Jack Caputo’s most recent book follows Derrida in proposing a “religion without religion”, a posture that, while committed to the general structure of religion, attempts to philosophically distance itself from specific, historical exemplifications of that structure. I propose that by determining what motivates the distinction between what is termed the “messianic” and “messianisms”, a space opens that allows us to call into question this “desert religion.” I will conclude by suggesting an alternative posture, one that (...) attempts to honor both the universal structure of religion, and the particular, historical content of religion. (shrink)

The World, understood as a system of meaningful relations, is for Hegel the exclusive product of the human mind. In this, Hegel stands together with Kant in direct opposition to the Christian metaphysical tradition, according to which reality reflects God's ideas. For both Kant and Hegel, faith and religion therefore acquire new meaning. Yet, that meaning is just as different for each with respect to the other as it is for both with respect to the Christian tradition. This paper (...) explores these differences, taking Kant's and Hegel's differing attitudes towards evil as the litmus test for differentiating their respective idealism. (shrink)

This study contributes to the exploration of self-rated spirituality by anchoring self-ratings of spirituality and religiosity in an integrative model of personality. For the measurement of personality dispositions and characteristic adaptations, the NEO Personality Inventory Revised and the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire have been administered to a sample of German-speaking students. A three-step study design is employed. First, previous findings on associations between personality and religiosity/spirituality are replicated and supplemented. Second, sources of meaning are shown to (...) explain a considerably higher amount of unique variance in religiosity and spirituality than do personality dispositions. Third, two types of spirituality—religious-and-spiritual and spiritual-but-not-religious—are identified and distinguished on the basis of personality traits. The spiritual-but-not-religious type shows significantly higher degrees of Neuroticism, and lower degrees of Agreeableness. Possible interpretations and lines of future research on ‘spirituality without religion’ are sketched out. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Jacques Derrida’s account of “religion” and “life” in his seminal essay “Faith and Knowledge.” Applying Derrida’s aporetic structure of “X without X” to his remarks on religion and life in “Faith and Knowledge,” this article suggests that underlying Derrida’s endeavor to “think religion abstractly” is a radical re-conception not only of religion as “religion without religion” but moreover a re-imagination of life as “life without life” (...) that breaks away from the traditional metaphysical understandings of life and religion. (shrink)

There is a constant tension that exists within each individual. This is the struggle between the hidden ideologies and fixed ideas which enslave the individual and the need to rid themselves of them. It is through these that implicit religion forms. We require, in order to counteract this, a new theology, a secular theology – one which emphasizes the individual. In order to bring about a new theology, it is necessary to reconsider the philosophies of Adam Weishaupt, Louis Althusser, (...) and Max Stirner and bring them into the modern discussion of implicit religion. This paper aims to bring together these understudied philosophers as well as contemporary leaders in political theology in order to reimagine the potential of the individual to rid themselves from fixed ideas and to realize their potential. (shrink)

"Kurtz is one of the rare intellectuals of our time, the most energetic and best informed of the humanists". -- The Christian Century.

There can be no mistaking the importance of Caputo's work." —Edith Wyschogrod "No one interested in Derrida, in Caputo, or in the larger question of postmodernism and religion can afford to ignore this pathbreaking study.

Creative Betrayal: Hasidism, Israeli Writers, and Martin Buber Contemporary American Jews seem to have a strange attraction to an eighteenth century Jewish ...

