[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
Interpretation
Religion seeks to align individuals with a greater, unseen truth or reality.
William James suggests that religion is fundamentally an effort to understand and connect with a deeper, unseen order in the universe. This perspective emphasizes the importance of harmony and alignment with forces that may not be immediately visible or comprehensible, reflecting a quest for meaning and belonging within a broader existential framework.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the role of religion in society can highlight the quest for meaning.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free.
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
If i should enter the house and speak with my own voice, at last, about its awful furnitutre, pulling apart the covering over the dusty bodies; the randy father, the husband holding ice in his hand like a blessing, the mother bleeding into herself and the small imploding girl, i say if i should walk into that web, who will come flying after me, leaping tall buildings? you?
We must cultivate a universal responsibility toward each other and extend it to the planet that we have to share
How can I make difference so that I may bring peace to this world that I love and cherish so much? A name flickers instantly in my mind.
The rationality of the ruled is always the weapon of the rulers.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.