Sense and Senselessness in Religion: Reflections on Creation of the Sacred

Creation of the Sacred posits that ‘religion makes sense’. In so doing, it underestimates ‘the negative’. Its emphasis on the scientific basis for tradition, here called ‘scientistic traditionalism’, underestimates the role of critique and the function of dissent in the dialectics of tradition-building. For this reason, it also cannot ‘make sense’ of monotheism, which, in its many traditions, positions itself in opposition to mere biological imperatives.     

本教圣地黄龙风景名胜区的藏文化考察

在藏文化的视野中,黄龙是一方秀丽的山川,是一块宗教的圣地,是一座文化的宝库.黄龙藏语全称叫林青夏晓东日,简称东日,意思是东方的白螺圣山即简称白螺圣山.黄龙是本教母续二十五所道场中的一所,它的主人是一对被神格化了的夫妇,他们都是藏人保家护教之神.黄龙成为藏人心中圣地的历史可以追溯到四千年前的本祖辛饶米奥时代.多少年来,无论是历代本教大师还是普通信徒无不对黄龙的魅力增添无限的遇想,演绎许多美丽的传说.随着旅游事业的发展黄龙正面临着前所未有的机遇和挑战.     

Signs and Symbols of Sacred Reality in Old Testament Religion

In this paper, I propose to deal with various sacred realities that helped the people of Israel deepen their relationship with God over the years: die Ark of the Covenant, die desert Tabernacle, die Temple, die Sabbath and other feasts, die synagogue, religious meals and creation itself.     

The Sacred Sites of Houston: A Novel Experiential Course for Undergraduate Medical Education on Religion and Spirituality

Journal of Religion and Health - Medical schools are charged to deliver a curriculum on religion and spirituality (R/S), so a novel experiential course, the Sacred Sites of Houston, was developed....     

The Varieties of Sacred Experience: Finding the Sacred in a Secular Grove

This paper contends that the social scientific study of religion has long labored under a chafing constraint and a misleading premise. It suggests that our primary focus should be on the sacred, and that religion is just one among many possible sources of the sacred. Defining religion "substantively" but the sacred "functionally" helps toresolve a long-standing tension in the field. Broadened conceptions of the sacred and of "sacralization" help to defuse the conflict among the two very different versions of secularization theory: the "all-or-nothing" versus the "middle range." Meanwhile, a conceptual typology of the sacred pivots around the intersections of two distinctions (compensatory vs. confirmatory and marginal vs. institutional). This generatesfour distinct scenarios: the sacred as integrative, the sacred as quest, the sacred as collectivity, and the sacred as counter-culture. The paper concludes with three admonitions for research in the area.     

Psychoanalysis: The Sacred and the Profane

Colleagues from a variety of perspectives have written about the propensity to enshrine psychoanalytic theory. The meaning of the word “enshrine” is to cherish as sacred an idea or philosophy and protect it from change. In other words, the way we view psychoanalysis, our theories of mind and technique, become holy writ and we have divided the world of theory into the sacred and the profane. This is the kiss of death for theory, which must constantly evolve and change, but comforting for the analyst who believes he is on the side of the right, the sacred. In this paper I will discuss how our propensity to enshrine theory has had a debilitating effect on the development of psychoanalysis and, in particular, as a treatment for the most vulnerable people who seek our help. I also address the idea that movement away from enshrined positions allows us to construct different versions of reality. In this context, the notion of “action at a distance” is presented along with the attendant idea of psychoanalytic entanglement.