How do we deal with difference personally, interpersonally, nationally? Can we weave a cohesive social fabric in a religiously plural society without suppressing differences? This collection of significant essays suggests that to truly honour differences in matters of faith and religion we must publicly exercise and celebrate them. The secular/sacred, public/private divisions long considered sacred in the West need to be dismantled if Canada (or any nation state) is to develop a genuine mosaic that embraces fundamental differences instead (...) of a melting pot that marginalizes. An ethics of difference starts with a recognition of difference, not as deviance or deficit that threatens but as otherness to connect with, cherish, and celebrate. The book begins with the suggestion that our inability to come to terms with social plurality is not fundamentally the fault of religious differences, and that a public/private split inadequately deals with matters of basic difference. It then explores how encouraging people to live out their respective faiths may open new possibilities for respectful, honourable, and just negotiations of contemporary dilemmas arising out of the multicultural fabric of Canadian life. Towards an Ethics of Community introduces readers to some of the most challenging and divisive dilemmas we face in this increasingly pluralistic, postmodern world — issues such as family and domestic violence, Aboriginal rights, homosexuality and public policy, and female genital mutilation. This is a book truly global in scope and significance. (shrink)

Abraham has played a prominent role in recent developments in phenomenology and, in particular, continental philosophy of religion. This paper examines the importance that the scene of Genesis 22 plays in both Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion’s contributions to continental philosophy of religion. Specifically, I argue that Derrida and Marion turn to this scene of the binding of Isaac in order to describe the way in which our ethical life is structured religiously around the theme of sacrifice. In (...) this, sacrifice brings an impetus to ethical life that includes a comportment to the other but also extends beyond the other to include the givenness of phenomena themselves. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta a evolução e a consolidação da categoria de pessoas que se declaram sem religião nos recenseamentos brasileiros desde a década de 1960. Embora este grupo tenha sido apresentado como se fosse homogêneo, os resultados de nossa pesquisa revelaram um grupo claramente heterogêneo, composto por tipos diferenciados de indivíduos e atitudes: daqueles aparentemente secularizados àqueles que misturam diferentes modelos de religiosidade, reproduzindo algumas das principais tendências dos tempos atuais, movidos por uma intensa reflexividade que desafia os dogmas e (...) pela reivindicação da liberdade de fé e expressão. Além disso, a categoria dos sem religião marca a divisão entre as pessoas que se identificam co um grupo religioso daquelas que mantêm a distância das instituições religiosas tradicionais. Assim, aproximar-se ou afastar-se do transcendente torna-se uma questão de foro íntimo, cuja decisão cabe a cada individuo na sua intimidade, o que indica uma crise contemporânea da afiliação estimulada peã reavaliação dos laços tradicionais. Palavras-chave: Sem religião. Recenseamentos. Desinstitucionalização. Crise do Pertencimento. Destradicionalização.This article presents the evolution and the consolidation of the category of people that declare themselves “without religion” in Brazilian census since the 1960s. Although this group has been presented as it was homogeneous, the results of our survey revealed a visibly heterogeneous group, composed by different types of individuals and attitudes: from those groups apparently secularized to those who mix up several models of religiosity, reproducing some of the major tendencies of the present time, moved by an intense reflexivity that challenges dogmas and also moved by the claiming of liberty of faith and expression. Moreover, the category of people of without religion marks the division between people identified as a religious group from those that keep distance from the traditional institutions. Thus, getting closer or moving away from the transcendent becomes a matter of private choice, a decision of each individual in its intimacy which indicates a contemporary crisis of affiliation stimulated by the revaluation of the tradition ties. Key words : Without religion. Censuses. Deinstitutionalization. Detraditionalization. Crisis of belonging. (shrink)

Religion, science, and naturalism -- Perception and religious experience -- Panexperientialism, freedom, and the mind-body relation -- Naturalistic, dipolar theism -- Natural theology based on naturalistic theism -- Evolution, evil, and eschatology -- The two ultimates and the religions -- Religion, morality, and civilization -- Religious language and truth -- Religious knowledge and common sense.

Religious atheism? -- The universe -- Religious freedom -- Death and immortality.

