Anarchy_How , 1 month ago

@skydog @TheConversationUS @philosophy

I see. There's a good deal more going on here (& w/ religion in general). A key insight from RS is that “religion” has no singular non-reductive definition, only a family resemblance of features. So can only define religion for the purposes of a given discussion. You take value derived from myth as religion's core here.

What's the most helpful way to think about myths and values?

Screenshot from a lecture that reads as follows: Reductive Definitions of Religion - Below are examples of definitions of religions different scholars have used. - Each is reductive (misses stuff about religion that’s important to talk about) in some sense. FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER (Protestant theologian) | Religion is “the feeling of absolute dependence. KARL MARX (economic and political theorist) Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Text continues WILLIAM JAMES (psychologist and philosopher) “Religion... shall mean for us 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. EMILE DURKHEIM (sociologist) 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 which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them. SIGMUND FREUD (psychologist) | Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.
PAUL TILLICH (Protestant theologian) | Faith is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern. CHARLES LONG (religious studies scholar) Religion will mean orientation-orientation in the ultimate sense, that is, how one comes to terms with the ultimate significance of one’s place in the world. Source o Prothero, Stephen. Religion Matters.