1. Christianity Approach
1.1. 19th Century Classification
1.1.1. 1. Christianity
1.1.2. 2. Judaism
1.1.3. 3. Islam
1.1.4. 4. Paganism
1.2. "My Religion is true approach"
1.2.1. Only Christian beliefs are true
1.2.2. Other beliefs are false at best or demonic at worse
1.3. Biblical religion
1.3.1. Based on divine revelations
1.3.2. Affirms final revelation of salvation in Christ
1.3.3. Commandment to define false idols and the One True God
1.4. Reasons for existence of other religions
1.4.1. 1. Creation of evil forces
1.4.2. 2. Historical diffusion from monotheism
1.4.3. 3. Contain Christian truths
1.4.4. 4. Inferior in practices and beliefs
1.4.5. 5. Express innate, independent spiritual capacity
1.5. Study
1.5.1. 1. How Christianity is true
1.5.2. 2. How other religions are false
1.5.3. 3. How to convert people away from false religions
2. Universalistic Approach
2.1. Definition
2.1.1. "All religions contain common spiritual realities"
2.2. Examples
2.2.1. 1. Bahaism
2.2.2. 2. Hinduism
2.3. Views
2.3.1. All religions are partially true as each religion is recognised as a branch under the divine tree
2.4. Study
2.4.1. Look for similarities between religions
2.4.1.1. Prove that religions lie under same divine tree
3. Rationalistic Approach
3.1. Definition
3.1.1. 1. Reason as man's highest faculty and achievement
3.1.2. 2. Oppose supernatural explanations
3.1.3. 3. Age of religion as giving way to age of science
3.2. Claims
3.2.1. Origin of religions
3.2.1.1. 1. Reliance on magic
3.2.1.2. 2. Worship of dead
3.2.1.3. 3. Veneration of natural objects
3.2.1.4. 4. Animism
3.2.1.5. 5. Polytheism
3.2.1.6. 6. Fetishism
3.2.1.7. 7. Class conflict
3.2.1.8. 8. Sacredness of collective values
3.2.1.9. 9. Psychological immaturity
3.3. History
3.3.1. Since 18th century
3.3.1.1. 1. Most common non-religious framework to explain religions
3.3.1.2. 2. Defines "Age of Science" and "Age of Enlightenment"
3.3.1.3. 3. Attempt to replace supernatural thinking with naturalistic thinking
3.3.1.4. 4. Reason is the only valid source of knowledge
3.4. Outcome
3.4.1. Demoting religion
3.4.1.1. Cause
3.4.1.1.1. 1. Religion is related to revelation and miracles
3.4.1.1.2. 2. Viewed as outside realm of rationalistic system of knowledge
3.4.1.2. Consequences
3.4.1.2.1. 1. Religion is relegated to separate and self-contained domain
3.4.1.2.2. 2. Public schools in secular countries banned teaching of religion, with contrast to atheistic writing being banned by religion before this age
3.4.2. Triumph of science
3.4.2.1. Definition
3.4.2.1.1. 1. The world seems to subsist on its own without any need for the hypothesis of a creator god
3.4.2.1.2. 2. All events are explainable as acts of nature
3.4.2.1.3. 3. Physical sciences dismantled the biblical view of the outer world
3.4.2.1.4. 4. Human sciences undermined the religious image of human nature
3.5. Views
3.5.1. 1. Supernatural beliefs are unscientific and unfounded
3.5.2. 2. Supernatural beliefs are products of primitive and pre-critical thinking
3.5.3. 3. Religion represents childhood of thoughts and humanity's early attempt to conceive and explain the unknown, fearful, forces of nature, life and death
3.5.4. 4. Religion is a mentality untrained by rational criteria, with no boundary between fact and imagination
3.5.5. 5. Consider religious explanation as its own polar opposite
3.6. Pivotal figure
3.6.1. David Hune (1711-1776)
3.6.1.1. Beliefs
3.6.1.1.1. 1. Refuse to privilege any part of religious thought
3.6.1.1.2. 2. Formulate systematic arguments against religious claims for theism and revelation
3.6.1.1.3. 3."Religion arises due to ignorant, mistaken inferences about true causes"
3.6.1.1.4. 4. Advocate for a complete “science of man"
3.6.1.2. Influence
