Transcript Slide 1

World Religions
And Philosophy
Over the next 10 weeks, we’ll be examining
the “BIG 5” of world religions:
Hinduism
Judaism
Buddhism
Christianity
Islam
What, if any, is the relationship
between Philosophy and _____?
Religion
Myth
Science
Ritual
Anthropology
Morality
What is Western Religion
and Philosophy?
It may not be what it seems to be. While ‘Western’
generally means American and European, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Russian are often excluded.
While Western Philosophy is grounded on Greek
philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, it has been
suggested that many of the primary sources for Greek
ideas were first developed in the Middle East, Asia,
Egypt, and perhaps parts of Africa.
What is Non-Western Religion
and Philosophy?
Basically anything which does not fit neatly into the
small American-European theatre, especially if it
seems far away and unfamiliar.
China, Japan, India, Africa, Latin America, and
Islamic Middle Eastern countries are typically
considered Non-Western (despite Islam’s
monotheism).
Generally, distinctions between Western and NonWestern philosophy are largely arbitrary and
misleading (because even in Western, there is not a
single coherent system of belief). But trying to find
some dissimilarities provides us with a starting
point.
What Religions are Asian/Eastern?
 Western Religions are generally designated as
the monotheistic “Big 3” – meaning Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam (which arguably could be
considered an “Eastern” religion as well).
 Asian/Eastern/Non-Western Religions are
typically defined as such because they are (a)
polytheistic, or (b) have no identifiable “god,” or
are more grounded in “intimacy” than “integrity”
(i.e., more “relationship-oriented” than
“individualistic”).
The last point (c) will be more fully developed in
a little while.
Some Philosophical Questions
Did the world have a beginning? If it did, was the world
created, and if so by whom and how?
Is the world and all the things of the world viewed as
living beings?
Are there pervasive gods or God or spirits?
Is there a sharp division between the secular and the
divine, between people and the God or gods?
What are the origins and sources of good and evil?
How important is the concept of social harmony?
Are some people in a privileged position to gain
philosophical/religious knowledge or wisdom, or can
anyone who puts his mind to it become wise?
To what degree are our philosophical and religiotheological positions culturally biased?
Can the West think “Asian”?
A basic
logical
statement:
‘If A, then B’
or
‘All A are B’
Eastern
Western
What is “thinking Asian”?
Are the differences in Western & Eastern
Religions and Philosophies an indication
that people in the West & East do not “think”
the same way?
No -- The simple answer: thinking is thinking… despite
“where,” “HOW” people think does not change from
culture to culture; our brains are all wired the same
WHAT people think “about” and how they perceive what
they think about may be culturally influenced (just as a
person’s attention and emphasis on things perceived
also may be influenced by race, gender, religion,
economics, and a host of other things)
But the basic “how” is the same for all people; the focus
on the “what” and interpretation of that “what” may be
at the root of any significant differences
Let’s play a game to see if everyone
in this classroom perceives and
interprets the same
What is it?
A rabbit or a bird?
What is it? A young lady or old hag?
What is it? A vase or faces?
“Thinking” is the same
Study the stairs
carefully.
Attentiveness, emphasis, and interpretation of perceptions
are generally the reasons why people believe there are
(cultural) differences in people’s thinking
But more realistically, there are no differences in thinking,
just in attentiveness, emphasis, and interpretation
Since cultural philosophy is based on what a particular
culture (or cultures) chooses to emphasize and explore,
the differences between the West and East
philosophically are a result of different focusing and
interpreting – NOT a difference in thinking itself
See handout on “Integrity v Intimacy”
A working definition of Religion
 Belief in something sacred (e.g., gods or other supernatural beings).
 A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
 Ritual acts focused on sacred objects.
 A moral code believed to have a sacred or supernatural basis.
 Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of
guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred
objects and during the practice of ritual.
 Prayer and other forms of communication with the supernatural.
 A world-view or a general picture of the world as a whole and the
place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification
of an over-all purpose or point of the world & an indication of how the
individual fits into it.
 A more or less total organization of one's life based on a worldview.
