Why is there this great divide between modernity (and postmodernity) and religion? Usually this dilemma is phrased as something like a war between science and religion (or spirituality) or the divide between the modern rational world and the traditional religions of the Middle Ages. While most people (in the West at least) have a general agreed upon definition for the words "modernity" and "science," religion tends to mean a different thing depending on the person, especially in the West (below are standard dictionary definitions for these words). To answer this question I need to explain and clarify I few things.

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned several individuals who have studied the development of certain skills, knowledge bases, and capacities within individuals, across cultures and within cultures. From the Defining Religion thread:I have come to believe that only with an understanding of developmental psychology (and developmental sociology or cultural evolution) can we understand the social and personal unfolding of humanity through personal growth and collective history in both its healthy forms and pathological forms.

From the research it appears that there are at least two dozen lines that develop relatively independently from each other, at different rates, different dynamics, and on a different time schedule -- such as: "morals, affect, self-identity, psychosexuality, cognition, ideas of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that could be called 'spiritual' (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), joy, communicative competence, modes of space and time, death-seizure, needs, worldviews, logico-mathematical competence, kinesthetic skills, gender identity, and empathy -- to name a few of the more prominent developmental lines for which we have some empirical evidence." 1 A person can be fairly highly developed in some lines, not so much in others, and very little in still others, all at the same time. Yet, the sum total of all of these lines, overall development will show no linear development. However, the research shows that development along these lines is sequential (higher stages building upon and incorporating earlier stages), no stages can be skipped, and stages unfold in an order that cannot be altered by environmental or social conditions. While the focus of these researchers is each along their own interests their research does agree that generally all lines develop "through the same general set of waves (stages): a physical/sensorimotor/preconventional stage, a concrete actions/conventional stage, and a more abstract, formal, postconventional stage." 2

An example of the different developmental lines, the focus of the researchers and the names of those researchers found on page 60 of Ken Wilber's Integral Spirituality.
Developmental Lines, Life's Questions, and Researchers
Line Life's Questions Researchers
Cognitive What am I aware of? Jean Piaget, Robert Kegan
Self Who am I? Jane Loevinger
Values What is significant to me? Clare Graves, Spiral Dynamics
Moral What should I do? Lawrence Kohlberg
Interpersonal How should we interact? Robert Selman, Perry
Spiritual What is of ultimate concern? James Fowler
Needs What do I need? Abraham Maslow
Kinesthetic How should I physically do this? Howard Gardner
Emotional How do I feel about this? Daniel Goleman
Aesthetic What is attractive to me? Abigail Housen

In generalized terms the basic dynamics of development from one stage to another involves differentiating or disidentifying with one's present level and beginning to identify with the next higher level. One becomes aware that they are not of the same substance or of the same kind at one level of being and begins to differentiate that level from a higher order of selfhood. With the developmental scheme I presented in my earlier post "an example of Wilber's standard map of the stages of self-sense -- basic cognitive structure -- his stages of worldview -- and major epochs":

The 'material self' begins to differentiate between the material world and its own body. The higher order of being, the body-ego begins to identify with its own bodily felt impulses and emotions within a fused state. Then the process starts over, but this time the 'body-ego' begins to differentiate its impulses and emotions from the body and begins to identify with its rule and the roles within the kinship group (family, tribe, nation). It is beginning to become a "person" in the true sense of the word, but that 'persona' is defined by their role within the group (girl or boy; child of mommy and daddy; servant or slave of master and lord). Culturally, within this moment of development, nation and religion are non-differentiated. The average mode of consciousness is "unaware" of any functional or actual difference between tribal-national symbols and religious symbols, or actual symbols of transcendence. One's "role" within society are embedded within the "rules" of society (and at this stage that mean the "rules" of religion). Once the person begins to develop the capacity to differentiate one's role from one's "self" as an individual, 'ego' formation is nearly complete. With this capacity one is capable of differentiating the "rules" of religion from society and begin to question them in a more objective manner.

