2025-11-09
28 分钟Hello everyone, I'm Steven West.
This is Philosophize This.
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Hope you love it today.
So when Charles Taylor writes a book in 2002 called The Varieties of Religion Today,
it's a reference to a book written a hundred years before
that by the philosopher William James called The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Now this book by James has become world famous for a few big things
that he does in it, one of which is going to be him laying
out a famous description right near the beginning of the book of what a religious experience even is.
William James says essentially look, if we're talking about religion,
go into church on Sunday and get in a sermon delivered to you by a pastor.
That's wonderful and all, but that's not the core of what it is to have a religious experience.
That's not what religion really is.
Religion, he says, is something that goes on in the heart of an individual.
It's a personal experience when an individual feels a connection to whatever it is they call the divine.
And when they feel this transcendent moment connected to something that's beyond this world,
He's saying that's where a religious experience really goes on.
It's certainly not in some building down the street where a bunch of people meet up and like to sing songs together.
In fact, most religions start in the same way, James says.