Phenomenology of Religions

Phenomenology of religion is the experiential aspect of religion, describing religious phenomena in terms of consistent with orientation of the worshippers, proceeding from the observable phenomena to the meaning emerges from the patterns of experience and expression (Muller 1891). According to Moran (2000) phenomenology of religion is a method of studying religion that focuses on the manifestations of religion. Phenomenology of religion was adopted because of the definition of religion. According to Hussel (1931) various definition of religion were given according to various perspectives. This includes the philosophical definition and the sociological definition. Of all these definition, each definition left some aspects which must not be neglected nor ignored when studying religion. Therefore phenomenology of religion was adopted so as to cover the aspects left by various perspective in defining religion. Phenomenology of religion seeks to look at objectivity and therefore focus on the empirical of the concrete aspects of religion such as rituals, myths, morals and symbols of experiences. According to Flood (1999) phenomenology of religion seeks to study the classification of different types of religion phenomena. Mbiti (1969) argues that explanation of religion in terms of other disciplines distorts other religions. This forced religion to conform to particular disciplines instead of allowing phenomena to speak for themselves. Therefore in order for phenomena to speak for themselves one needs to adapt the phenomenology of religion. Therefore this explains why phenomenology of religion was adopted. Furthermore the phenomenology of religion was adopted in order to understand a true nature of religion or the essence of religion.Hussel (1931) posits that in order for one to understand the nature of religion one should held the suspension of judgement or pre-supposition or previously held ideas of a particular phenomena thereby coming with an accurate understanding of certain religion.

It is not easy to understand the nature of the guru and understanding the nature of the guru can be bewildering. There is often bewilderment about the guru. One source of the bewilderment is that people think that the guru is an individual person and for most people the understanding that the guru is not a person has been foreclosed. The guru is not a person. And when people see and believe the guru is a person, such a belief will create illusions about the person whom they think is the guru, and their own relationship with the person whom they see as the guru will fall into various forms of the psychology of transference. Moreover, the true and pervasive nature of the guru will be concealed and the power of the guru limited and anthropomorphized, and politicized. To use Heideggerian language the ontic dimension will become the focus and the ontological dimension becomes foreclosed. In fact, the guru is not an entity, the guru is not a thing, and the guru is not even a being. The guru is the field of Being. The guru is the field of Being's manifestation of understanding, manifestation of protection and manifestation of self-revelation. The guru is the radiance of primordial awareness. The contemporary master of Kashmir Shavism, Swami Muktananda would teach, using the language of theology, " the guru is the grace bestowing power of God. " He would also say " The guru is your own innermost awareness and you must get beyond your mind to experience the guru as your own awareness. " Vehicle-ness It is also equally true that a person can be vehicle of the guru. Even you and I can be a vehicle for the guru. The light of the guru can manifest and shine forth through you and me, and through everyone. The power of the guru does not manifest only through institutional religious teachers as some would like you to think, but most often this manifestation is through

This article compares Franz Rosenzweig's and Joseph B. Sololveitchik's treatments of The Song of Songs, focusing specifically on the dialectic between love and death as reflected in the phrase from The Song of Songs which they both evoke: a love that is strong as death. The analysis, which is based primarily on Rozenzweig's The Star of Redemption and Soloveitchik's And From There You Shall Seek, shows how the dynamic between love and death expands into several of the major concerns for both religious thinkers: the relation between creation, revelation and redemption, natural and religious consciousness, Heutigkeit (present-ness), natural law and prophecy.

Christopher Buck, “Bahāʾīs.” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Edited by Jane McAuliffe. Vol. One: 197–199. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001.

ABSTRACT

Bahāʾīs
(1,972 words)

The adherents of Bahāʾism (ahl al-Bahāʾ), widely recognized as the “Bahāʾī Faith,” an independent world religion with Islamic origins. The Bahāʾī movement, a universalization of Bābism, was founded by Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī (1817–92), known as Bahāʾullāh (Splendor of God; standardized Bahāʾī spelling, Bahāʾullāh), in Baghdad in the year 1863. In 1866, it emerged as a distinct faith-community in Adrianople (Edirne). Bahāʾism underwent transformations in ethos and organization throughout three missionary phases: the Islamic context (1844–92), the international missions (1892–1963) and global diffusion (1963–present). The Islamic context was co-extensive with the combined ministries of Bahāʾullāh and his precursor, Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī (1819–50), known as the Bāb (Gate), the prophet-martyr of the Bābī movement.