 A social group bound together by the above.
A working definition of Philosophy
The philosopher Wilfrid Sellers defined philosophy as the study
of how things in the most general sense hang together in the
general sense.
Philosophers worry about the order of things – how our natural,
social, and cultural worlds hang together.
When Eastern philosophers address the idea of how things
hang together, they express a relational principle of ordering,
which they label ‘aesthetic.’
The Western notion of ‘hanging’ is a more atomistic and
hierarchical ‘logical’ ordering which is also more linear.
Because relationships are of primary concern for the Eastern,
coordination is more important than rigid distinctions, and social
roles are understood contextually.
Western ‘Scientific’ v Eastern
‘Aesthetic’
In the West, a scientist
and/or philosopher might
think about discovering
the natural laws which
underlie and regulate the
universe.
Aquinas, for example,
believed that if a person
could reason out these
laws by looking at nature,
he would be able to
immediately comprehend
(and be able to follow) the
Natural Laws and then be
able to distinguish moral
and immoral behavior.
An Eastern philosopher
would look for the
aesthetic sense of order
in the (ever-changing)
universe in the same way
that an artist might think
about creating a pleasing
composition.
The difference is between
discovering an order
already there, even if we
don’t see it (the Western
approach), and helping to
invent one (the Eastern
approach).
West v East – Ontology (Being)
The Western preference for
ontological permanence over
the flux and change of the
phenomenal world means
that the world of ordinary
experience cannot be
presumed finally real.
“Reality” refers to the “reallyreal” that grounds this world
of appearances (which itself
is not real), since
appearances are misleading
and/or illusory.
The phenomenal world (as
things appear) of process
and change is simply wanwu
(“the ten thousand things”).
Adherents to Eastern
Philosophy and Religions are
less inclined to asked what
makes something real or why
things exist, and they are
more interested in
negotiating the complex
relationships among the
changing phenomena
themselves.
West v East – Being (Part 2)
Being takes precedence
over Becoming, and thus
becoming is ultimately
unreal.
Being itself is complete (and
perfect, like Plato’s
‘forms’) and has no
further need to change.
Becoming takes precedence
over being. “Being” is
interpreted as a transitory
state marked by further
transition. The yin-yang
relationship typifies the
always changing situation
of existence and
experience. Everything is
in “process.”
West v East – the World/Cosmos
There is some permanent,
perfect, objective,
originative, determinative
principle in the singleordered (really-real) world
(usually called God).
The realm of appearances
(where we live) is
characterized by ‘wholes’
and ‘parts’ – a world
patterned by discreteness
and permanence in which
change is primarily the
rearrangement of that
which is unchanging (like
the ‘atoms’ of
Democritus).
Since everything is always
in a transitory state, there
is no final whole we call
‘Cosmos’ or ‘World.’ The
world is an interactive
field. It is wanwu – ‘the
ten thousand things.’
There are no ‘parts’ or
‘objects’; the ‘things’ are
simply states of becoming
-- just happenings,
processes, or events.
West v East - Order
Regardless of how the world
came about, there is the
general assumption that
there is a ‘given’ cosmic
design which gives
meaning and purpose to
human life.
The universe began
somewhere and is going
somewhere, and this
tradition is characterized
by a predominance of
linear, cause-and-effect
explanations for why
things are what they are
and the way they are and
will stay the way they are.
Order is simply the patterned
regularity we find in the world
as we discover it and as we
add to it; it’s the way things
happen and the way we
make things happen (the
Tao).
Order, then, is the unique
graining in any piece of
wood, the DNA genetic map
in every cell, the veins in any
blade of grass, and so forth.
Order is the Eternal Now, an
always changing pattern of
order that inheres in and is
inseparable from the
uncreated and unending
world that is ordered.
The West asks questions that the
East generally does not ask
Design – by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-If design govern in a thing so small.
Eastern philosophers generally
believe that
they live in spontaneously selforiginating and self-ordering
world which has no beginning
or end and no independently
assigned purpose.
