THE EXPERIENTIAL DIMENSION

The Experiential Dimension(experience) What does it mean to "feel the presence of God?" Or to experience the Holy? Or to be "one with the universe?" 1. The sacred, whether expressed as ALLAH (Islam), Brahman (Hinduism), Emptiness (Mahayana Buddhism), Y-W-H (Judaism), God (Christianity) or some other formulation, is felt to be The universal foundation of all truth, reality, goodness, and value. 2. Since the sacred dimension of reality is a source of ultimate value, the deepest need of human life is to have an ongoing relationship with the sacred. The Religious Experience of the sacred is difficult to describe but, nonetheless, a powerful and important part of human experience. It is a portal that allows us to move from the everyday, ordinary experience into a new, extraordinary level of consciousness. The pervasiveness of Religious Experience ·No matter how non-religious you might be, at some time due to some event, you will experience the religious impulse whether it be a need to find meaning in a tragic occurrence such as a cataclysmic nature event, or a way to express thankfulness for an extraordinary event such as the birth of a child or a way to try to explain the often inexplicable challenges and changes of everyday human existence. · Religion traditionally has provided ways to help humans make sense of their lives by providing answers to pro-found life questions, guiding ethical behaviour and offering solace and comfort in the face of our shared mortality. PERVASIVENESS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 1. Everyone Experiences Rites of Passage = major life events: birth, death, suffering, adulthood, marriage, love, tragedy, etc. = rites of passage generate boundary questions. 2. These Experiences Generate Boundary Questions = questions concerning identity, relationship, meaning, purpose, etc. 3. Most people are forced to ask boundary questions, at least during rites of passage. 4. Religions provide answers to boundary questions experienced during rites of passage. 5. Since all human beings go through rites of passage, and find answers to their identity questions, religious activity is pervasive in human experience. Types of Religious Experience NUMINOUS EXPERIENCE The numinous experience is an encounter with the Divine/God; awe-inspiring; terrifying yet attractive; separation between Divine and human identities. People experience awe and fear at the same time. Example= Moses encounters God in the "burning bush" MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE In the mystical experience one experiences a loss of personal identity; merging with the totality of Being (God, the Divine, Mind, Consciousness, etc. ) These experiences can be grouped in three types: · Nature mysticism - merging with all or part of the natural world · Monist mysticism - merging or being one with the mind/ force/ intelligence/ consciousness of the universe. · Theist mysticism - merging with the divine or God. Religious Experience: Mystical NATURE MYSTICISM You've been touched by natural/nature mysticism if you are overwhelmed by feelings of interconnectedness or unity with the cosmos. Usually the experience brings a sense of complete inner-peace, assurance that all will be well. Many mystics point to a positive and complete transformation of identity which leads to a more compassionate, caring set of relationships. MONIST MYSTICISM (merging with the divine mind/consciousness) The monist mystic envisions the divine in everything. He/she also makes important connections between mystical experience and meditation. Meditation means a rigorous discipline of mental, spiritual and physical development that proceeds through a set of practices leading to a higher level of concentration, compassion, wisdom, mindfulness and, ultimately, enlightenment. "Meditation is the very center and heart of spiritual life, It matters not whether you are a follower of the path of karma, or of devotion or knowledge, whether you are Christian or Buddhist or a Hindu, sooner or later you have to practice meditation, you have to become absorbed in divine contemplation; there is no other way." THEIST MYSTICISM (merging with and manifestation of the divine) Theist mysticism begins as a numinous experience. In each case, the believer becomes so in love with the manifestation of the Divine, that the boundaries between perceiver and perceived blur until the all-important experience of unity, oneness or interconnectedness are attained. When you go deeper into yourself, spiritually, it is like a tree extending its roots deep into the earth. Strong roots allow the branches to reach out and intertwine with the branches of other trees. And beneath the surface, the roots also embrace. "If therefore we seek Jesus, the word, we must be able to see Him in the created things around us - in the hills, the fields, the flowers, the birds and animals that He created, in the sky and the trees. We must be able to see Him in nature. Nature is no obstacle to our contact with Him, if we know how to use it." Thomas Merton (see: http://www.merton.org/)

THE RITUAL DIMENSION

The Ritual Dimension
Ritual is what believers DO! Rituals provide believers with a symbolic mode of communication designed to propel them out of ordinary experience and into extraordinary realities. 