The year 1260/1844 marked the Shīʿī millennium, a thousand lunar years since the occultation of the twelfth imām (see IMĀM; SHĪʿISM AND THE QURʾĀN). On 22 May 1844 the Bāb effected a decisive, eschatological break from Islam by means of an exegetical work entitled The immortal renovator of the divine names (Qayyūm al-asmāʾ, often referred to as The commentary on the Joseph sūra), an audacious and revolutionary commentary on the twelfth sūra of the Qurʾān (see JOSEPH). In this work he “proclaimed himself the focus of an Islamic apocalypse” (T. Lawson, Structure, 8). One of his most distinctive exegetical techniques is his “exploded commentary.” In works on Q 108 and Q 103, the exegesis proceeds “not only verse by verse, or even word by word, but also letter by letter” (T. Lawson, Dangers, 179). The Bāb's commentaries on the Qurʾān are remarkable in that, by force of his prophetic authority, “interpretation became revelation” (T. Lawson, Interpretation, 253). In 1848, he revealed a new law code (Bayān-i fārsī), paradoxically super-Islamic in piety, yet supra-Islamic in principle.

After the Bāb's execution (1850) by the Persian authorities, Bahāʾullāh revitalized the Bābī community by employing symbolic interpretation as strategy to abolish the Bābī antinomianism. In the Arabic Tablet of “all food” (Lawḥ-i kull al-ṭaʿām, 1854 — note that the titles of Bahāʾi works written in Arabic are conventionally given in Persianized form), Bahāʾullāh related the abolishment of the Jewish dietary restrictions in Q 3:93 to the mystical and cosmological realms. While the Baghdad period (1853–63) was eschatologically charged with his own messianic secrecy (ayyām-i buṭūn), Bahāʾullāh, in his pre-eminent doctrinal work, the Book of certitude (Kitāb-i Mustaṭāb-i īqān, Jan. 1861), advanced an extended qurʾānic and biblical argument to authenticate the Bāb's prophetic credentials. Bahāʾullāh's repertoire of exegetical techniques includes most of the ¶ twelve “procedural devices” attested in the classical commentaries (Wansbrough, QS, part ii) as well as others. Bahāʾullāh's style of discourse is itself exegetical, with frequent pairings, linked by the Persian metaphorical genitive (iḍāfa-yi majāzī), of qurʾānic symbols and referents.

Hermeneutically, Certitude resonates with five Islamic orientations to symbolism: 1. the semanticism of rhetoric, especially the science of tropes (ʿilm al-bayān); 2. the dialectic of theology (kalām); 3. reason (ʿaql) and analogy (qiyās) as a reflex of philosophy (falsafa) and jurisprudence (fiqh); 4. the use of allusion (ishāra) and gnosis (maʿrifa qalbiyya) in Ṣūfī/Ishrāqī mysticism (see ṢŪFĪʿISM AND THE QURʾĀN); 5. recourse to apocalyptic presentism, adducing prophetic proof-texts to instantiate a realized eschatology, a common characteristic of millenarian sectarianism. In his Commentary on the sūra “By the sun” (Tafsīr sūrat wa-l-shams), while critical of rhetoric (ʿilm al-balāgha) and the cognate qurʾānic sciences, Bahāʾullāh echoes al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and al-Taftazānī (d. 791/1389) in stressing the need to harmonize literal and figurative interpretations (C. Buck, Symbol, 91–2, 104). In his Tablet on esoteric interpretation (Lawḥ-i taʾwīl), citing Q 3:5, he states that eschatological verses are properly susceptible to esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl) whereas qurʾānic laws are to be understood by their obvious sense (tafsīr, see exegesis EXEGESIS AND AND THE QURʾĀN: CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL).

Islamic prophetology is anchored in the received interpretation of Q 33:40, which is widely believed to establish Muḥammad as the final prophet (see prophets and prophethood). In what is perhaps his most significant exegetical maneuver, Bahāʾullāh relativizes that claim in order to supersede it, refocusing the reader's attention a mere four verses later (Q 33:44) on the eschatological attainment to the presence of God (liqāʾ Allāh) on the last day (see ¶ eschatology). Arguing that direct beatific vision of God is impossible, Bahāʾullāh reasons that Q 33:44 anticipates a future theophany who, as deus revelatus and divine vicegerent, is symbolically God by proxy.

