bellah et al., not at all adverse to religion and the religious, mind you, criticized this stuff as "sheilaism" (it's been around for about 60 years now) and show how it can be traced to the tradition of expressive individualism in the u.s. (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman (connected to romaniticism in Am. Lit.) etc. etc.) It's basically a joke to think of it as somehow opposed to "organized" religion, in the same way it is to imagine that an individual is uniquely unique and is so regardless as to the social worlds through which he/she lives. the paradox is that, the more complex our social worlds, the more it gives _rise to_ the very sense that we are special and unique. The feeling that we are unique depends entirely on a society that forms those experiences through which we come to feel unique.
ditto "un" organized religion. i forget where I read it, but people call themselves spiritual and opposed to "organized religion" more frequently than anything else -- in the u.s.
maybe it was ken on the pulp culture list?
k
At 04:13 PM 6/13/2005, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>I don't believe that the sort of experience that you describe is "the very
>opposite" of "organized religion" -- mystical, meditative, and/or monastic
>practices in a number of faith traditions (such as Hinduism, Buddhism,
>Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and so on) promote attainment of such
>experiences. If you find such experiences valuable, and if you approach
>various mystic, mediative, and/or monastic orders with an open mind, you
>may even find what looks (to outsiders) like senseless dogmas and rituals
>are actually time-tested ways to discipline bodies and minds in such a way
>that you would be able to achieve an experience "beyond labels, language,
>images, anticipations, attachments" as you put it.
>
>For a majority of the religious (whether or not they favor the kind of
>"religious experience" that appeals to you, whether they are politically
>on the right, the left, or the center) today, what they find most valuable
>in religion is precisely the fact that it's organized, i.e., voluntarily
>organized by communities of people who seek to share more or less the same
>belief system (even as they argue about it and change it -- sometimes only
>a little, other times drastically), confront social problems together in
>light of its ethical ideals and principles, and care for one another in
>the spirit of mutual aid. For a majority of the irreligious today, too,
>religion that matters in society (especially to the point of affecting
>their relation to the religious), for better or worse, is such enduring
>collective practices rather than fleeting private experiences of
>transcendence of "labels, language, images, anticipations, attachments"
>(which do not affect others one way or another).
>--
>Yoshie
>
>* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
>* Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/>
>* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
>* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
>* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
><http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
><http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
>* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
>* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
>* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
>* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
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