certainly something like the sacred has to figure into anything we talk about when we talk about religion, but doesn't this in certain important respects just beg the question? and/or, on the other hand, is it too general to be very helpful? that is, you can classify meaningfully different phenomena under that general rubric, but can you say anything meaningful about religion so defined? at least without always having to qualify it massively? i didn't see asad going that direction, and i think it was for some important reasons (even though i, for example, still think geertz's essay is quite useful).
>
> If we take such a broad definition, religion (=belief in the supernatural)
> we can include nearly all forms of religiosity in different societies, and
> yet we can point out to its characteristic feature - the evocation of a
> power that transcends the natural order i.e. human everyday experience.
> This concept also implies its own explanation - human experience. People
> experience powers greater than themselves from the day they are born - they
> parents are "gods" to them - they give them life, they nurture and protect
> them (most of the time) and they have the unconceivable to a child qualities
> such as great physical strength, knowledge and authority. In their
> adolescence and adult life people experience the power of community or
> society as whole (as a collective repository of culture) as well as the
> phenomena that overpower them but which they cannot understand (such as
> "natural" disasters, diseases, "celestial" events such as eclipse,
> "movement" of the stars, etc.).
>
> So given these experiences, it is not surprising that most people naturally
> come to accept th existence of the "supernatural" i.e. something beyond
> their everyday life experience and beyond their cognitive capacity to
> comprehend the world. But this natural predisposition to accept the
> supernatural is often hijacked by entrepreneuring individuals who provide a
> "closure" to that knowledge gap, i.e. fill it with anthropomorphic stories
> that common people can understand and craft those stories in such a way that
> it legitimizes either their own power or the power of their sponsors.
right. there's something important going on here. if religion -- a la peter berger -- is about world construction and the making of meaning -- how can you possibly have a religion that doesn't seek some kind of closure (i mean that qualification and i think it's important)? if that's the case, then (a) it's integral to religion, rather than *necessarily* a hijacking, and (b) we need to think through what it would mean for a religion to not insist on closure. i actually spend a lot of time thinking about that and have written on it.
sorry to go all postmodern on you all.
>
> So the religion you are talking about
>
> > higher" by the name/term "god". maybe it is, but that's a far cry from
> > believing in a personal god who demands you go to church every week,
> > pray at least daily, and spend your time in the kitchen/confine your
> > wife to the kitchen.
>
> is really a bastardized version of a belief in the supernatural - basically
> bullshit that is spoon fed by the priestly class and its sponsors to the
> masses to maintain its power in society. I do not think that this bullshit
> deserves any response other than that once given by bat'ushka Stalin - that
> for some people four wall are three too many. I'd say it applies to every
> authority figure unless proved otherwise.
again, i'm not yet convinced that "bastardized" is more accurate than something like "specified" or "concretized" or "actualized". right? because, as i think i was pointing at very poorly above, if it means something, well, it has to mean something *in your life* somehow.
and here again we come back to martin's point. how do "the unknown" and "the unknowable" (and i maintain that these are vastly different, and that that difference is critical to our understanding of religion and of the relationship between religion and science) figure into one's everyday life? well, probably with a certain sense of humility and contingency (uh oh. if you hear pragmatism, your ears are working).
but in any case, we DO have to deal with the relationship of "the sacred" to "the profane". that's eliade's schtick, ultimately, right? and berger's, too. not surprisingly.
>
> However, the non-bastardized belief in the supernatural still requires an
> explanation, and that explanation can be found in the human experience.
>
i think i agree, if i understand you. but so does/can the "bastardized"/specified/in-the-real-world.
a lot of my problem with the whole "i believe in the supernatural" thing is that it amounts to so much of what asad is complaining about in that piece: an assimilation of all religiosity to (a watered down form of) christianity. that, or it has no meaning in terms of, say, social justice.
but i think we are straying into other territory, now.
i'm so overposted i really ought to stop.
but this is all getting interesting, now.
j
-- http://www.brainmortgage.com/
Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.
- Alfred North Whitehead