My investigation reveals that Heidegger's account of affectivity-though his programmatical determination included an ontical dimension or otherwise lived, personal experiences-is overshadowed by a dense ontology that cannot enable real phenomenal experience. This is why he could not account for other affective states such as emotions, feelings and the role of the body in affectivity. Besides, in that account we are lost when we seek to answer the question of whether moods are "one" or "many". My aim is to point out how these deficiencies in Heidegger's account of mood could be overcome in Richir's account of affectivity, where indeterminate background feelings (affections) could give rise to a determinate and occurent emotion (affects). The advantage of this move is a rich ontic account of affectivity where not only the body but also sense/meaning of affective episodes play a robust role in an encounter of world events. If Richir reproached Heidegger for existential solipsism, one could now reproach the former for existentiell/phenomenal solipsism. In the end I suggest that these two core but opposite aspects of affectivity (the ontological and the ontic) belong to the same reality: Dasein is not just in the world (ontology), but also the world is in Dasein (ontic/phenomenological).

GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1.  Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2.  Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

From the Inside Flap;

GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America

Christopher Buck

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

This book is about an unusual religious topic: the United States of America ("America").
"America" is, at once, nation and notion, country and creed, republic and rhetoric. This book is about Providence and principle--the relationship of the supernatural world to the world's superpower. "America" is not in the Bible, nor in the Qur'an. Yet "America" today pulsates with religious significance. "America" is a word that has taken on mythic proportions.

Eleven religions have been selected for their distinctive perspectives on America: (1) Native American religion (Iroquois); (2) Protestant Christianity (the Puritans); (3) the Christian Right; (4) Roman Catholicism; (5) Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist); (6) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons); (7) Christian Identity (White nationalists); (8) Nation of Islam (Black nationalists); (9) Islam (especially Radical Islamists and Progressive Muslims); (10) Buddhism (Tibetan and Soka Gakkai); and (11) the Baha'i Faith.

Over the course of American history, religious myths and visions of America tend to reflect an ever-changing American civil society, whether as a function of its social evolution or as a catalyst of it. The result is: Religions re-mythologize America. And: Religions re-envision America.

God & Apple Pie invites serious reflection on what it means to be an American, particularly from a religious perspective.

Dzogchen and Continental Phenomenology both bring forth an ontologicalization of knowledge. This ontologicalization of knowledge means discovering that the knowing of mind is psychological knowing of phenomena and the knowing of awareness is ontological knowing of Being. There is the ontic knowing of the essence of phenomena through our mind through intuitive experience.. There is the ontological knowing of our awareness which is a direct non conceptual and pre-reflective experience of Being. Both Dzogchen and Continental Phenomenology use the skillful means of a Phenomenological
Epoche and a Phenomenological Reduction.

The Introductory article offers a general overview of the highly complicated topic of religious and mythological consciousness discussed in sub-species narrative critique and literary theory. It also provides a detailed context for the wide array of religious matters discussed in this special volume of Religions. Each of the nineteen papers is positioned within its own particular thematic discourse.

This paper offers a general overview of the highly complicated topic of religious and mythological consciousness discussed in sub-species narrative critique and literary theory. It also provides a detailed context for the wide array of religious matters discussed in this special volume of "Religions". Also addressed are the uneasy ways in which Christian Orthodoxy has handled the various challenges posed by popular belief and mythology. Most existing studies are somewhat dated, prompting a growing need for fresh scholarly approaches and reassessments concerning both officially sanctioned and heterodox religious practices. A basic aim, therefore, is to bring together archaic forms of religious spirituality, creative literature, folklore, philosophy and theology, a synthesis which, we hope, will illumine the ways in which mythologies and religious traditions inform ideas and artistic practices, past and present. One of the underlying and unifying elements here is myth. After all, religion begins and ends with myth, while the contemporary endurance of myth and the complex cultural theoretical suggestions associated with its cultural and literary usage remain entirely relevant and topical.
        "Religions", Vol. 12 (St. Alban-Anlage, Basel, Switzerland) ISSN: 2077-1444

Published in: Robert W. Jensen and Eugene Korn editors, Swords into Plowshares:  Reflections on Religion and Violence (Essays from the Institute for Theological Inquiry).  Center for Jewish and Christian Understanding and Cooperation (Kindle Edition 2014).


ABSTRACT


 
Don Seeman, the author of the chapter

“Violence, Divine Honor and the State,” has published a number

of studies touching on the relationship between the idea of divine honor and religious violence in different Jewish intellectual settings and he has also written as an anthropologist on the relationship between honor and political violence in modern Israel. Here, for the first time, he offers a synthetic reading that attempts to account for the close relationship between the anthropological and theological registers and to account in a systematic way for differences in approach between Jewish thinkers as diverse as Maimonides, R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, Rav Kook, Moses Mendelssohn and Emmanuel Levinas. He begins with a phenomenological critique of the way honor and shame have been treated in recent

social science literature. He argues that honor and shame are “bridge concepts” that are applied in

classical conceptions to human beings as well as to God and that they therefore help to condition theological as well as political or anthropological conceptions of ethics and violence. After brief analyses of key biblical and rabbinic texts, Seeman argues that Jewish approaches to divine honor and violence can be divided into three dominant paradigms: vernacular, mystical and philosophical. The vernacular paradigm treats divine honor in anthropomorphic terms that are indistinguishable from those used to explain human social relations and recourse to violence. The mystical or kabbalistic paradigm builds, in a sense, on this robust vernacular sensibility, but adds a distinctive and subtle metaphysics of divine presence. This is the context in which the utter rejection of the vernacular sensibility by philosophical Judaism

