The Real Nature of Religion

101:7.1An idea is only a the­o­ret­i­cal plan for ac­tion, while a pos­i­tive de­ci­sion is a val­i­dated plan of ac­tion. A stereo­type is a plan of ac­tion ac­cepted with­out val­i­da­tion. The ma­te­ri­als out of which to build a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion are de­rived from both the in­ner and the en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual. The so­cial sta­tus, eco­nomic con­di­tions, ed­u­ca­tional op­por­tu­ni­ties, moral trends, in­sti­tu­tional in­flu­ences, po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, racial ten­den­cies, and the re­li­gious teach­ings of one’s time and place all be­come fac­tors in the for­mu­la­tion of a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion. Even the in­her­ent tem­per­a­ment and in­tel­lec­tual bent markedly de­ter­mine the pat­tern of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy. Vo­ca­tion, mar­riage, and kin­dred all in­flu­ence the evo­lu­tion of one’s per­sonal stan­dards of life.

101:7.2A phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion evolves out of a ba­sic growth of ideas plus ex­per­i­men­tal liv­ing as both are mod­i­fied by the ten­dency to im­i­tate as­so­ciates. The sound­ness of philo­sophic con­clu­sions de­pends on keen, hon­est, and dis­crim­i­nat­ing think­ing in con­nec­tion with sen­si­tiv­ity to mean­ings and ac­cu­racy of eval­u­a­tion. Moral cow­ards never achieve high planes of philo­sophic think­ing; it re­quires cour­age to in­vade new lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence and to at­tempt the ex­plo­ration of un­known realms of in­tel­lec­tual liv­ing.

101:7.3Pres­ently new sys­tems of val­ues come into ex­is­tence; new for­mu­la­tions of prin­ci­ples and stan­dards are achieved; habits and ide­als are re­shaped; some idea of a per­sonal God is at­tained, fol­lowed by en­larg­ing con­cepts of re­la­tion­ship thereto.

101:7.4The great dif­fer­ence be­tween a re­li­gious and a non­re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing con­sists in the na­ture and level of rec­og­nized val­ues and in the ob­ject of loy­al­ties. There are four phases in the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy: Such an ex­pe­ri­ence may be­come merely con­for­ma­tive, re­signed to sub­mis­sion to tra­di­tion and au­thor­ity. Or it may be sat­is­fied with slight at­tain­ments, just enough to sta­bi­lize the daily liv­ing, and there­fore be­comes early ar­rested on such an ad­ven­ti­tious level. Such mor­tals be­lieve in let­ting well enough alone. A third group pro­gress to the level of log­i­cal in­tel­lec­tu­al­ity but there stag­nate in con­se­quence of cul­tural slav­ery. It is in­deed piti­ful to be­hold gi­ant in­tel­lects held so se­curely within the cruel grasp of cul­tural bond­age. It is equally pa­thetic to ob­serve those who trade their cul­tural bond­age for the ma­te­ri­al­is­tic fet­ters of a sci­ence, falsely so called. The fourth level of phi­los­o­phy at­tains free­dom from all con­ven­tional and tra­di­tional hand­i­caps and dares to think, act, and live hon­estly, loy­ally, fear­lessly, and truth­fully.

101:7.5The acid test for any re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy con­sists in whether or not it dis­tin­guishes be­tween the re­al­i­ties of the ma­te­rial and the spir­i­tual worlds while at the same mo­ment rec­og­niz­ing their uni­fi­ca­tion in in­tel­lec­tual striv­ing and in so­cial serv­ing. A sound re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy does not con­found the things of God with the things of Cae­sar. Nei­ther does it rec­og­nize the aes­thetic cult of pure won­der as a sub­sti­tute for re­li­gion.

101:7.6Phi­los­o­phy trans­forms that prim­i­tive re­li­gion which was largely a fairy tale of con­science into a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the as­cend­ing val­ues of cos­mic re­al­ity.