3.6.1.2.1. His philosophical influence was far-reaching and has extended to the present
4. Deism
4.1. 17th - 18th Century, England and France
4.2. Definition
4.2.1. 1. Half-way between religion and science
4.2.2. 2. Believe in God but reject revelation as a source of religious knowledge
4.2.3. 3. Affirm reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe
4.2.4. 4. Challenge narrow- minded beliefs in miracles and supernatural explanations
5. Evolutionism
5.1. Late 19th century
5.2. Definition
5.2.1. Another rationalistic framework to interpret development of religious thought
5.3. Pivotal Figure
5.3.1. Charles Darwin
5.3.1.1. "The Origin of Species" (1859)
5.3.2. Outcome
5.3.2.1. 1. Religious ideas can be confidently and explicitly traced to early, “primitive” societies
5.3.2.2. 2. Provide theories and speculations about origins of religion in the workings of archaic mentality
5.3.2.3. 3. Rise of anthropology: study of tribal cultures and the reconstruction of human beginnings
6. Animism
6.1. Pivotal Figure
6.1.1. Sir Edward B. Taylor
6.1.1.1. "Primitive Culture" (1871)
6.1.1.2. Animism is the earliest form of religion
6.2. Definition
6.2.1. 1. Religion begins with the belief in souls and spirits
6.2.2. 2. Explain appearance of animated figures in dream states
6.2.3. 3. Explain difference between the living body and the corpse
6.3. Beliefs
6.3.1. 1. No separation between spiritual and physical world
6.3.2. 2. Souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in some other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features
6.3.3. 3. Situated within an evolutionary framework of religion
6.3.3.1. Ultimately lead to humanity rejecting religion altogether in favor of scientific rationality
6.4. "Animism > Religion > Science"
6.4.1. "Magic > Religion > Science"
6.4.2. Explain origin of religious sentiment in feelings of impressiveness of nature
6.4.3. Proof that early humans ignorantly attributed spiritual agency to these forces
6.4.4. People first related to the world through mentality of magic, then through religious propitiation, and ultimately through science
7. Positivism
7.1. Definition
7.1.1. 1. Only what is verifiable by scientific method, that is, falsifiable, can produce real knowledge
7.1.2. 2. Presence of supernatural cannot be proved or disproved by any form of observation
7.2. Example
7.2.1. If one claims that God is the creator and maintainer of the world, but there is no evidence that could possibly disclaim this assertion, the belief must be empty and non-cognitive
8. Origin
8.1. Definition
8.1.1. 1. Religion is made out of human needs and projections
8.1.2. 2. Invention constructed of our own psychological, social symbols and experience
8.1.3. 3. Not just an error of mind, but to uncover actual generative source in human nature
8.2. Claims
8.2.1. “The divine” is not just a mistake, but a disguised symbol of human power and feeling
9. "The Death of God"
9.1. Pivotal figure
9.1.1. Middle of 19th Century
9.1.2. Friedrich Nietzsche
9.1.2.1. Claims
9.1.2.1.1. 1. A divine order becomes a human construct
9.1.2.1.2. 2. No question for a higher, more reasonable form of God
9.1.2.2. Outcome
9.1.2.2.1. Subsequent transfer of power to humanity
10. Pivotal Figures
10.1. 1. Ludwig Feuerbach
10.1.1. Representing work
10.1.1.1. "The Essence of Christianity" (1841)
10.1.1.1.1. Beliefs
10.1.2. Claims
10.1.2.1. 1. Religion is not “the divine” realising itself in humanity, but instead humanity’s own realisation of itself
10.1.2.2. 2. Religion is a characteristic of human nature to know itself through objectifications
10.1.2.3. 3. God is a projection of our own self- consciousness, imagined in pure form and made of human qualities of power, wisdom and love
