Contemporary thinking on religion is confronted with the challenge of shifting from a ‘philosophy of religion’ to a ‘philosophy of religious experience’. This challenge, on which the common future of philosophy and theology depends, is not to draw a line between the two, but rather to cross that very line. Crossing the boundary between philosophy and theology, which is what is being discussed here, means transcending its naive geometric understanding in order to take up the old task of thinking in a new way. This is a challenge to both philosophy and theology because it is an existential, or rather an experiential, task. It is about a specific experience and a specific way of life that emerges from it, which must be described in philosophy and at the same time elaborated in theology. This is perhaps the greatest challenge to religious thought. The most representative recent attempts to meet this challenge will be traced below. As we shall see, the best method for both philosophical and theological description of religious experience seems to be phenomenology. The latter allows a free exploration of this experience, while avoiding the trap of falling into the limitations set by either philosophy or theology unduly separated by the boundaries set by a conventional academic rigor. The problem of this article is the quest of exploring religious experience itself: the possibility of such an undertaking, its method, and its future. The considerations presented beneath will lead us to conclude that religious thought, to survive and develop further, needs a specifically understood conversion: its future lies, namely, in converting to experience.
Friedrich Nietzsche, <em> Beyond Good and Evil </em> : - Leo Tolstoy, <em> War and Peace </em> : - Christopher Clark, <em> The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 </em> : - Lawrence Freedman, <em> Strategy: A History </em> : - Stefan Zweig, <em> The World of Yesterday </em> : - Albert Camus, <em> The Rebel </em> : - Karl Jaspers, <em> Tragedy is Not Enough </em> : - Innokenty Annensky, ‘Nightmares’:
Imagining the real. Really imagining. There and here, blending and blurring, all together. Hayao Miyazaki, <em> Shuna’s Journey. </em> Christopher de Bellaigue on the possibilities of ‘an unstoppable spiral of state violence and popular fury’ in Iran. Alexander Baunov on Russia’s objectives. 2022 is set to be ‘a fabulous year’ for some. Ali Ansari on ‘failures of imagination’ in Iran.
Tommi Lehtonen, Society for Indian Philosophy and Religion
This article examines the perspectives on war and migration presented in the Bhagavadgītā and the Law Code of Manu, two ancient Hindu texts. The Bhagavadgītā promotes warrior ethics which emphasise self-mastery and duty without attachment, framing the justification for war as both a moral and spiritual probe. The Law Code of Manu primarily regulates everyday life while also addressing aspects of religious devotion and the social consequences thereof. The Manu code of war emphasises ethical conduct, the protection of innocents, and restraint, illustrating a robust humanitarian tradition in ancient Indian thought. The Bhagavadgītā promotes a balance between universal compassion and practical responsibility, it acknowledges the necessity for responsible governance and a vision of humanity unified by the shared spiritual essence of all beings. The Law Code of Manu does not specifically address immigration, although it delineates rules for individuals travelling abroad, particularly regarding their familial duties and responsibilities.
As professor at the Charles University, Bolzano lectured on religion for many years, developing a theoretical framework for understanding religions in general, which was then applied to Catholicism. The starting point is the notion of a religious proposition, defined as a proposition that if believed, would have an impact on someone’s virtue and happiness, and which one may be inclined to accept or reject based not on reasons but rather on one’s wishes. A person’s religion is then defined as the collection of his religious beliefs. Given this very general conception, it is clear that Bolzano counts as religious far more propositions than most would, to the point where even atheists can properly be said to have a religion. Other inquiries deal with the figurative content of many religious doctrines and with divine revelation, the latter the subject of one of the most subtle of Bolzano’s conceptual analyses. (148 words)
Speculation on the nature of the afterlife is as old as recorded history. Although the doctrine of an afterlife is not found in all religious traditions, where it does, it is typically central to the religious belief and practice. But is the idea of an afterlife intelligible? ‘The afterlife’ considers substance dualism, a concept popular throughout the history of religious thought, but no longer favoured by contemporary philosophers of religion. It also discusses three resurrection models: the reassembly, body-snatchers, and falling elevator models. In addition to asking whether life after death is a possible state for creatures like us, it also asks whether we should even want to live forever.