Eastern Aestheticism means that
shaping life is a process of
education and refinement,
comparable in many ways to
learning to draw bamboo ink
paintings or to writing wellformed characters in the art of
calligraphy or to studying the
flow of the water in a stream.
West v East – Power v Creativity 1
Power relationships reduce
creativity to modes of
external causation, and
Creativity is a notion that can only
the creative element
be characterized in terms of self(such as the Western
actualization for all involved.
notion of God) is
completely in control of Creativity can only make sense in a
world with ontological parity.
its ‘other.’ The created
Either everything shares in
object itself is literally
creativity or the world is sharply
nothing.
divided into the creator and the
created – the maker and the
made.
There is an absence of linear
causality or of singular
determination.
West v East – Power v Creativity 2
For example, in the East a
poem is not an externally
crafted product; rather, it is
a creative process of
spontaneous selfactualization through the
realization of novelty.
Creativity is both selfcreativity and co-creativity
in a world of mutually
actualized selves, each a
focus of transactional
realization in a realm of
interdependent processes.
West v East - Language
In the West, logical
and semantic clarity
are among the most
celebrated of the
ideals of Reason.
These ideas are
associated with
univocal definition
guaranteeing
unambiguous
usage.
In this sense, the
opposite of clarity is
confusion – a state
of unarticulated
ideas or feelings.
In classical Eastern texts, allusive and
connotatively rich language is more
highly prized than clarity, precision,
and argumentative rigor.
For the East, the opposite of clarity is
not confusion, but something like
‘vagueness.’
We must attempt to avoid what
A.N.Whitehead called ‘the Fallacy of
the Perfect Dictionary.’
For example, besides ‘creativity,’ in
Chinese cheng carries the
associations of ‘sincerity’ and
‘integrity.’ Can you figure out how all
three definitions could work
together?
West v East – Death
Death is the end of life.
Death celebrates the uniqueness
of each person by punctuating
With death, a person can
and consummating the ongoing
either cease to exist or
process in such a way as to
expect some sort of
produce distinct intimate events
judgment and then
defined in terms of our unique
reward or punishment
(which would last through relations with someone else.
eternity) based on the A person who lives forever is one
kind of life he lived while who is remembered by those
his spiritual self (i.e., his
with whom he had
soul) was dwelling in a
relationships. A person who
material body.
never developed relationships
and is forgotten ceases to
exist.
Or, in the case of Buddhism, it
means that our useless human
“strivings” are finally over; it is a
“release” from this world.
……..
Pervasive in the Eastern tradition (not
just Daoist or Confucian), the
recognition that the form of one kind of
thing gives way to the ceaseless
adventure of becoming other things is
grounded in a transformational
perspective.
Confucius stood on a riverbank and
mused about the flux and flow of life,
saying, “Isn’t life’s passing just like
this, never ceasing day or night!”
Such a recognition of continuity and
intimacy presumably stimulates
empathetic feelings for other creatures
in a shared environment.
………
Life and death are not rivaling forces.
The Chinese focus is on the
interdependence and complimentary of
opposites – on the yin and yang, mind
and body continuum where each can
only be explained by reference to each
other.
Indian (Hindu and Buddhist) cosmology is
non-dualistic. Everything that is, is
Brahman. The universe has to be
grasped dynamically, as it moves,
vibrates and dances. it moves and
grows and changes continually.
Brahman is the eternal Now, and in
eternity there is no before or after, for
everything is everywhere, always.
A Way of Summing it Up
Western Thinking
Eastern Thinking
is based on
is based on
Integrity (“one”-ness)
Intimacy (relationships)
Maybe the following charts will help
INTEGRITY (Western)
INTIMACY (Eastern)
1. Objectivity as public verifiability
1. Intimacy is objective, but personal rather
than public
2. External over internal relations
2. In an intimate relation, self and other
belong together in a way that does not
sharply distinguish the two
3. Knowledge as ideally empty of affect
(emotional responses)
3. Intimate knowledge has an affective
dimension
4. The intellectual & psychological distinct
from the somatic (relating to the body)
4. Intimacy is somatic (expressed in the
body) as well as psychological
5. Knowledge as reflective and selfconscious of its own ground
5. Intimacy’s ground is not generally selfconscious, reflective, or self-illuminating
6. Knowledge does not necessarily affect
knower or known
6. Knowledge limited to intimate circle of
experts (experience-based)
7. Correspondence theory of truth (“a”
corresponds to “that a”)
7. Knowing affects knower and known
8. Language as referential
8. Expression (verbal or otherwise) arises
out of mutual effect of knower and known
INTEGRITY (Western)
INTIMACY (Eastern)
AESTHETICS
1. Art as mediating and relating separately
existent of self and world.
