“The primal experience of a sacred power with the accompanying feelings of awe, fear, purity, and danger is pursued with great psychological insight by Rudolf Otto in his study in his classic and influential study, The Idea of the Holy” (Livingston p.39). Rudolf Otto starts The Idea of the Holy by claiming that non-rational in religion must be given its required importance, and this way he developed his first notion of the numinous. Otto characterize numinous in very simple way he called it the feeling of being awe or awfulness and that’s how the mysterium tremendum came out. In addition, Otto also believe in the notion of the creature feeling which means in other words that if someone depends on something objective or even external to themselves. …show more content…
For sure it wouldn’t be just afraid of being in danger but of being scared of what the ghost might do to them as well as feeling of wonder and maybe even shrinking best described as awe, and the main object excites it is the numinous. Further, there are few very important points to be made about analysis towards religious experiences. First of all, Otto believe that in which this higher level may be attained, in other words he is talking about prayers and religious meditations as well as participation in religious ceremonies and visits to church. Furthermore, although Otto in the beginning mentioned that people should participate in religious ceremonies and visits to churches for religious experiences, then he talks about the five elements to be concerned above all with mysticism. Leading to a matter of personal
Ghosts, both figurative and literal, are very common in the Joy Luck Club and are a recurring theme in the book. The mothers of The Joy Luck Club were all raised in traditional Chinese households, which has influenced them to have deeper feelings about ghosts. Mentally, the term ghost is used to describe people who have become a shell of their former selves and rarely speak or do anything. Physically, ghost is used to describe the spirit of the dead. This is the basis of the mothers and others to be scared of the thought of becoming a ghost figuratively and literally. Christianity is the basis of physical fear of ghosts and traditional Chinese beliefs cause the mental fear of ghosts, this stimulates the thought of the afterlife to be
Religion is fraught with stories and myths of otherworldly journeys. There are a variety of reasons; however, the two main ones one may notice are humans’ innate pattern recognition, and our necessity to define and understand the world in which we live. These otherworldly excursions, out-of-body-experiences OBEs, near-death-experiences NDEs, and altered-states-of-consciousness ASCs are side effects of trauma rather than real experiences. In this paper ASC will be the basic reference unless otherwise noted. Therefore, it is prudent to explore those examples of forced ASCs, the causes, and the impacts on the society. An ASC experience within a religion may serve an important purpose in the belief system, yet it is a personal experience of the mind and not a legitimate experience in the real world.
“Chapter 4 Nausea.” Oneonta, New York: Department of Philosophy the state University of New York, 1995. Print.
What is religion? Each person’s definition of religion is different. Each person’s faith is different. This is a question that has been asked for centuries, and regardless of the answer given there is no right or wrong answer. Religion can be defined as a group of people who have shared beliefs who feel their life has purpose or meaning. This feeling or belief that their life has meaning can come from outside of themselves, as well as within. Taking this one step further, these shared beliefs put into action in the form of worship, can be easily identified because they happen regularly. It can be said the Primal religions were in fact not religions. Some may argue Confucianism is not a religion. Others may say Taoism is not a religion. However, one argument can be made. All three of these “religions” share “features.” Huston Smith, author of World’s Religions, says “six features of religion appear so regularly as to suggest that their seeds are in the human makeup.” These six features discussed in World’s Religions are as follows: authority, ritual, explanation, tradition, grace, and mystery (World’s, Page 67). First is authority, Smith argues religion is so complex that people will need assistance or guidance from those held in a higher light, or of a higher authority. Next is ritual, which can be happy (a wedding) or sad (a funeral), rituals are shared between people of the same religion in many forms as a sign of common beliefs. Following rituals, some explanation is required. Many of a religion’s followers ask for explanations, some ask, “What is my purpose in life?” Others may ask, “Who is God?” Depending on one’s religion, the questions or
To draw a parallel of obsessional neurosis with religion, established disconcerting similarities between compulsive acts and religious practices that, in his view, aimed essentially the same thing: remove the guilt by a ritualistic compensatory restoration. Both the religious obsessive as in the main formula would be similar to what happens psych- scroll in a dream - through which the trivial details of the ritual activity become more important, since they are forcibly expelled the truly meaningful content. Regarding this analogy, Freud concludes that we can conceive of obsessional neurosis as a pathological match against religious formation, featuring obsessional neurosis as an individual religiosity and religion as a universal obsessional neurosis.
“Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considering religion as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs”, as stated by Webster’s dictionary.1 Religion is basically the belief in a higher being who controls the life of the people, and ultimately decides the fate of a being after death. There about 21 major religions today each with thousands of different denominations, this branched from under them. Christianity is responsible for 32 of them by itself! There are so many different religions because of the difference of opinion in beliefs, and in the different denominations the difference in beliefs are very minor. The key aspect that differentiates these religions is usually because they worship different Gods.
In the first two chapter of the book, Freud explores a possible source of religious feeling. He describes an “oceanic feeling of wholeness, limitlessness, and eternity.” Freud himself is unable to experience such a feeling, but notes that there do indeed...
...t agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demonical corpse which I had so miserably given life.”
Throughout the day’s observation, a plethora of sociological concepts become abundantly apparent. However, for the purpose of this paper, we will only focus on the day’s greatest prevalent concepts. The first concept that strikes as a significant sociological concept is family as it is the opening and closing concept of the day. Next, the concept of gender roles appears as important because of the masculine groups that are so prevalent during observation. Third, the theory of religion grabs its place in prevalence due to its ability to center and focus the entire day. Lastly, the concept of stage theory rears into the spot as a result of interactions in the work center. When reviewing these sociological concepts, it becomes abundantly clear
Defining Religion "Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as
views a ghost as a crass form of fright due to the over use of such a
“Egoism, the fear or not near but of distant death… are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are all strengthened by the beliefs about personal identity which I have been attacking. If we give up these beliefs, they should be weakened” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:14).
Freud’s account of our feeling of “self” is plausible. With Roland, he used religion to feel “self”, but not everyone will go the same experience with him. Freud was able to prove the Pleasure Principle is the outlet for many who attempt to “oceanic” through their comfort. Freud agrees the religion is a pleasure to an extent, he feels just like hobbies and comfort religion is nothing but a playtime pleasure. As Freud continues, he develops theories that helped elevate the term for what is means to be at one with the universe called
John McDowell’s concept of ‘second nature’ has been considered to be the most controversial and debatable element in his philosophy of mind. Discuss McDowell’s concept of ‘second nature’ and compare it a specific monist theory of mind which another philosopher has proposed.
Defining Religion The most fundamental question when examining a religion is "what is religion?" That is a distinctly hard question to answer considering that what is ordinarily considered to be religion is not all it is, and what many consider not to be religion may be near religious (i.e. sports). The truth is that there are no genuine answers to the question of "what is religion". Definitions of religion tend to suffer from one of two problems: they are either too narrow and exclude many of the belief systems which most people will agree are religious, or they are too vague and ambiguous, leading one to conclude that just about any and everything is actually a religion.