Thoughts:

1. We can take the prevalence of a religion as some sort of weak hint
to its usefulness. People presumably get some value out of something
that they devote time and other resources to.

2. We can examine the uses which religious people claim to get out
their religion. Such accounts seem to be fairly common? The verse that
Ruth posted is a good example of such an "emic" account. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic:

"The emic approach investigates how local people think" (Kottak,
2006): How they perceive and categorize the world, their rules for
behavior, what has meaning for them, and how they imagine and explain
things. "The etic (scientist-oriented) approach shifts the focus from
local observations, categories, explanations, and interpretations to
those of the anthropologist. The etic approach realizes that members
of a culture often are too involved in what they are doing to
interpret their cultures impartially. When using the etic approach,
the ethnographer emphasizes what he or she considers important."

). Wikipedia doesn't explain it well in that paragraph, but emic
accounts are often incredibly valuable. If anyone has ever been to the
"Pacific Spirits" exhibit at the Field Museum, that's a pretty cool
example of an emic account:
http://fieldmuseum.org/happening/exhibits/pacific-spirits

3. Having some sort of unified framework with which to evaluate
everything is itself a pretty useful use for religion.

On 12/15/13, Elizabeth Topczewski <bethtop@gmail.com> wrote:
> *1. "But now, I ask you, how can such an existential account of facts of

> mental history decide in one way or another upon their spiritual

> significance?"*

>
> What does James mean by spiritual significance? Also, spiritual
> significance to whom?
>

> *2. "By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots."*

>
> This seems to me to sum up James' position on how to determine value of
> religious ideas. But what makes a fruit desirable or not? How do we tell
> between good and bad (or useful or non-useful) fruits? Religion is one of
> the main things that claims to offer judgments on whether fruits themselves
> are good or bad.
>

> *3. "In the natural sciences and industrial arts it never occurs to any one

> to try to refute opinions by showing up their author's neurotic
> constitution. Opinions here are invariably tested by logic and by
> experiment, no matter what may be their author's neurological type. It
> should be no otherwise with religious opinions...Immediate luminousness, in
> short, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are the only

> available criteria."*

>
> What logic and experiment can test religious opinions? Also, what are we
> testing religious opinions for? Truth seems out. Perhaps James would say
> usefulness? Then, it seems desirable to outline a set of desirable fruits.
> See (2).
>
> What does he mean by "immediate luminousness" or "philosophical
> reasonableness"?
>
> --Beth
>

--
-Eric

_______________________________________________
WilliamJames mailing list
WilliamJames@moomers.org
http://mailman.moomers.org/mailman/listinfo/williamjames