groups of people because their religion may say that the way a certain group lives their life is wrong. For example, the way that Catholics view homosexuals. Instead of Catholics accepting homosexuals and people who are not heterosexual, they reject them because Catholicism says so. Dirkeheim makes the point that religion is worship of society itself and that all religion is political. This proves true all around the world, especially in the United States. Religion has defined which sexes can marry in the U.S.

This article brought up many different components of religion. For instance, how religion can rule a person's life and run a society. Dirkeheim made many points that I completely agreed with, especially his definition of religion. “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” (Pg 90) Religion is something that will always be infiltrating society. Hopefully though society can overcome the influence of religion.

The Objective and Subjective Worlds

“The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed.” (James)

The idea that we are products of two separate worlds: the physical, and subconscious is a very prominent idea within James’ lecture. This idea is worth noting because often times scientific evaluations of the “real” world omit the human subconscious and the effects it has on that very world. James takes the idea a step further, suggesting that the subconscious or subjective world is more of a “reality” than the physical world which is built around the most general ideas. Since the subconscious mind can drive one to certain beliefs it also influences the actions that one might perform. These actions are “real” in a physical sense because they have real consequences and often times change the way the world itself functions. According to James, an individual’s subjective world provides more of a concrete foundation for one to experience the objective world.

“…it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality, and any would-be existent that should lack such a feeling, or its analogue, would be a piece of reality only half made up.” (James)

Yet, so often the subjective world is discredited from any “scientific” examination of the objective world in exchange for rash generalizations. This idea is quite profound and can actually prove useful in evaluations of the objective world. Living in a world dealing with only “the cosmic and the general” deprives one of the many diverse subjective worlds that have helped to form it.

Religious Tolerance and Ignatian Spirituality

In reading "The Varieties of Religious Experience," by James, I found two themes to be particularly interesting to me. The first is that religious tolerance is absolutely essential to a civilized society. We see this when James writes about the “angle of observation.” The second is that we are called to see God in everything. He mentions this by saying, “It is the terror and beauty of the phenomena, the ‘promise’ of the dawn and the rainbow, the ‘voice’ of the thunder…with which the religious mind still continues to be most impressed.”

The first idea of religious tolerance is something that I find to be very valuable to everybody in today’s society. There is such a diversity of races, religions, and ideas in our society, let alone our class, that we must learn to be tolerant of other people and their beliefs. I feel as if this is one of the points James is trying to make. James made me think of an analogy I was taught in school: There are three different boats on the ocean, a cruise liner, a rowboat, and a submarine. They are all trying to get into the San Francisco Bay through the Golden Gate Bridge. They all have the same goal in mind, but they all have different ways of accomplishing that goal. What is useful for the people on one boat may not be useful for people on another. For example, oars from the rowboat would not benefit the cruise liner, and screen doors from the cruise liner would not benefit the submarine. The idea is that there are several ways to get to the same place -- to achieve the same ultimate goal. There is no right or wrong way. As James stated, "Parts are not interchangeable in the spiritual life." If people could be tolerant of other religions, then this world would be a better place.

The second idea about seeing God in all things reminded me of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits, in 1540. He had an idea that God could be found everywhere, not just in church or places of religious significance. His belief was that everything is sacred, meaning that it was possible for us to find God in all things -- if we were open to that possibility. It is up to us to find God in the ordinary events of our lives. I have always found this to be an interesting “angle of observation,” and one with which I think James would concur.

Understanding Religious Experience and the Sacred

In James' lecture XX "Conclusions" he summarizes the different characteristics of Religious life. The characteristics James believes to be are as follows "The first is that the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance. Next, the union or harmonious relation with the higher universe is our true end. Lastly, that prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof be that the spirit "God" or "law" is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world" (James). With this James believes that Religion includes psychological characteristic also being " A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism and an assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections" (James). With both characteristic of religious life and the psychological characteristics connected to religion James felt the need that he need to defend himself so that he the reader would not question his extreme testimonies to religion. In which he states his explanation in the next paragraph. James brings a question to the table by asking if the existence of so many religious types, sects and creeds regrettable? In which he then answers "no" he believes that it is impossible to have humans of different positions and powers to have the same functions and duties. With the question being brought up and then answered I would have to agree with James I feel that it is not possible. To prove my agreement with James I pose this example of a devote Catholic and a Priest. Both may attend church on a daily basis and believe in the same beliefs but their objectives of why they are there are different. The devote Catholic goes to pray and learn about God while the Priest job is to teach the community of people about God and they ways to live a holy and happy life. The devote Catholic and the Priest may both experience a similar religious experience but the experience may impact one more than the other being that these are two humans that have the same belief system but they both have different functions and duties in life that make it where there is o way for them to be identical. James uses the example of Emerson being forced to be a Wesley with him stating that this would make the consciousness of the divine suffers. James says that " the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities" (James).With this being said James has made what he stated earlier in his lecture to be true and the point that the Divine is not made up of one thing it has to be made up on many different ideas and qualities. From the characteristics of religious experience to the divine James has proven his beliefs to be true and actuate.

James, William, Lecture XX Conclusions, 1902

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Religious Unions and More...

In James’s concluding thoughts of The Varieties of Religious Experience he overviews the meanings of the words “more” and “union” from a religious standpoint. While defining and understanding these words according to a specific religion, it is crucial that one does not breakdown a religion into simply “more” and “union” because these meaning are personal. The “more” is the subconscious part of a person’s life while the “union” has the power to make that a truth.

According to James, "more" is also the way in which religious experience connects to one's conscious life and furthermore to a religious "union". This relationship of words can work across the board of different religions because of its generality in what the words entail religiously. The downfall is that people looking into a religion that they are not a part of have the vulnerability of assuming that it means the same thing for all Catholics or for any other religion of choice. Because everyone has the ability to have a different religious experience, their "more" and "union" can be different from the person kneeling down next to them praying to the same God or prophet.

Unfortunately, I had difficulty decipherign the true meaning of "union" according to James and whether or not it is possible to have one or the other. It seems as though it is possible to have a sense of "more" without a "union" but not a "union" without those subconscious thoughts that entail the aspect of "more". In a religion, there is a sense of union and in order to retriece that union there must be thoughts and beliefs that people share to form that bond. Those subconscious thoughts and beliefs create a need for a union.