Now, in a very simplistic form I just describe "healthy" development, but things can go wrong. At each stage a person differentiates certain aspects of themselves that they had been unconsciously embedded within. The 'material self' differentiates the material world from their 'body-ego.' The 'persona' differentiates their impulses and emotions from their body. The 'ego' differentiates their role from their 'self' and the rules of the community. At each stage, hopefully, they reintegrate those differentiated aspects back into their 'self,' but now in a conscious, aware manner. But those aspects can also be dissociated and repressed or clung to and fixated upon. The body-ego does not have the capacity to repress its impulses and emotions, since the body-ego is in a fused state, embedded with them. The 'ego' does have the capacity to repress and dissociate those impulses and emotions. It can deny them and refuse to integrate them within its own self-system. It can also fixate or become obsessive about them or that level of being. One can refuse to grow up (fixate) and one can deny (repress) -- neither is healthy. This can happen collectively as well. A culture can deny certain inherent "natural" aspects of its members. It can dissociate from those aspects. Look at my developmental scheme again and notice the correlates to the self-sense and the basic cognitive structure and stages of worldview.

pre-conventional/pre-rational
1. material self -- sensation/perception -- archaic --
2. body-ego -- impulse/emotional -- magical --
conventional/rational (though the rational aspect only begins during the mature persona stage)
3. persona -- role-rule/concept -- mythic --
4. ego -- formal logic -- rational --
post-conventional/post-rational or trans-rational (this phase actually begins during the mature ego stage)
5. centaur -- vision logic -- holistic/integration --
6. soul -- archetypal -- psychic/subtle --
7. spirit -- formless -- causal/nondual --

So how did things unfold in history, specifically in Western European history.

The phrase, "'Modern history' ... historians ... are really drawing our attention to a process, for they apply it to the era in which the modern Atlantic world emerged from the tradition-dominated, agrarian, superstitious and confined western Christendom of the Middle Ages, and this took place at different times in different countries. In England it happened very rapidly, in Spain it was far from complete by 1800, while much of eastern Europe was still hardly affected by it even a century later." 3 [Emphasis mine.]

That "tradition-dominated, agrarian, superstitious" cultural, in this case the western Christendom of the Middle Ages, is an example of a mythic level worldview culture. As Jurgen Habermas explains in The Theory of Communicative Action"... worldviews lay down the framework of fundamental concepts within which we interpret everything that appears in the world in a specific way as something. ... they in turn make possible utterances that admit of truth. To this extent they have a relation, albeit indirect, to truth ..." 4

The characteristics of a mythic worldview have been clearly distinguished by anthropologist, sociologists and developmental psychologists. "...magical-animistic characteristics of mythical worldviews can be understood ... [as] the peculiar leveling of the different domains of reality :nature and culture are projected onto the same plane." 5 Habermas reports, "From Durkheim to Levi-Strauss, anthropologists have repeatedly out the peculiar confusion between nature and culture." [His emphasis] He continues, "Myths do not permit a clear, basic, conceptual differentiation between things and persons, between objects that can be manipulated and agents -- subjects capable of speaking and acting to whom we attribute linguistic utterances." Within the mythic worldview, "Moral failure is conceptually interwoven with physical failure, as is evil with harmful, and good with the healthy and the advantageous. [Again his emphasis]. Habermas points out how a modern "rational" worldview differs from this mythic confusion -- "the demythologization of worldviews means the desocialization of nature and the denatureization of society."

But this is not the only confusion found within the mythic worldview. Continuing with Habermas, "Mythical interpretation of the world and magical control of the world can intermesh smoothly because internal and external relations are still conceptually integrated. Evidently there is not yet any precise concept for the nonempirical validity that we ascribe to symbolic expressions [i.e. language]. ... -- in mythic thought diverse validity claims, such as propositional truth, normative rightness, and expressive sincerity are not yet differentiated." 6

And here's the difficult dilemma faced by the mythic worldview -- "mythic worldviews prevent us from categorically uncoupling nature and culture, not only through conceptually mixing the objective and social worlds but also through reifying the linguistic worldview. As a result the concept of the world is dogmatically invested with a specific content that is withdrawn from rational discussion and thus from criticism." To make matters worse, "an analogous mixing of domains of reality can be shown as well for the relationship of culture and internal nature or the subjective world. Only to the extent that the formal concept of an external world develops -- of an objective world of existing state of affairs and of a social world of norms -- can the complementary concept of the internal world or of subjectivity arise, that is, a world to which the individual has privilege access and to which everything is attributed that cannot be incorporated in the external world. Only against this background of an objective world, and measured against criticizable claims of truth and efficacy, can beliefs appear as systematically false, action intentions as systematically hopeless, and thoughts as fantasies, as mere imaginings." "To the degree that mythical worldviews hold sway over cognition and orientations for action, a clear demarcation of a domain of subjectivity is apparently not possible." 7