—

exemplified by Maimonides and by modern thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn

—

takes on such importance. Seeman argues that the very shape of Jewish modernity has been conditioned by arguments over the nature of divine honor and by the political ramifications of those differences. The rejection of vernacular divine honor is a central theme of

Mendelssohn’s



Jerusalem

to which contemporary Jews are still implicitly or explicitly responding. We cannot understand the complex relationships between religion, violence and the state without a much better understanding of these dynamics.


"

ABSTARCT
RELIGION: A CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL STUDY
 
          ‘Religion’ is a complex phenomenon. It has occupied a significant position in the society and touches almost all the aspects of human life i.e.-emotional, cognitive and practical. Since Religion is a major factor in our life, hence one need to know What Religion is and what the essential elements are there in it.
          In religion the fundamental discussible concepts are - ‘what is religion?’, ‘problem of defining religion’, ‘its origin and development’, ‘ its impact in giving birth to a society’,  ‘functions of religion’, ‘concept of god in religions’, ‘science, philosophy, and religion’. Religion and society goes hand in hand. Human beings are social in nature. They cannot live alone. In ancient time they were always in awe and wonder and frightened by some natural calamities; disasters, like flood, earthquake, storm, etc. Whenever they failed to protect themselves from such natural calamities and of course sometimes it automatically calmed down they thought that it was controlled by some Natural or Supernatural Powers whom they worshiped and tried to appease those powers to protect themselves. They began to share thoughts, ideas and experiences about their daily life with others which gradually gave birth to basic beliefs which were regarded as religious beliefs. Those Awe and Wonder developed social as well as religious nature among them.
        The theories regarding origin of religion like- Animism, Naturalism, Totemism, etc. was put forwarded by Emile Durkheim whose concern was ultimately both present and practical. Religion is regarded as the central force of the society. We cannot deny its existence. Regarding this Durkheim said,” Religion is an eminently social thing, because of its integrative or socializing power in society”.
        My paper is a descriptive and an evaluative approach towards the above mentioned concepts of religion in contemporary perspectives.

Shape-Shifting Capital: Spiritual Management, Critical Theory, and the Ethnographic Project is positioned at the intersection of anthropology, critical theory, and philosophy of religion. First, González explores the phenomena of “workplace spirituality” in a language that is accessible to a general readership. Taking contemporary trends in organizational management as a case study, he argues, by way of a detailed ethnographic study of practitioners of workplace spirituality, that the conceptual and institutional boundaries between religion, science, and capitalism are being redrawn by theologized management appropriations of tropes borrowed from creativity theory and quantum mechanics. Second, González  makes a case for a critical anthropology of religion that combines existential concerns for biography and intentionality with poststructuralist concerns for power, arguing that the ways in which the personalization of metaphor bridges personal and social histories also helps bring about broader epistemic shifts in society. Finally, in a postsecular age in which capitalism itself is explicitly and confidently “spiritual,” González suggests that it is imperative to reorient our critical energies towards a present day evaluation of postmodern capitalism’s boundary-blurring. González further argues that the kind of “existential deconstruction” performed by what he calls “existential archeology” can serve the needs of any social criticism of neoliberal “religion” and corporate spirituality.

" My investigation reveals that Heidegger’s account of affectivity – though his programmatical determination included an ontical dimension or otherwise lived, personal experiences – is overshadowed by a dense ontology that cannot enable real phenomenal experience. This is why he could not account for other affective states such as emotions, feel-ings and the role of the body in affectivity. Besides, in that account we are lost when we seek to answer the question of whether moods are “one” or “many”. My aim is to point out how these deficiencies in Heidegger’s account of mood could be overcome in Richir’s account of affectivity, where indeterminate background feelings (affections) could give rise to a deter-minate and occurent emotion (affects). The advantage of this move is a rich ontic account of affectivity where not only the body but also sense/meaning of affective episodes play a robust role in an encounter of world events. If Richir reproached Heidegger for existential solipsism, one could now reproach the former for existentiell/phenomenal solipsism. In the end I suggest that these two core but opposite aspects of affectivity (the ontological and the ontic) belong to the same reality: Dasein is not just in the world (ontology), but also the world is in Dasein (ontic/phenomenological). Keywords: mood, affection, affect, Heidegger’s ontology, Richir’s Leib and sense. "

