‘Summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the religious life, as we have found them, it includes the following beliefs:—
1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance;
2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end;
3. That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof— be that spirit ‘God’ or ‘law’—is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world.
Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics:—
4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism.
5. An assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.’
William James was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
The Varieties of Religious Experience, an investigation of different forms of religious experience, is one of his most influential books.
المزيد من الكتب الإلكترونية من نفس المؤلف (المؤلفين) / محرر
2٬046 كتب إلكترونية في هذه الفئة