What we see during the early modern age in Europe (between 1500 and 1800) is the death struggles of a mythic worldview and the painful birth experience of a rational worldview. "The old formal hierarchies were under pressure where strain was imposed upon them by increasing economic mobility, by the growth of towns, by the rise of a market economy, by the appearance of new commercial opportunities and by the spread of literacy and awareness." 8

The worldview of western Christendom, embodied within the Roman Catholic Church, was undermined by its own hypocrisies and inconsistencies, as well as, the development of a more humanistic, rational, and skeptical intellectual current running through religious life. This was seen first within the Church by the Dutchman Erasmus who taught how to disentangle "logic and therefore the teaching of the faith from the scholastic mummification of Aristotelian philosophy." 9

End Part 1

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Part 2

This set the stage for Martin Luther, a German Augustinian monk, who after becoming offended by the practice of selling indulgences (the proceeds went toward the building of St. Pete's in Rome) which guaranteed the remittance of sins for transgressions in this life), on October 21, 1517, nailed to the church door in Latin 95 theses setting out his positive views on salvation. A few things came together to make this moment of heresy very different than others. German politics, the printing press, the general dissatisfaction with papal authority and a well grounded anti-cleric mood by many throughout Europe, and a truly individualistic expression of salvation that cut at the root of the Church's authority. Luther believed in presenting "God as a forgiving God, not a punitive one." His original theses were not theological in nature, but soon his arguments went beyond the grounds of reform in practice and began question papal authority and Church doctrine directly. He "preached that men were justified -- that is set aside for salvation -- not by observance of the sacraments only ('works,' as this was called), but by faith. This was, clearly, an intensely individualist position. It struck at the root of traditional teaching which saw no salvation possible outside the Church." [My emphasis] 10

After nailing his 95 theses to the church door, his words were translated into German and circulated everywhere in Germany. Frederick of Saxony, the ruler of Luther's state refused to surrender him (which saved his life). Luther's order abandoned him, his university did not. He was excommunicated in 1520. Luther burned the papal bull of excommunication along with books of canon law. He refused to retract his views before the imperial Diet and in 1521 Charles V placed him under the Imperial Ban. Luther was kidnapped for his protection by a sympathetic prince. Germany was on the verge of civil war, Europe would never be the same and the supremacy of the Church fell. By 1555, Germany was divided between Protestant and Catholic states.

Politics and religion had been essentially of the same one fused view ("projected onto the same plane"), but now they began to differentiate from one another. They were still very much entangled, but now it was an entanglement of support or rejection rather than a confusion between the two. It was the beginning of further differentiations. But it must be noted that this differentiation was only partial and made possible through the rise of a new mythic worldview, Protestantism. The Protestant Reformation undercut the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and it did so by presenting a "clearly individualist" (rational) answer to salvation and rested this upon a much more personal (rationalistic) interpretation of the Bible, against the authority of the Church's ideal of 'works' and the authorized interpretations of scripture. As the rational level developed within individuals it first sought to "give reasons" for their belief in myths. It sought to "rationalize" the mythic worldview.

As all of this was happening within the religious domain, things were changing on other fronts. In Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, he presents the revolutions that undermined the cosmological foundation upon which Christendom rested: The Columbian revolution 1492 (geography), 1543 the Copernican revolution (heliocentric), 1638 Newtonian revolution (physics-gravity), the Kant-Laplace revolution extended backwards Newton's laws to present a theory of the evolution of universe, 1785 the Huttonian revolution (geology -- the formation of the earth), 1859 Darwinian revolution (evolution), 1905 the Einstein revolution (physics-relativity), which explained the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887. Each of these in turn destroyed the cosmology of Christendom forever. 11

Campbell outlines four functions that a complete mythology serves.

