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entanglingbriarsBeing a religious studies scholar involves accepting that there is no universally applicable definition for terms like "religion," and equally no universally acceptable tradition for a lot of concepts that are (seen to) be part of but transcend individual religions like "faith" and "spirituality." However, sometimes you come across a definition so bone-headed, so wrongly thought out, so contrary to colloquial usage of those terms that you have to stop and gaze in a mixture of shock, awe, and horror. Tonight's example is an article I found on Medium titled Faith vs. Religion.
The article actually starts out fairly well. Hesen acknowledges that he was raised in a culture heavily influenced by Christianity and that this influence continues to affect him even though he is no longer a Christian. He also recognizes that if he'd been born into a Muslim-majority country he would be similarly affected by Islam. This is good! A lot of people make the mistake of either believing that they would have inevitably come to the religion they currently hold regardless of how they were raised, or to the equally erroneous conclusion that because they are no longer a member of the religion of their childhood that they no longer think along lines and patterns established by that religion.
And then we get... this:
This is bad, but not terrible. Religious studies as a discipline doesn't attribute anything to divine powers per se, but rather tends to accept that that people who have religious/spiritual experiences accurately report the nature of what those experiences meant. If Hesen has come to a sense that he finds something otherworldly in faith or religion, but not the other, that's all well and good. A completely useless distinction from a methodological approach since it can't be applied to other people, but fine for his personal/theological use. But then he has to go and ruin it by gracing us with his definitions of faith and religion:
And suddenly I'm confused. If faith is "a private and personal belief system" then it is necessarily man made, since it is made by the individual who experiences it. So what does Hesen mean by "man made"? "Socially constructed? "I don't like it"? "I'm a pretentious nerd who's not qualified to talk about this stuff"? Also, his definition of faith seems like it applies more to "spirituality" than the colloquial uses of "faith." Faith generally refers to either trusting something or believing something based on personal insight that can't be replicated for others. I guess we're using the less common definition of faith to mean "belief system" as in "the Jewish faith."
His definition of religion is acceptable, however. It would appear to apply to the majority of the so-called world religions if you tweak the word "divine" a bit and "scriptures" a lot. But Hesen has admitted his Christian bias in understanding these concepts so I guess we can let this slide. Constructing a definition of religion that even approaches universal applicability is hard, and this definition seems to work well enough for the purpose of his thesis.
Oh, right, he has a thesis. A terrible, terrible thesis. But we'll get back to that.
Hesen next explains that you can have religion without faith but not faith without religion.
And now we're back to an idea I've already addressed. Andrew Sullivan argued that religion is a universal, but Hesen wants to argue that it is faith that is universal. Apparently if someone doesn't have faith what the actually do is fail to recognize it (insert brief digression on Lacan and misrecognition here).
The problem with that is, based on his own definition of faith, a large number of people are either lying or stupid. Apparently everyone believes in a divine power from which all originates and to which all will return. Nevermind that this is explicitly rejected not only by atheists (who don't believe in a divine power), but also by Western Christians (who believe some people will be forever exiled from God's presence), Theravada Buddhists (who don't believe there is a universal source), and plenty of other groups. But those are, after all, religions, and Hesen thinks religion is a corrupting influence on faith. If only the evil influence of religion could be removed, I guess we'd all agree with... oh, interesting, we'd all agree with him.
We next have a long digression on Hesen's own personal experiences and how things could have been otherwise if they had been different. I don't really have a problem with this. The next problem is
Ding dong, you are wrong. Look, Theravada Buddhism is weird and unfamiliar to you, I get that, but you can't just ignore it, because Theravada is a great example of something on the edge of the concept of religion: they have gods but don't regard those gods as supreme beings. Like a lot of neopagans, they don't regard anything as the Ultimate. This is really confusing to someone coming out of a Christian perspective, but if you want to talk about universals you have to be careful; when it comes to religion there aren't all that many.
Hesen gives us what is, essentially his thesis, as "Religion provides us with a tool, language, to communicate abstractions in matters of faith with other human beings." Following that is a mixture of theological speculation, personal reflection, and other stuff that doens't really interest me.
What interests me is this: I think Hesen has this exactly backwards. Religion doesn't come about as a result of some underlying semi-universal faith or spirituality. Belief and the sense that there is something great than oneself comes out of religion. The religion of his youth and culture is what guides Hesen to make the conclusions and claims about faith that he does, to use the word faith at all for that matter. To see things in terms of a top-down structure with the divine at the top and the cosmos beneath it.
Take away religion, and what does Hesen have left? If he's very lucky he still has the occasional sense of something inexpressible and undefinable. But he has no reason to attribute it any importance, no reason to use it as the starting place for reflection, and even if he did, he'd have no place to go once he started! We are all individuals, but we are hailed as individuals by the culture and society that surrounds us. As islands, we are nothing and have nothing. Our relationships make us who we are and give us the means to express ourselves to ourselves (insert brief digression on Kierkegaard here).
So yes, religion and faith are compatible. But not for the reasons Hesen thinks they can be. Faith requires religion in order to be anything more than a fleeting moment in the mind.
The article actually starts out fairly well. Hesen acknowledges that he was raised in a culture heavily influenced by Christianity and that this influence continues to affect him even though he is no longer a Christian. He also recognizes that if he'd been born into a Muslim-majority country he would be similarly affected by Islam. This is good! A lot of people make the mistake of either believing that they would have inevitably come to the religion they currently hold regardless of how they were raised, or to the equally erroneous conclusion that because they are no longer a member of the religion of their childhood that they no longer think along lines and patterns established by that religion.
And then we get... this:
To me there is a clear distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘religion’, a distinction that is often blurred, confused — corrupted even — in conversations, literature, news headlines and public discourse.