· Rituals are often based on the myths contained in a given worldview. Believers feel called upon to do what their great leaders did.
Thus, Christians celebrate the ritual of the Last Supper (the Eucharist) just as Yeshua (Jesus) did 2,000 years ago. And in participating in this unique, myth-based ritual, a devout Christian is brought back into authentic Christian experience. See my article on The Eucharist
· Taken together, we might think of the Experiential, Mythic and Ritual dimensions as an inward turning force in religions. 

Profound life questions arise and call for answers in the experiential dimension. 

A charismatic leader provides answers to those questions expressed in great deeds and inspired teachings. In the mythic dimension, those words and deeds are described, usually in sacred texts but sometimes in oral tradition. 

For believers, the key events in the mythic dimension are acted out in rituals which, in turn, transform an ordinary experience into the uniquely extraordinary experience.
Through the ritual practices a person experiences kenosis (emptying out); and the plerosis (filling up).

Ritual Characteristics

SYMBOLIC PROCESS
Sign - something that is regularly or causally connected in experience with something else.
Disease . . . Symptoms
Dark clouds. . . Rain
Representational Symbols - ties things together that are distinct or different from each other: words, cross, menu. 

RITUAL
Ritual is a symbolic mode of communication.
· Ritual is a mode of religious expression that unites words and gestures to form a sacred drama.
· Rituals transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
· Ritual implies action or doing on the part of the believers.

PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF RITUALS IN RELIGION

Sacramental - ordinary transformed into extraordinary. Uses symbols to point to a spiritual reality.
Performative - doing something
Repetitive - ritual activities are repeated
Social - ritual provide social cohesion (act or state of sticking together); people do rituals together.

THE ETHICAL DIMENSION

The Ethical Dimension (ethics = behaviour)
As people believe, so they will behave. Doctrines are foundational to Ethics. Doctrine is to ethics as belief is to behaviour. The ethical dimension, religious or secular, provides human beings with guidelines for proper patterns of action. The ethical dimension is relational. That means that ethics inform our relationships including those with an unseen "Other." Whether expressed as laws, moral commandments, custom, or a system of values, it is the ethical dimension that guides us towards proper relationships with God (or Being), each other, nature, and culture. 

Ethics provide a sense of obligation, responsibility and provide mechanisms for bringing harmony from dissonance when there is a breakdown in ideal relational patterns. The Ten Commandments in Hebrew scripture, the Beatitudes in Christian scripture or the Eight-Fold Path in Buddhism are classic examples of the ethical dimension. Ethical standards for right behaviour, of course, are based on doctrine and therefore may differ greatly. Many of the great debates of the day such as abortion, suicide, sexual orientation, etc. are furiously defended or protested by factions who approach these issues from different religious or secular worldviews.

Religious Ethics

Ethics are the key to values/behaviour in any worldview. They provide the link between beliefs and right action.
DEFINITION
"Religious ethics is that aspect of religion concerned with proper patterns of action in the situation and circumstances of the human life cycle and social relations." John Simmons
Ethical behaviour is guided by laws, customs and morals. Religious doctrines inform or guide laws, customs and morals.
PATTERNS IN THE ETHICAL PROCESS
1. Obligation: rules, customs and values sets standards for proper action.: In society, the ethical process is governed by laws. For example, you have an obligation to operate a vehicle safely on public roads. In religious traditions set out patterns of action you are obliged to keep such as the Ten Commandments, or the Eight-Fold Path.
2. Responsibility to follow those guidelines: Given this obligation, you have the responsibility not to drink too much before driving your car. If you are a responsible religious person, you keep the laws.
3. Dissonance: If you behave unethically such as getting drunk and driving your car you are in dissonance with the laws of society and if you are caught you will be cited or charged. In religion, straying too far cuts you off from the religious community and is a source of shame, guilt, distress and tension.
4. Harmony: Some redemptive mechanism allows you to return to proper patterns of action. After you pay your citation or go to court you have paid your debt to society. Most religions have a reconciliation mechanism such as confession in the Catholic Church.