Moses Mendelssohn is considered the foremost representative of Jewish Enlightenment. In _No Religion without Idolatry_, Gideon Freudenthal offers a novel interpretation of Mendelssohn’s general philosophy and discusses for the first time Mendelssohn’s semiotic interpretation of idolatry in his _Jerusalem _and in his Hebrew biblical commentary. Mendelssohn emerges from this study as an original philosopher, not a shallow popularizer of rationalist metaphysics, as he is sometimes portrayed. Of special and lasting value is his semiotic theory of idolatry. From a (...) semiotic perspective, both idolatry and enlightenment are necessary constituents of religion. Idolatry ascribes to religious symbols an intrinsic value: enlightenment maintains that symbols are conventional and merely signify religious content but do not share its properties and value. Without enlightenment, religion degenerates to fetishism; without idolatry it turns into philosophy and frustrates religious experience. Freudenthal demonstrates that in Mendelssohn’s view, Judaism is the optimal religious synthesis. It consists of transient ceremonies of a “living script.” Its ceremonies are symbols, but they are not permanent objects that could be venerated. Jewish ceremonies thus provide a religious experience but frustrate fetishism. Throughout the book, Freudenthal fruitfully contrasts Mendelssohn's views on religion and philosophy with those of his contemporary critic and opponent, Salomon Maimon. _No Religion without Idolatry _breaks new ground in Mendelssohn studies. It will interest students and scholars in philosophy of religion, Judaism, and semiotics. "In this lucid and provocative study, Gideon Freudenthal offers an original and compelling reading of Mendelssohn as well as a defense of the possibility of religious rationalism more generally. This book is not only an excellent contribution to a growing body of scholarship on Mendelssohn and early modern philosophy, but it also significantly sharpens and advances contemporary conversations about the relations between religion and reason." —_Leora Batnitzky, Princeton University_ "In this masterful study, Gideon Freudenthal demonstrates how Mendelssohn’s philosophy, including his philosophy of religion, is grounded in semiotics. The result is a landmark work that not only successfully challenges standard interpretations of Mendelssohn’s 'enlightened Judaism' and its alleged inconsistency but also effectively invites reconsideration of the very possibility of 'religion without idolatry.'" —_Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Boston University_ "In focusing on Mendelssohn's 'semiotics of idolatry,' Gideon Freudenthal writes as a philosopher fully at home in multiple traditions: contemporary philosophy, eighteenth-century philosophy, Jewish biblical exegesis, and comparative religion. The result is a systematic and penetrating study, based on the Hebrew as well as the German texts, that engages Mendelssohn on perhaps the most critical issue of his understanding of religion with unprecedented philosophical rigor and imagination." —_David Sorkin, City University of New York Graduate Center_. (shrink)

Book Information Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. By David Ray Griffin. Cornell University Press. Ithaca. 2001. Pp. viii + 426. Hardback, US$55.00. Paperback, US$24.95.

This criticism of theism, especially monotheism, questions the assumption that rejecting God means rejecting religion. Drawing on Western philosophical critiques of religion and non-theistic Eastern religions, Ray Billington shows how a religion without God could work. The concept of religion without God has informed not only the theories of Nietzsche, Kant and Spinoza, but also expressions of belief in Indian and Chinese religions-Hinduism, Theravada Buddhism Zen and Taoism. Concluding with a look at the "the (...) future of faith," this is a wide ranging and lucidly-written look at what it means to "have faith" and how this is distinct from religious belief. Ray Billington is an experienced and respected author on Eastern religion and philosophy. His books include _Understanding Eastern Philospophy_, _Living Philosophy_ and _East of Existentialism_, all published by Routledge. He also writes occasional journalism most notably as a contributor to _The Guardian's 'Face to Faith'_ column. An ex-Methodist minister and onetime chaplain with the SAS, he has now retired from his post as Principal Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England. (shrink)

Urbaniana University Journal 73.3 (2020): 73-99. -/- A close reading of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion reveals that it is not what it appears. Rather than a work of natural theology, meant to show something about arguments concerning the existence and nature of God, the Dialogues turn out to embody a moral pedagogy exemplifying and attempting to instill a conception of piety and religion as virtues. This paper defends this interpretation by reviewing three alternative, but ultimately inadequate, interpretations (...) of the text, and then compares Hume’s moral pedagogy with that of Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae to highlight the ambition, and the limitation,of Hume’s attempt to characterize piety without metaphysics. (shrink)

