Admitting You're a Sinner

[SteveII]

Are you concerned that..in his novel approach of calling that religion..he might lose the majority of religion, or the pulse, if you will..and be talking about something else instead?  t the beginnig, removing the cultural artifacts...that;s a hel of alot of the substance of what we take the term religion to sensibly mean or refer to.   Is it really still religion when you remove all of that, and the gods too?  

I'm pretty sure you gathered from the definition I provided that experiences of God count too, but you might not have because I intentionally emphasized the inclusion of the non-theistic dimension. So gods aren't necessarily removed, but yes, James doesn't consider theism essential to the religious experience. To explain himself on this account, he references Buddhism (most likely intending Theravada, but he does not specify) as a set of symbols which have a real existence to the practitioner-- yet they are not (and cannot be) verified by empirical investigations. In this he captures the essence of belief as it exists to the believer. 

While experienced most profoundly in solitude or contemplation, these symbols are nonetheless transmitted via doctrines and cultural means. To James, the origin of this body of symbols does not matter. What matters is how the adoption of these symbols impacts one's personal experience. I haven't gotten to his lecture on mysticism yet, but I remember reading an excerpt from it a while back. I recall that he recommends that if you have a mystical experience that you should count it as a valid experience, just like any other ordinary perception you might have. It's true but it's only true for you. You ought not, advises James, assume that your mystical experience has relevance to anyone else's life.

I suspect that James doesn't hold "cultural religion" in much higher esteem than you or I do (at least, he gives that vague impression with some of his statements). But he regards personal religious sentiments as more than just flashes of revelation. They are SUSTAINED attitudes about the universe and our place in it which come about due to reflections upon the divine, the transcendent reality. They are to be considered in higher regard than ordinary experiences of things.

This brings up a complaint about the New Atheist movement (an ideology) which seeks to aggressively eliminate religion (of any kind) and replace it with 'scientific reasoning'. Since scientific reasoning does not meet all the needs of people (as you are discussing), this is a dangerous ideology. If you create a climate where all religions are rejected, a significant part of the population is going to be left with a void they are going to struggle to fill. What is going to be the effect? I was reading last year that social scientists recognize this problem but are drowned out by the New Atheist ideology--which is like an exact mirror image of religious fundamentalists in its behavior.