Abstract

Adherence to a religion, and participation therein, typically involve worship, the reading and interpretation of sacred scripture, prayer, meditation, self‐discipline, submission to instruction, acts of justice and charity. Typically they involve allowing certain metaphors and images to shape one's actions and perception of reality. They incorporate such propositional attitudes as hoping that certain things will come about, trusting that certain things will come about, regretting that certain things have come about, and accepting various things, in the sense of playing the role of one who believes those things. And typically they involve believing various things – about God, about the sacred, about humanity, its past and future, glory and misery, and about the world. Sometimes what evokes and sustains adherence to, and participation in, a religion is religious experience of one sort and another – mystical experience, uncanny experience, a sense of cosmic security, the experience of something as created by God, usually this being something amazing in its minuteness, its immensity, or its intricate and improbable workings. The phrase Wittgenstein made famous is appropriate here: participation in a religion is a form of life.