I take up the question of how models of extended cognition might redirect the academic study of religion. Entering into a conversation of sorts with Emile Durkheim and Bruno Latour regarding the "overtakenness" of social agency, I argue that a robust portrait of extended cognition must redirect our interest in explaining religion in two key ways. First, religious studies should take up the methodological principle of symmetry that informs contemporary histories of science and begin theorizing the efficacy of (...) gods as social actors. Second, theorists of religion should begin noting how the work required to construct spaces in which the gods appear depends on the construction of disciplined and capable subjects. (shrink)

In 1992, Peter Ochs and a few Christian and Muslim colleagues began to gather small groups, in and outside the classroom, to practice close and attentive reading of the sacred Scriptures of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions. The hope was that members of different religions could hear one another through the patient, respectful reading of each other's Scripture. Hearing each other, participants might enter into interreligious relationships that might point a way to the peaceful engagement of religions--especially those who, (...) after September 11, 2001, too often found themselves at each other's throats. It was a hope for religion without violence. In Religion without Violence, Ochs reflects on the practical and philosophic lessons he has learned from hosting hundreds of Scriptural Reasoning engagements. He introduces the "scriptural pragmatism" of Scriptural Reasoning." He painstakingly recounts instances of successful scriptural reasoning and warns where and how it might fail. He provides guidance on how to introduce and facilitate Scriptural Reasoning in the classroom. He shows how reading out of the "hearth" of a faith can contribute to peace building across religions. And, drawing on the resources of rabbinic tradition, Augustine, and Charles Peirce, he moves beyond practice to reflect on the implications of Scriptural Reasoning for discerning what kinds of "reasoning" best address and help repair societal crises like religion-related violent conflict. (shrink)

In his learned and insightful reading of the eighteenth-century German–Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Gideon Freudenthal clearly wants to rescue him from total irrelevance. For Freudenthal claims that “Mendelssohn’s philosophy of Judaism—and of religion in general—can be defended and, in fact, still deserves contemporary interest” (12). But does Mendelssohn’s philosophy deserve the interest of philosophers who are interested in what is still significant in the present first for themselves and then for everybody else; or perhaps it deserves the interest only (...) of historians of ideas who are interested only in what was significant in the past for those who lived then? (Let it be assumed that a philosopher .. (shrink)

A decade has passed since the breaking out of the ‘Arabic Spring’ revolutionary phenomena all over the Arab World’s societies. Many challenging and radically intriguing developments and ramifications have eventuated out of that era and led the Arab World’s context into unchartered territories of existence and self-understanding. This essay pauses at one of the particular challenges that faces this Sitz im Leben, namely the question of identity-formation and self-perception processes. It argues that the Arab states do manifest in their political (...) and statehood situations a political situation of democracy that is run by ‘non-democrats’. The essay then suggests that this democracy of non-democrats is the outcome of the prevalence of an identity-formation and self-perception rationales that are rooted in crudely religious Weltanschauung that, far from maintaining distinction and particularity individually and communally, turns alterity into a self-otherizing dogma expressive of contrariety and stark divisive and discriminative relatedness to the other. The essay, finally, suggests that liberating the identity-formation process from the dogmatic attempt at turning religion into ‘identity’ per se is the first required step towards a more cross-pollinating and symbiotic relationality between the different persons and groups who live in that context. (shrink)

What can transcendence mean for us? We live in a world in which there are many conceptions of transcendence. Some philosophers say that they all point, in their way, to a transcendent realm, without which death and life's sorrows have the last word, while their opponents argue that since this realm is an illusion, we must use our own resources to meet life's trials. Others argue that moral and religious concepts of transcendence are obscured by philosophical notions of transcendence, (...) and must be rescued from them. These conflicting views on a central issue in our culture are brought into sharp relief in the present collection. (shrink)