Religion & Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious DevelopmentCohen, Chapman
Religion
Religion & Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development
Cohen, Chapman
Sex -- Religious aspects
There is really no escape from the position that so far as religious
'facts' are parts of mental life, religion becomes logically a
department of psychology. The substantial identity of all mental facts
is quite unaffected by their being directed to this or that special
object. As mental facts they are part of the material that it is the
work of science to reduce to order. And as mental facts religious
phenomena are seen to follow the same 'laws' that govern mental
phenomena in general. It is perfectly true that we cannot test and
measure the material of psychology with the same definiteness and
accuracy that the chemist applies to the subject-matter of his
department; but that may be due to want of knowledge, or to the extreme
complexity and variability of the matter with which we are dealing. And
if it were true that the same tests could not be applied in psychology
that are applied elsewhere, this would be no cause for scientific
despair. It would only mean that fresh tests would have to be devised
for a new group of facts, as every other science has already, as a
matter of fact, created its own special standard of value.
The second of the two lines of defence consists in the bold assertion
that the religious interpretation of subjective phenomena is itself in
the nature of a true scientific induction. The methods of science are
not repudiated, but welcomed. But it is argued that the non-religious
explanation of religious phenomena breaks down hopelessly, while the
religious explanation fully covers and explains the facts. If this were
true, nothing more remains to be said, and we must accept this dualistic
scheme, however repugnant it may be to orthodox scientific ideas. But is
it true? Is it a fact that the non-religious explanation breaks down so
completely? Hitherto the course of events has been in the contrary
direction. It is the religious explanation that has, over and over
again, been shown to be unreliable, the non-religious explanation that
has been finally established. Insanity and epilepsy, once universally
ascribed to a supernatural order of being, have been reduced to the
level of nervous disorders. All the phenomena of 'possession' are still
with us, it is only our understanding of them that has altered. And
before it is admitted that the phenomena described as religious can
never be affiliated to the phenomena described as non-religious, it must
be shown--beyond all possibility of doubt--that their explanation in
terms of known forces is impossible. As I have said in the body of this
work, the question at issue is essentially one of interpretation. The
'facts' of the religious life are admitted. Science no more questions
the reality of the visions of the medieval mystic than it questions the
visions of the non-mystic admittedly suffering from neural derangement.
The crucial question is whether we have any good reason for separating
the two, and while we dismiss the one as hallucination accept the other
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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