Ethical Process examples

OBLIGATION Drive safely  · Religious traditions (the Ten Commandments or Eight-Fold Path, etc.)

RESPONSIBILITY
Given that obligation, it is your responsibility to not drink and drive
· Believers are obliged to respond to life according to these patterns.

DISSONANCE
If you drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs you are in dissonance of the laws of society
· Straying from the ethical path cuts one off from the religious community and thus, is a source of shame, guilt, distress and tension.

HARMONY
If you are caught or cause an accident, you must "pay your debt to society."
· Religions, then, provide mechanisms for re-alignment such as The Sacrament of Reconciliation in Catholicism.

THE MYTHICAL DIMENSION

The Mythical Dimension (myth)
What is a myth? Most people would answer "a false story, a fable, something fantastic, outside the bounds of reality. 

In the field of religious studies, however, the term is used in a very different - and correct - manner. Myths are profoundly true stories within the worldview of a believer.
"Myths are the narrative stories which provide answers to the questions of identity by making it possible to identify with those events and beings that exemplify in a clear and powerful way the relationship with the sacred that undergirds human life."
They may not be provable through the scientific method, and they may defy common sense or logic, but, nevertheless, they are real in that they guide the behaviour of believers.

Great religious leaders like the Buddha, Muhammad, or Yeshua (Jesus) ignited the sparks of religious experience in their followers. Their followers, in turn, felt called upon to describe the life and works of their teachers in powerful narratives that cross the boundary between historical fact and faith. 

Myths provide models that guide human behaviour within a given faith community - and, thus, are an important link between belief, believer, and behaviour. They answer the identity/boundary questions.

THE DOCTRINAL DIMENSION

The Doctrinal Dimension(doctrine = belief)
The doctrinal dimension is what most religious studies courses and books are about. The doctrinal dimension is what people believe. In fact, when the question "What is your religion?" arises, people are usually asking, ''What do you believe, what are the set of answers you have accepted to life's profound questions?"
While religion is more than just a set of answers, religious doctrines have a profound effect on the behaviour of believers within a given religious community. Religious doctrines give focus and order to the symbolic and the mythical. They offer believers authoritative and sometimes systematic proof that their religious reality and everyday reality are one and the same.
Doctrines are logical descriptions of reality for the believer. When two very different descriptions of reality collide, world history tells us that the doctrinal dimension can stir believers to commit the bloodiest atrocities in the name of their belief. We only have to look in the Middle East or our own indigenous collision with Christianity since the 19th Century to see the tension created by opposing worldview doctrines.

Religious Doctrines
Definition: Death, suffering, and change are problems that cannot be resolved in terms of common sense or scientific knowledge. Doctrines are belief systems; they provide specific answers to boundary/identity questions. They give the institutionalized answers to the unexplainable (boundary questions).
Faith is a religious way of knowing the truth based on the authority of the church, a sacred book, or a religious leader.

FUNCTIONS OF DOCTRINES
· Bring order to focus on myth and ritual
· Provide the institutionalization of answers to the unexplainable (death, suffering, change).
· Control the boundaries of religious expression
· Determine what is inclusive and exclusive in a given religion.

Adapted from Susan Cafarelli Burke.

THE DIMENSIONS OF RELIGION

According to Dr Ninian Smart there are 7 Dimensions or sets of characteristics by which any religion might be identified as a religion. They are:  1.Doctrinal 2.Mythological 3.Ethical 4.Ritual 5.Experiential 6.Institutional/Social 7.Material

Adapted from Susan Cafarelli Burke.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

What is Religion?