10.1.2.4. 4. Religion is our dream, a mirror of our true nature
10.1.3. Issue
10.1.3.1. As everything holy is put into the Supreme Being, this makes human weak, submissive beings, opposite of the ideal god
10.1.4. Solution
10.1.4.1. Promote a religion that explicitly made humanity its object and a religion that reintegrated into human realisation
10.2. 2. Karl Marx
10.2.1. Claims on religion
10.2.1.1. 1. Humanly “produced”
10.2.1.2. 2. Specific origin in social and economic conflicts and needs
10.2.1.3. 3. All human consciousness is based on collective forces: a mirror of evolving social history and order
10.2.1.4. 4. Generated from social powerlessness; but can become a strategy of social control
10.2.1.5. 5. Dominant ideas of a society are the ideas of its ruling class
10.2.1.6. 6. Maintained by power and status
10.2.1.7. 7. “God” is a status-enhancing, manipulative symbol of such authority
10.2.1.8. 8. Arises out of need for a better world than social conditions of life offer
10.2.1.9. 9. An imagined solution to the despair over those conditions and a refuge from a world of troubles
10.2.1.10. 10. The sigh of oppressed creature and heart of a heartless world (opium of the people)
10.2.1.11. 11. An inverted, duplicate world mirroring in the reverse human condition - an imaginary other realm in which we seek solace and compensation
10.2.2. Marxist's beliefs
10.2.2.1. 1. Religious beliefs are made of stuff of human alienation
10.2.2.2. 2. Disappear when life on earth becomes livable and harmonious
10.2.2.3. 3. Real “good Samaritans” (charitable or helpful persons) treating the afflicted
10.2.2.4. 4. Religion is a symptom of an illness that will be cured, when people are no longer forced to dream of other worlds to give themselves dignity, and can instead establish the conditions of dignity in actual historical societies
10.2.3. Insistence on abolition of religion
10.2.3.1. 1. Required for human's real happiness
10.2.3.2. 2. "Demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions"
10.2.3.3. 3. Religious projections are mental errors and mistakes in reasoning
10.2.3.4. 4. Religious projections are compensatory symptoms and statements about very specific social realities
10.2.3.5. 5. Exploited class are the alienated while their religious distress is both expression of real distress and protest against it
10.2.4. Conclusion
10.2.4.1. 1. Imaginary universes of religion compensate in heaven our homelessness on earth
10.2.4.2. 2. Keeping the peasantry dependent on this subjection is the function of the ruling class
10.2.4.3. 3. Religion is the camouflage (cover-up) of social power
10.3. 3. Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
10.3.1. Claims about religion
10.3.1.1. 1. Projection of human wishes, and unconscious relationships
10.3.1.2. 2. Unconscious psychological motivations which produce and maintain religious symbols
10.3.1.3. 3. Deepest psychological motivations reflect emotional relationships
10.3.1.3.1. Avoid or come to terms with dependencies and traumas experienced in ego development
10.3.1.4. 4. Human ego is a fragile affair, beset on all sides by repressed, emotion-laden material from its past
10.3.1.5. 5. Collective neuroses and dreams that allow expressions and re-enactions to such unconscious contents
10.3.2. Representing work
10.3.2.1. General theory of unconscious sublimation
10.3.2.1.1. (People’s socially unacceptable impulses are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour)
10.3.2.2. The Future of an Illusion (1927)
10.3.3. Influence
10.3.3.1. 1. An influential model for explaining religion and culture
10.3.3.2. 2. Replaced centuries of prescientific ideas about mind with a new theory that featured discovery of an unconscious part of psyche