From my perspective faith and religion are concepts of the divine with one clear distinction: one is man made, the other isn’t.
This is bad, but not terrible. Religious studies as a discipline doesn't attribute anything to divine powers per se, but rather tends to accept that that people who have religious/spiritual experiences accurately report the nature of what those experiences meant. If Hesen has come to a sense that he finds something otherworldly in faith or religion, but not the other, that's all well and good. A completely useless distinction from a methodological approach since it can't be applied to other people, but fine for his personal/theological use. But then he has to go and ruin it by gracing us with his definitions of faith and religion:
Faith is a private and personal belief system. The belief in the divine that has dominion over all; The submission to, the acceptance and awareness of a higher authority from which all originates and all will return to.
[...]
Religion is a man made belief system, a collective practice of observing rules and regulations based on interpretations of scriptures considered to be holy; books that were recorded by men, conceived by the divine. Religion is also an organisational structure. And then there is religious tradition embedded in religious culture.
And suddenly I'm confused. If faith is "a private and personal belief system" then it is necessarily man made, since it is made by the individual who experiences it. So what does Hesen mean by "man made"? "Socially constructed? "I don't like it"? "I'm a pretentious nerd who's not qualified to talk about this stuff"? Also, his definition of faith seems like it applies more to "spirituality" than the colloquial uses of "faith." Faith generally refers to either trusting something or believing something based on personal insight that can't be replicated for others. I guess we're using the less common definition of faith to mean "belief system" as in "the Jewish faith."
His definition of religion is acceptable, however. It would appear to apply to the majority of the so-called world religions if you tweak the word "divine" a bit and "scriptures" a lot. But Hesen has admitted his Christian bias in understanding these concepts so I guess we can let this slide. Constructing a definition of religion that even approaches universal applicability is hard, and this definition seems to work well enough for the purpose of his thesis.
Oh, right, he has a thesis. A terrible, terrible thesis. But we'll get back to that.
Hesen next explains that you can have religion without faith but not faith without religion.
Religion is faith based. Without faith, religion is non-sensical, an empty shell. A hoax, a bunch of fairy tales, as many an atheist would proclaim.
Faith has no particular prerequisites. Faith is. Either one has it or one doesn’t (recognise it).
And now we're back to an idea I've already addressed. Andrew Sullivan argued that religion is a universal, but Hesen wants to argue that it is faith that is universal. Apparently if someone doesn't have faith what the actually do is fail to recognize it (insert brief digression on Lacan and misrecognition here).
The problem with that is, based on his own definition of faith, a large number of people are either lying or stupid. Apparently everyone believes in a divine power from which all originates and to which all will return. Nevermind that this is explicitly rejected not only by atheists (who don't believe in a divine power), but also by Western Christians (who believe some people will be forever exiled from God's presence), Theravada Buddhists (who don't believe there is a universal source), and plenty of other groups. But those are, after all, religions, and Hesen thinks religion is a corrupting influence on faith. If only the evil influence of religion could be removed, I guess we'd all agree with... oh, interesting, we'd all agree with him.
We next have a long digression on Hesen's own personal experiences and how things could have been otherwise if they had been different. I don't really have a problem with this. The next problem is
All religious dogmas have in common the divine presence, whether incarnated in a singularity, a trinity or a plurality.
On the other hand, faith, as an expression of a state of mind and as a state of being seems to supersede these incarnations.
Ding dong, you are wrong. Look, Theravada Buddhism is weird and unfamiliar to you, I get that, but you can't just ignore it, because Theravada is a great example of something on the edge of the concept of religion: they have gods but don't regard those gods as supreme beings. Like a lot of neopagans, they don't regard anything as the Ultimate. This is really confusing to someone coming out of a Christian perspective, but if you want to talk about universals you have to be careful; when it comes to religion there aren't all that many.
Hesen gives us what is, essentially his thesis, as "Religion provides us with a tool, language, to communicate abstractions in matters of faith with other human beings." Following that is a mixture of theological speculation, personal reflection, and other stuff that doens't really interest me.
What interests me is this: I think Hesen has this exactly backwards. Religion doesn't come about as a result of some underlying semi-universal faith or spirituality. Belief and the sense that there is something great than oneself comes out of religion. The religion of his youth and culture is what guides Hesen to make the conclusions and claims about faith that he does, to use the word faith at all for that matter. To see things in terms of a top-down structure with the divine at the top and the cosmos beneath it.
Take away religion, and what does Hesen have left? If he's very lucky he still has the occasional sense of something inexpressible and undefinable. But he has no reason to attribute it any importance, no reason to use it as the starting place for reflection, and even if he did, he'd have no place to go once he started! We are all individuals, but we are hailed as individuals by the culture and society that surrounds us. As islands, we are nothing and have nothing. Our relationships make us who we are and give us the means to express ourselves to ourselves (insert brief digression on Kierkegaard here).
So yes, religion and faith are compatible. But not for the reasons Hesen thinks they can be. Faith requires religion in order to be anything more than a fleeting moment in the mind.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-17 04:10 pm (UTC)"Faith has no particular prerequisites. Faith is. Either one has it or one doesn’t (recognise it)."
o.O
...I'd have defined "faith" just as "trust," as in having faith *in* something/someone. But just going off of his definition for a sec... So he's saying faith = theism? faith = monotheism? faith = omnipotent monotheism? This is sounding an awful lot like some very specific religions, not just a description of faith in general.
I mean, even if you want to define it that way, this seems pretty binary. "You have it or you don't"? ...So, what, if someone is a polytheist, they don't "have faith"? Because the gods they recognize are too numerous? I mean come on man. This seems like unnecessary verbal gymnastics. Why not just admit you find some religions more compelling than others?