Religion and pseudo-religion: an elusive boundary

Pihlström, Sami

doi:10.1007/s11153-007-9120-2

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…See, e.g., Phillips (1970Phillips ( , 1977Phillips ( , 1986Phillips ( , 1993Phillips ( , 2004; cf. my discussion of the limit between religious and pseudo-religious language use in Pihlström (2007Pihlström ( , 2013a. On transcendental arguments in moral philosophy, in particular, see Brune et al (2017).…”

Section: The Limits Of Language and Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other

Pihlström

2020

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and Ulf Zackariasson, as well as a number of students of theology and philosophy who have attended my classes on pragmatism, realism, and the problem of evil and suffering, or my graduate and undergraduate seminars, at the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, in 2016-2019. (If I accidentally forgot to mention someone, which is perfectly possible, I sincerely apologize!) Helsinki, December 2019 Sami Pihlström xvi Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy We may, I suggest, identify two key 'promises' of pragmatism in the philosophy of religion. These are based on two different philosophical interests in the study of religion, which can be labeled the 'epistemic interest' and the 'existential interest'. The topics of realism, truth, and objectivity-to be explored more comprehensively in the chapters that follow-are fundamental with regard to both. Philosophy of religion could even be considered a test case for pragmatist views on these issues, because religion is often taken to be too personal and 'subjective' to be taken seriously by scientifically minded thinkers pursuing truth and objectivity. Pragmatists themselves are not innocent to this: as we recall, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, James (1958 [1902]) proposed to study the subjective, experiential phenomena that people go through individually, thus arguably neglecting the more social dimensions of religious experience that Dewey emphasized in A Common Faith (Dewey 1991 [1934]). First, it is extremely important, for a thinking person in a modern (or 'postpostmodern') 1 society largely based on scientific research and its various applications, to examine the perennial epistemic problem of the rationality (or irrationality) of religious belief. This problem arises from the-real or apparent-conflicts between science and religion, or reason and faith. It is obvious that this problem, or set of problems, crucially involves the notions of objectivity and truth: religious faith is often regarded as subjective, whereas scientific research and theory construction pursuing truth are objective. Therefore, typically, scientific atheists criticize religion for its lack of solid grounding, while defenders of religion may try to counter this critique by suggesting either that religious beliefs do have objective credentials, after all (e.g., traditionally and rather notoriously, in terms of the 'proofs' of God's existence, which would allegedly be objective enough for any rational inquirer to endorse), or that science is also 'subjective' in some specific sense, or at least more subjective than standard scientific realists would admit (e.g., as argued in various defenses of relativism or social constructivism). The notions of objectivity and rationality are of course distinct, but they are closely related in this area of inquiry in particular. It is precisely because of its pursuit of objectivity that the scientific method is generally regarded as 'rational' , whereas religious ways of thinking might seem to be irrational because of their lack o...

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Section: The Limits Of Language and Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other

Pihlström

2020

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“…One philosopher of religion, Sami Pihlström, has helpfully analysed the ‘elusive boundary’ between religion and so‐called pseudo‐religion. To illuminate this, Pihlström turned traditional assumptions of religious purity on its head, by asking whether a belief that heavily relies upon a theological system is ultimately only an indication of ‘a non‐religious life’ (Pihlström , p. 10). Essential to this reasoning is the argument that anyone solely dependent upon an officially sanctioned system of thought suggests a lack of personal attachment to this belief in the first place.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Confession? ‘Political Religion’ and Ideological Incorrectness in the Study of Nazism

Wennberg

2014

Religion Compass

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Holocaust studies have seen the rise of 'political religion' as part of a 'confessional turn'. To account for the fact that Nazism experienced widespread support from the German population, 'ideology' was replaced with the broader and culturally more inclusive term 'religion'. This article examines the mechanisms behind the rise of 'political religion' as well as the factors behind its subsequent decline. It argues that 'political religion', despite its culturally inclusive label, persists in connoting dogma and indoctrination. In this respect, the concept resembles rather than differs from the abandoned term 'ideology'. Finally, the article draws from research on the Nazi principle of transgression and presents this principle as a form of 'ideological incorrectness'. The concept of 'ideological incorrectness' should be seen as a move beyond belief simply understood as confession and, thus, a move beyond the conceptual constraints of 'political religion'.

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Can religious and secular belief be rationally combined?

Feldbacher-Escamilla

2017

Int J Philos Relig

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Religion and pseudo-religion: an elusive boundary

Cited by 12 publications

References 22 publications

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other

Beyond Confession? ‘Political Religion’ and Ideological Incorrectness in the Study of Nazism

Can religious and secular belief be rationally combined?

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