Religion gives a person identity and relationship.

Religion deals with answers to identity-forming questions:

Selfhood - "Who am I?" "Where did I come from?"

Meaning - "Why am I?" "Where will I go when I die?"

Purpose - "What do I do?" "What is the purpose of life?"

These deep searching identity questions are a pervasive part of human experience and thought by some to be the source of the world's great religions. Religions answer these questions for people in psychological satisfying multidimensional ways.

Religion is relationship guiding or defining

How do we relate to the Other? Religions give people understandable paradigms that guide our behaviour in relationships towards others.

The Other can be many things:

· God or the ultimate

· nature

· other human beings

· other cultures

· death, suffering, change

· rites of passage

Religion Defined

1. Religion is human involvement with what is considered to be the realm of the sacred.

sacred space, sacred time, numinous experience, mystical experience.

2. It is expressed in thought (theoretical thinking and speaking ), action (practical, acting and doing), and social forms (fellowship, community).

THEORETICAL: narrative stories and theoretical statements about reality in doctrines.

PRACTICAL: rituals, worships and ethics.

SOCIAL FORMS: Religious community carries on the tradition in groups that give the believer identity.

3. It constitutes a total system of symbols with deep meaning.

The religious map of human existence is made up of symbols= words, ideas, rituals, pictures, gestures, sounds, social groupings - that evoke the deepest feelings and most important meaning in our lives.

The various symbols fit together in a circle, for they are all related to each other in such a way as to present a comprehensive and persuasive outlook on life.

4. It is a path of ultimate transformation.

The path is a way of life, a praxis designed to restore wholeness and ultimate meaning to human existence by involvement with the source of life, the sacred.

Dualism

Dualism posits a cosmos or universe in which the Creator, God, is separate and distinct from the creation. The in-world experience is a threat or stumbling block to real experience - be it in Heaven or some other transcendent realm - will thrust believers into a pattern of using force to remake that world.

Humans are inherently sinful, fallen from the source of all being, God. Their natural desires and instincts are not to be trusted. The world is merely a testing chamber where, according to behaviour, a person is deemed fit or unfit for entrance into the realm of true reality, Heaven. The world is also the domain of an evil being, Satan, who may use the pleasures and joys of this world to tempt humans and trick them into a bond with worldly delights that will ultimately result in eternal punishment.

God made man in His image, over and above other parts of the creation, and man was called upon to have dominion over nature, to control nature. To use the land meant to live by a utilitarian standard. Simple survival was not using the land. A human being was called upon to force nature to bring forth excess. Your skill in manipulating nature and accumulating wealth was a sign that you were chosen.

Planet Earth is reduced to just a convenient battleground or stage for this divine conflict, there is not much of an impulse to respect or preserve Mother Earth's treasures.

Negative: drive to build a divine kingdom worthy of the Creator on earth

Monism

Sacred power was diffused throughout the natural world.

The passing of the seasons demands rituals in honour of the divine beings who personify Sun, Moon, Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall. Earth, fire and water need to be ritually recognized, as do the four quadrants of space and time.

You don't petition these powerful spirits; you enter into balance of harmony with them through the dimension of myth and ritual.

Animals may be sacrificed to assure that the group, tribe or clan is ritually pure. A portion of the harvest could be set aside in honour of the spirits of fertility.

Statues of totem animals. - bear, lion, eagle - could protect the home from marauding demons. In the world of primal religion, everything is alive; everything has power.

VARIETIES

· God is everything

· God is the reality or principle behind nature

· Only god is reality, all else is illusion

All varieties see all reality as ONE, whole, not divided into sacred realm and a profane or human or natural realm.

God is the ground of being and is the enlivening, creative, spark behind all that exists.

The only divine charge for human beings is to live in a harmonious relationship with the land, the plants, the animals and other human beings.

The magic of life is knowing that the divine is immanent in the Earth which, indeed, is our mother.

Negative: relieved believers of the need to create, to do, to accomplish