1. Art as expressive of intrinsic overlap
between self and world.
2. Creativity as artistic autonomy; individual 2. Creativity as naturalness or spontaneity
freedom of expression.
arising from self and world together.
3. Work of art as “subjective” addition to
the world.
3. Of the world as well as in it; the work of
art as necessarily “objective” as well as
“subjective.”
4. Work art as having own meaning
independent of artist’s intent or audience’s
response.
4. Artist, audience, work of art as
inseparably related (co-creativity by all
three).
LOGIC…………………………………………
-Socratic dialectic (arguments encouraged) -Persuasion (arguments avoided)
-Validity based on pure, cold, unemotional, -Validity based on (1) ancient authority,
deductive Logic with empirical “proofs”
(2) common observation, and
(3) practical effect
ETHICS
1. “Ought” as preserving other’s integrity
(or rights).
1. “Ought” as recognizing and preserving
the overlap with the other.
2. Ethical external relation abstracted into
universal principles or maxims; discourse
of “responsibility.”
2. Situational responsiveness; discourse of
“love” or “compassion” or “responsiveness.”
POLITICS
1. State composed of individuals bound by
social contracts.
1. State holographically (recursively)
present in each individual.
2. Emphasis on individual responsibilities
and rights.
2. Emphasis on individuals as intrinsically
also the body of the state.
3. Only the guilty are guilty; no “guilt by
association.”
3. Guilt of one necessarily affects all in
relationship.
4. Emphasis on compromise bridging
opposing poles.
4. Emphasis on consensus as inherently
shared viewpoint.
OK, you say. People in the East &
West don’t think differently but they
still have different notions about
things because their attentiveness
towards and perception of the
world leads them to reach
different conclusions about things.
OK. So what?
There is an easy (but
oversimplified)
answer…..
Different conclusions
become the foundations
for different religions.
Why should you care about all of
this (other than for a grade)?
One good reason is that you will know more about
the people you meet and work with who may have
religious beliefs which are different from yours.
Not everyone in the
United States is a
Protestant Christian
or an Atheist.
There are many
other religions
actively practiced
in the U.S.
Judaism 2.2%
Non-Religious
16%
Islam 21%
Buddhism 6%
Hinduism 14%
Christianity 33%
There are a lot of religions in
the world, and we are going
to be studying only 5 of them.
With the exceptions of
Islam (600 AD) and Hinduism
(c.a. 1500 BC), almost
all of the major world religions
(including Chinese Confucianism
& Daoism) began during the
period called
THE AXIAL AGE
According to the German philosopher Karl Jaspers, the
AXIAL AGE was the period from 800 BC to 200 BC during
which the same intensity of thought appeared in three different
regions: China, India and the Occidental Near East & West.
After the Axial Age, the different regions of Earth never again
showed such parallelism. Jaspers defined this period as that
against which future generations measure the quality of their
thinking but was unable to define any cause or connection for
it.
The word axial in the phrase Axial Age should be
interpreted to mean pivotal. The name is derived from the
German word Achse, which means both axis and pivot.
However, in this case the word was mistranslated as axial,
and the term has stuck.
The phrase Axial Age is frequently seen in the writing
of English-speaking theologians such as Karen Armstrong.
Characteristics of The AXIAL AGE
1. Man becomes aware of existence, himself, and his
limitations.
2. People begin to move into urban areas, and the cities
grow larger and larger (e.g., Greek “city-states”).