1. The metaphysical-mystical prospect, "the properly religious function, ... is to awaken and maintain in the individual an experience of awe, humility, and respect, in recognition of that ultimate mystery, transcending names and forms, 'from which,' as we read in the Upanishads, 'words turn back." 12
2. The cosmological prospect, "The second function of a mythology is to render a cosmology, an image of the universe, and for this we all turn today, of course, not to archaic religious texts but to science." 13 I quoted above Campbell's presentation of the scientific revolutions that brought about the downfall of the authority of the Church and neutered its 'power' to fulfill the cosmological function of mythology.
3. The social prospect, the "third traditional mythological function: the validation and maintenance of an established order." 14 An order that establishes a social moral sphere which all agree.
4. The psychological prospect, "the fourth function of an adequate mythology: the centering and harmonization of the individual, which in traditional systems was supposed to follow upon a giving of oneself, and even giving up of oneself altogether, to some one or another ..." 15 Campbell reports, "as Loren Eiseley states: 'The group ethic as distinct from personal ethics is faceless and obscure. It is whatever its leaders choose it to mean; it destroys the innocent and justifies the act in terms of the future." 16
Each of these functions had been fulfilled for over 3000 years by religion (a mythic worldview religion), but with the rise of the rational worldview on a collective level the whole thing came crashing down.

But why didn't religion just go away then?

First, EVERYONE is born at stage one. Each individual starts from the beginning and must grow through each stage, and only by passing through each stage (developing a basic competence at each level) can ANYONE develop up to and beyond the rational ego level. Religion is the only system that presents the lower truths of the archaic, magic, and mythic levels of being, and those truths (stage specific and partial truths) must be integrated for later healthy development. Without religion each and every child would need to make it all up, and while the Romantics among us may claim that is how it should be, anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies understands the dangers of raising a child without guidance. The second reason religion has not just gone away: regardless of which worldview one has developed, the functions of religion (in the sense of Campbell's four functions of mythology) serve certain psychological and social needs for ourselves individually and for the group we identify. While the questions we ask and the answers that satisfy us may change over time as we develop, the function(s) of religion still fulfills certain required needs. In this sense, science is just as capable of fulfilling some of the functions of a mythology.

With the development of the ego (the center of gravity of the self at the rational worldview) on a collective scale, supported by the cognitive structure of formal logic, which demanded evidence of and from the senses (Locke), the Age of Reason was born. Prior to the Age of Reason those few individuals who developed up to this stage (or beyond) made their mark in history by being squashed by the dominate mythic worldview, which demanded faith. Socrates was condemned to death. Galileo had to recant his heretical assertions that the Earth circled the sun.

But note: It wasn't the case that suddenly science and morals and art (and all the rest) appeared on the scene for the first time. There was science and morals and art during the Middle Ages, during the Mythic Age of humanity, but they were each embedded within the mythic worldview, fused to the "rules" of the community and one's "role" within that community. One of the clearest examples of this new development, this ability to differentiate science (reason), morals, and art, are the works of Immanuel Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. No earlier philosopher (except possibly Socrates and Plato) would have ever considered addressing these questions without the support of some form of religious authority. The Critique of Pure Reason established the limits of science (the rational world) and essentially crushed the philosophical ground of metaphysics as practiced by religion. The Critique of Practical Reason set forward a way of morality within the rational worldview. The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment established a foundation for evaluating art, how to and what is considered 'the beautiful," within a rational worldview. Prior to this time, each of these, was embedded within mythic-religion and developed and practiced, in a sense, in an unconscious manner.

So when people make claims that religion, "b[y] it's nature of virtual survival, exists to put down other belief systems as a means of gaining and maintaining followers," - noahath, or "Many religions promote bigoted and dogmatic values which cause the world to become a worse place to live for the few rational people who reside here," - Straight Talk, or "Religion is that human thought process that makes one a slave to another," - CDavid Neely, or "Religion is a human created ideology intended to divide the common people and allow the consolidation of power among the elite," - TomBlaze, (all of which are a variation of Marx's statement that religion is "an opium of the masses") -- what they are pointing toward is not "religion" as a separate distinct thing in its self, separate from the rules of a community or the roles within the community, but to a time period when religion, art, morals, and science (along with politics, economics, psychology and all the rest) were fused together in an unconscious manner. We "moderns" are projecting our rational mentality, which has differentiated religion, art, morals and science (along with all the rest), onto a time period when no such differentiation has taken place on a collective level. [These claims were made on the Defining Religion thread.]

