The End.

When I decided to take Philosophy as my segment 3 cluster, I had hoped to find some kind of peace in my professed agnosticism. I found that my first class, the Philosophy of Religion, was extremely important in my understanding the various world religions. After its completion, I had groundwork to use to find my own place in the realm of spirituality. My second class, Native American Religions, focused on a specific stream of religious thought that I felt I had not found in the previous class. When I signed up for Phil 525, I went into it hoping that it would tie up some loose ends and leave me with a neat little package that I could call my own personal religious view. Not so!
If anything, the Varieties of Religious Experience has left me with more questions than ever and put me in a constant mode of questioning everything about my previously held beliefs. I must thank Professor Hood for prodding me into this state as I now see that my quest for religious and spiritual enlightenment will continue to be an ongoing process. Thanks also for introducing me to some incredible books and especially to the concept of the hermeneutics of contemplation. It has given me a place to dwell in my skepticism about both religious and atheistic dogmas.

To review:

Tylor and Frazer got me very excited about the prospect of explaining religion as an evolution of beliefs. Though their methods were flawed, they did uncover shreds of truth and gave subsequent thinkers a place to start in there own investigation.
Freud, for all his self glorifications, caused me to see religion as something that comes from within (which was later reinforced by Hume’s writings). Though I disagree that religion is ALL bad, it does play a role in much of the human suffering that we see today. I also find truth in his idea that we are set up to be religious believers based on our early experiences with our own parents. Thanks Freud!
James gave me a sense of peace in that he points out that religion serves a definite purpose in the lives of many. He also reinforced my thought that the logic of religions may be flawed, but it is invaluable to the mental health and spiritual well being of those who subscribe to it.
Durkheim is my man in the agnostic department. His support of the idea that religion is a social phenomenon opened my eyes to the function that it plays in the progression of civilizations though the ages. Religion=Society takes a leap in my awakening that the concept of god may stem from our earthly human interactions.
Marx was the one thinker whose ideas I had been familiar with prior to taking this class. Religion IS the opium of the masses! But this is not all there is to it in my opinion. I find his belief that religion grew out of economic need a little hard to follow, but indeed it plays a huge role in the suppression and exploitation of the underprivileged today.
Evans-Pritchard was extremely well thought and I admire his hands on approach to looking at various religious phenomenons. He was also the most disheartening in that he points out, accurately I think, that there may never be a satisfying explanation to how and why religion has become the driving social force that it is. I too wish that he had taken that final step at the end of his research in offering some kind of theory to bind the weight of his work.
I have just written on the specifics of Phillips and his interlocutors, but in summary I feel that Phillips goes too far in his criticism of his predecessors. As I read each of the chapters in his book, I kept finding myself lost in the forest for all the trees. I understand that we must be critical in our readings of great thinkers, but at some point I feel we must appreciate the accomplishments for what they are and not digress into heady departures from the subject at hand. Phillips might try using contemplation in his readings of other philosophers in the way that he does the readings of religious documents.
To conclude, I come away from the “Nature of Religious Experience” a better rounded thinker and with a base on which to ponder my existence more thoughtfully. I have also gained a great appreciation for the work of the great thinkers that we have examined, and I will continue to pursue my readings in philosophy after my Gator days come to an end.

Phillips Vs. Feuerbach

Feuerbach, in his assertion that humanity creates god as a projection of our own attributes, rings truer to me than Phillips’ criticism of it. Reification was a big word in our discussions in class and more than the other philosophers we covered I think Feuerbach was really onto something here. It echoes the material we covered about totemism, and I feel that though this approach to explaining religious thought has its weaknesses, there is something irresistible about it to me. Looking at the concepts of god, from the ancients to modern day, it is evident to me that man is reaching for descriptions of god through reification of what we see as important in ourselves.
This is also one of the spots in Phillips’ book where I found myself lost in his word and missing his points. His arguments for Feuerbach are wordy and cerebral to the point that I begin to shut down on considering his opinions. I do agree with him on the point that Feuerbach’s theories are incomplete, but then again, so are Phillips’. He spends so much energy on deconstructing the philosophers who offer an original and forward moving theory that he doesn’t do much in the way of positing his own. C’mon Phillips, your killing me!

Phillips Vs. Hume

I really like Hume’s points about the human position in the search for the evidence of a creator god. His views really echoed with my own in that we both feel that the existence of a god and his/her workings are beyond the realm of human experience. Before the advent of modern technology, it was a reasonable assumption to think that the goodness of fit between man, animals, and nature could have been the work of a creator god, but when supplanted by Darwin’s theories the inferences about him/her melt away.
I also must agree with Phillips on this one. He states that Hume’s arguments are weak in that he does not offer anything else to replace the creation theory, and in doing so misses out on an opportunity to practice the hermeneutics of contemplation. I feel that it is all well and good to offer criticisms of a theory when there are glaring faults with them, but to do so is to lack appreciation for alternative explanations. In insisting that there is no evidence that god exists, but not considering the alternatives, he becomes just as dogmatic as the religious theorists that he denounces.

Phillips Vs. Bernard Williams

I must say from the start that I have some real difficulty understanding Phillips. I read each chapter we covered, sometimes twice, and I come away with little comprehension. Up to this point, I have been able to read each philosopher in turn and take something away, but Phillips focuses so intently on minutia that I lose hold of the bigger picture.
In this way I read and considered the section Williams and I get the 8 assumptions about the gods. The ancients had so thoroughly built their reality and worldview around the framework that the gods play a part in everyday life that they could not have reasoned without it. I feel that Williams is correct in his critique of the errors made in the assumptions, and that the logic of the ancients has lost all its relevance for today’s thinkers. This is not to take anything away from the accomplishments of the Greeks and their contributions to philosophy.
Here, Phillips critique takes so many varied and wild shots at Williams’ work that I found myself getting angry as I read him. A good analogy would be to criticize the work of a painter because you don’t like the architecture of the building it is hanging in! I would really need to read Williams outside of a Phillips text to be able to appreciate what is really being said. I found myself pining for Pals and his approach of letting the philosopher speak for himself, and then adding the criticism almost as a postscript.

Wittgenstein

I was really intrigued with our reading and discussion of Wittgenstein. He comes across really abrasive and controversial, but some of his radical ideas seem to ring true in their effort to shake up philosophy’s role in describing religion. So I went ahead and read some more about him online.
Though much of his work is extremely heady, to include the concepts that we discussed in class, what I really latch onto in his thinking is what many of his critics see as flawed. Wittgenstein upheld his belief that language is extremely limiting when it is used to describe things that are beyond the experience of human beings. He also maintains that there is a limit to the potential of empirical investigation.
To me, this is the meat of the discussion about the usefulness of “hermeneutics of contemplation”. As I have noted before, I consider myself an agnostic (though this class has pulled me in either direction at times). To describe what that means to me is to say that: I am doubtful that there is an omnipotent being out there that is pulling the cosmic strings, but I see that the ability of science to offer up a satisfying explanation of the meaning of the universe as finite.
Wittgenstein’s viewpoint that science may never be able to accomplish that feat is a belief that I have held for some time, and it was reassuring to find my humble belief echoed by a mind as talented as his. He may have taken his stance too far, and in doing so alienating much of the philosophical community, but I think that the controversy that he generated is an important part of his legacy. It is both a challenge and a statement to the thinkers that follow him.