3. Instead of one butcher or baker or candlestick maker, in
the cities, there are many people who do the same
things. There is a major shift from bartering to a
“market economy” (with coinage) which includes
“competition.” In the competitive struggle, some
people fail and some are successful; economic class
stuggles begin to emerge.
4. City states and regions begin to vie for power (in order to
claim the wealth), and there is a marked growth of
violence as well as a stuggle for global empires (e.g.,
Alexander the Great). The battles and violence leads
to the dislocation of large numbers of people.
5. Man becomes less certain about his home, his economic
situation, and even about his existence itself. He
yearns for his salvation (i.e., ‘saved’ from these things).
6. He tries to gain salvation by reflection. For the first time in
history, philosophers appear in public. Philosophical
disputes ensue to convince the other party. This ends
in discussion, fractionalization, and ultimately chaos.
7. This chaos produces today’s thinking categories.
8. Man’s opinions, manners, and customs are hereby put to
the test, doubted, and done away with.
All these characteristics appeared under the same sociological
circumstances: China, India, and the Occidental Near East &
West were divided into small states engaged in a never-ending
struggle against each other. The scholars roamed from city to
city to exchange ideas. These scholars were the wise men of
religion and philosophical systems; in China, Confucianism and
Taoism; in India, Brahmanism (later called Hinduism) and
Buddhism; in the Occident, the religion of Zarathustra; in
Canaan, Judaism; and in Greece, sophism and philosophy.
SOURCE: Karl Jaspers: Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, Fischer Bücherei,
Frankfurt/M – Hamburg, July 1955.
For This Course, Skills Needed Are:
- the ability to listen
- the ability to read
- the ability to do independent research
- the ability to do essay writing
-having an open and questioning mind
Some Essential Points To Remember:
- There are no certain answers (except for the tests)
-The main idea is generally exploration, not
explanation
-You should be prepared to abandon cherished
notions
- You’ll have more fun in this class if you develop an
interest in the abstract and have a curious mind
So, let’s
get
started!
Let’s look at Chapter 1 and then come back for some questions.
1. People embrace religion…
a. to gain strength to deal with personal problems.
b. because of the desire for life beyond death.
c. because of the desire for this life to have meaning.
d. all of these.
2. Genuine religious experiences have
common elements (according to Wach,
a comparative religions scholar). The
pattern includes:
a. the experience involves the person’s whole
being.
b. an experience with the Unseen or Sacred
Reality.
c. the experience is the most intense of all human
experiences.
d. all of these.
3. The experience of "connecting" with a
divine, transcendent reality or “Unseen
Reality” has been called by many names
including __________.
a. God-realization.
b. Awakening.
c. Enlightenment.
d. Any of the above.
4. Our two primary modes of
understanding the reality around us are
through _____________ and
_______________.
a. non-emotional responses, direct knowledge
b. emotional responses, belief in a non-rational
reality
c. intuition, emotional responses
d. rational thought, non-rational modes of knowing
5. Westerners sometimes embrace
Eastern religions in an attempt to avoid
life’s realities. Psychologist John
Welwood’s calls this attempt
_________ _________.
a. “spiritual escapism”
b. “world denial.”
c. “spiritual bypassing.”
d. “new-age pilgrimages.”
6. These elements, characteristic of
religions everywhere, serve as aids
to connect followers to the divine.
a. Spiritual practices
b. Sacraments
c. Rituals
d. any of these.
7. Religious myths help followers
understand the divine and our
relationship with the divine. A function of
these myths is
a. to aid in personal inner exploration.
b. to explain the creation of the world.
c. to present a model for how people should behave.
d. any of these.
8. Joseph Campbell interpreted the myth
of the hero's journey primarily as a
representation of a __________ triumph.
a. psychological
b. sociological
c. moral
d. physical
9. Followers of any religion who resist
contemporary influence while affirming
historically traditional doctrines or
practices should be called _______, a
term more appropriate than
“fundamentalists,” which is misleading
in several ways.
a. heretics.
b. conservatives.
c. absolutists.
d. liberals.
Any Questions?