End Part 2

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Part 3

When people ask or claim, "Which wars of the past 1000 years have NOT been fought over religion?" - noahath, or "It manifests hate and intolerance and is responsible for the more deaths throughout human history than war and cancer combined." I would say that they projecting their modern understanding of religion (as a separate aspect of life, both inner and communal) onto a time when no such understanding existed. When someone asks, "Which wars of the past 1000 years have NOT been fought over religion?" I would answer very few wars have ever been fought over or for religion only. Even though so-called 'Wars of Religion' in Europe between the forces of Protestantism and the Counter-Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church were very much driven by politics. During the Crusades, religion was used as a rallying cry (just as nationalistic slogans were used during the wars of Napoleon, the American Revolution, the Crimean, the World Wars, and today in Iraq), but they were not "wars over religion." The West felt threatened by the advance of the Islamic Middle East (and there were population pressures Europe was dealing with). To say that the Crusades were "religious wars" is to ignore a host of factors that had nothing to do with religion and to forget that at that time, both the Christian West and the Islamic Middle East were cultures with mythic worldviews that had not differentiated science, morals, and art.

Within oneself the ego has the capacity to differentiate mind and body, reason and religion. In the Age of Reason culture was able to differentiate the value spheres of morals, art, and science. Prior to the Age of Reason (the West's Age of Enlightenment Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) there was morals, art, and science, but they were undifferentiated and embedded within the Church. With the rise of the Age of Reason, science, art, and morals were able to expand and develop without the straightjacket of Dogma restricting their insights or their areas of study. Science free from those restrictions was able to accomplish tremendous innovations and develop new fields of thought never before dreamed. Reason became the governing principle behind governance and eventually it became the guiding principle behind culture, while the Church had to surrender its position of authority. Not that it gave up without a fight.

Voltaire yelled, "Remember the cruelities!" While he was specifically referring to what he considered the crimes of religion, in fact these were the crimes of a mythic level worldview. The rational worldview championed reason and science and materialism, the mythic worldview (of Europe) championed Biblical literalism, the authority of tradition, and the conventional morality of the herd. Both denied any higher levels other than their own. The Romantic tradition did promote religious feeling, but denied any kind of transcendent spiritual intellect beyond reason. This, of course, opened one up to confusing regressive engagements for transcendent insights and practices.

The rational worldview (specifically materialistic scientism) reduced all occasions and things to little more than frisky dirt. The mythic worldview fixated on one level of being as the only really real spiritual. The Romantics acknowledged religious feelings (which it had in common with scientism, the Romantics were in the rational camp), but deny spiritual insights that claim any transcendence of feelings. With the differentiation of the value spheres (art, morals, and science) and with the great innovations of science, the value spheres flew apart and disassociated. But those value spheres were incomplete.

For obvious and logical reasons the leading intellectuals of the West rejected the mythic God, but unfortunately they also rejected the whole spiritual line of development. The traditionalists fixated on mythic level spirituality, but denied any higher level(s) spiritual insights. The Romantics identified feelings only as spiritual, so they tended to champion (or at least confuse) regression as the only way to spiritual truths.

For a brief period there was the attempt to promote a rational level religion in the form of Deism, but it was a dry mechanistic rationalism that had no injunctions that could lead to higher level insights. There was also the attempt to promote a centauric level religion, with the German Idealists, but again there was no injunctions that could open one up to higher level insights. It was all empty metaphysics without the required practices that could open one up to an actual experience of the intuitions being pointed toward.

With the rejection of the spiritual line of development, art and morals was asked to take up the task of "ultimate concern," but art and morals could not carry that weight. Science (rational materialism) invade everywhere and gutted the soul out of living. Science cannot answer what is right or wrong. Science cannot answer what is beautiful. And science cannot answer what should be our "ultimate concern." When the value spheres differentiated there should have been a differentiation of art, morals, science, AND spirituality. But spirit was considered ridiculous, regressive, or pathological. All because of a confusion between the spiritual line of development with the spiritual level of the mythic God. Spirit was repressed.