L'esperienza, in origine sciamanica, del manifestarsi improvviso di una luce interna o esterna rispetto al proprio corpo, in una progressione che da semplici fotismi localizzati può arrivare fino all'epifania d'un fulmine globulare, è stata descritta e tramandata da tutte le tradizioni mistiche, sia orientali che occidentali. Come attesta, oltre alle fonti testuali, la ricchissima iconografia delle aure e dei nimbi luni-solari, il cui sviluppo artistico, di probabile origine iranica, raggiunge il suo apogeo di complessificazione nell'arte e nelle dottrine realizzative del Tantrismo hindu e buddhista.

The experience, originally shamanic, of the sudden manifestation of an internal or external light with respect to one's own body, in a progression that from simple localized photisms can reach the epiphany of a globular lightning, has been described and handed down by all mystical traditions, both Eastern and Western, as attested by the textual sources, and by the very rich iconography of auras and lunar-solar nimbuses, whose artistic development, probably of Iranian origin, reaches its apogee of complexification in the art and doctrines of Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism.

Resumo Denomina-se xamanismo um antigo sistema centrado em indivíduos elegidos a xamãs que obtinham acesso a informações extraordinárias via meditação ou transe, visando atender às necessidades psicológicas, médicas e espirituais de uma comunidade. " Neoxamanismo " é, assim, a tentativa atual de conciliar esta sabedoria com elementos e ideias modernos. Nessa pesquisa objetivou-se compreender, por meio do método fenomenológico-empírico, o sentido da experiência religiosa neo-xamânica a partir de cinco colaboradores da cidade de Uberlândia-MG. Após as entrevistas, seguiu-se um processo de análise pela qual se obteve elementos variantes nos relatos e outros invariantes, através dos quais se sintetiza esta experiência religiosa: Ser neoxamanista é relacionar-se com o sagrado; é conectar-se consigo mesmo; é conectar-se com a natureza; é compreender a unicidade entre nós e a natureza. Assim pudemos tecer conexões com a meditação, religiosidade e saúde, concluindo-se que o estudo deste fenômeno tem muito a acrescentar na maneira de se pensar e fazer saúde humana na atualidade. Palavras-chave: xamanismo; método fenomenológico-empírico; religiosidade.

Öz Bu çalışmada İngiliz Din Fenomenolojisi Ekolünün önemli temsilcilerinden olan Eric J. Sharpe'ın, dinin tek yönden incelenmesi karşısında bütüncül bir din anlayışına ulaşmak amacıyla ortaya koyduğu dört modlu din modeli ele alınmaktadır. Sharpe'ın modeli, iman ekseninde dinî tecrübeyi içeren varoluşsal, dinlerin inanç ilkelerini ele alan zihinsel, inananların oluşturduğu sosyal yapılara temas eden organizasyonel ve dinlerin ahlaki yapılarına işaret eden ahlaki modlardan oluşmaktadır. Bu modele göre her dinin merkezinde farklı bir mod yer alabilmekte ve dinler arasındaki farklılıklar bu çerçevede değerlendirilebilmektedir. Bu model özellikle aynı ekolün önemli temsilcilerinden olan Ninian Smart'a ait yedi boyutlu din modeline yönelik eleştirilere dayanmaktadır. Sharpe'ın temel eleştirisi, dinî tecrübenin vurgulanarak dinin diğer boyutlarının ikinci plana itilmesidir. Çünkü ona göre din, dini tecrübe aracılığıyla yalnızca vicdanlara hapsedilebilecek bir fenomen değildir. Ancak Sharpe'ın modeli, dinin çok yönlü tarzda incelenmesine yönelik ihtiyacı ve farkındalığı vurgulamasına rağmen, modların oldukça soyut olması ve dinin bütün alanlarını kapsamaması gibi nedenlerle gelişim aşamasında kalmış görünmektedir. Anahtar Kavramlar: Dinler Tarihi, Eric J. Sharpe, Din, Model, Fenomenoloji. Eric Sharpe's Model of Understanding Religion Abstract This study examines the four-mode religion model that Eric J. Sharpe, one of the most important representatives of the English School of Phenomenology of Religion, has put forward in order to attain a holistic understanding of religion in over against one-sided examination of religion. Sharpe's model consists of modes which are existential including religious experience on the axis of faith, intellectual dealing with religious beliefs, organizational that contact with social constructs created by