At the core of all authentic contemplative traditions are certain practices that allow, encourage, open one up to a direct experiencing of the deeper level (higher level) spiritual insights that transcend any culturally created dogma. We see this in the practices of centering prayer, contemplative prayer, calm abiding, mindfulness, self witnessing and the many other injunctions that can be found in nearly all of the world's great traditions (though not necessarily promoted by all sects or denominations of each of the world's traditions). In a sense, these practices are the microscopes and telescopes of the spirit. If you want to know something, you must do something. What that something is, is determined by what you want to know. If you want to know what runs through our veins and arteries, you must learn how to take samples of that stuff that runs through your veins and arteries and learn how to use a microscope properly. Then you must "look through" the microscope. After that you compare your findings with others who have done the same experiment. If you want to know what Shakespeare meant when he wrote Hamlet, then you must learn how to read Elizabethan English and train in textual and historical analysis and read the play. If you want to understand if Einstein was correct with his equation E=MC2 then you must study and obtain the appropriate level of mathematic skill, along with the appropriate level of knowledge in basic and theoretical physics and then engage in the required experimentation that will confirm and/or deny Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. Just so, if you want to know God or have a direct experience of oneness with the God-head, you must learn how to practice the appropriate injunction (for years), master the technique and then compare your experiences with others who have also engaged in those same practices. If you want to know what a Zen master means when he (or she) talks about Sunyata you must practice one-point concentration and koan practice for years and then compare your experiences with other Zen practitioners who have also practiced. In both case you must compare your findings with fellow practitioners. Being a Zen Buddhist is not enough, nor is being a Christian enough, and neither is being a scientists enough -- you must compare your findings with a community of individuals who have engaged in the practice, who have done the very same experiment. If someone claims that it is raining outside, you must look out the window to confirm that it is raining outside.

As long as spiritual development is confused with a specific level of development (mythic level religion) spirit will remain a repressed line of development which will continually arise in pathological forms with dire consequences for all. The only way I see a chance for humanity to release this shadow is by a return to the core practices of religion, not a return to the dogmatic beliefs of religion. The liberal elite must let go of its hatred of religion and stop its repression (in some case oppression) of religion. At the same time the conservative elite must let go of its fixation of the mythic level of religion and allow for the continuing development of the spiritual line. Each of these must occur if we want to see a true reconciliation between traditional premodern truths and modern and postmodern developments. Each of these must occur if we want to see an end to this almost 300 year old war between science and religion.

tashi deleks,

M

PS. Sorry this took so long and that it is so long.
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Some common definitions:
Modernity: is a term that refers to the modern era. It is distinct from modernism, and, in different contexts, refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the period c. 1630-1940. The term "modern" can refer to many different things. Colloquially, it can refer in a general manner to the 20th century. For historians, the Early Modern Period refers to the period roughly from 1500 to 1800, with the Modern era beginning sometime during the 18th century. In this schema, industrialization during the 19th century marks the first phase of modernity, while the 20th century marks the second. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century, replaced by post-modernism, while others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by post-modernism and into the present. Modernity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Science: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena. AOL Dictionary

Religion: 1 a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance 2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 3 archaic : scrupulous conformity
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. AOL Dictionary [Notice how incomplete these definitions are compared to the ones that were listed in the poll]
______________________
1. Integral Psychology, by Ken Wilber p. 28
2. Integral Psychology p. 29 Wilber's footnote lists well over three dozen texts to support his assertion, none that he has written.
3. The Penguin History of the World, by J. M. Roberts. p. 529
4. The Theory of Communicative Action, by Jurgen Habermas p. 58
5. The Theory of Communicative Action p. 47
6. The Theory of Communicative Action p. 50
7. The Theory of Communicative Action p. 51
8. The Penguin History of the World p. 544
9. The Penguin History of the World p. 554
10. The Penguin History of the World p 555
11. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, by Joseph Campbell p. 611-620
12. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, p. 609
13. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, p. 611
14. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, p. 621
15. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, p. 623
16. The Masks of God: Vol. 4 Creative Mythology, p. 623

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?