The Numinous Body and the Symbolism of Human Remains

This chapter engages the concept of the numinous and applies it to the material culture of the sacred body in American material culture, with two examples from early American history. It introduces early twentieth-century scholar Rudolph Otto’s idea of the numinous, and it proposes that it can help dispel confusion over the nature of sacred matter, leading to a better grasp of the phenomenological complexity of religious material culture, especially as it relates to the body. The chapter focuses on two bodies, that of nineteenth-century American missionary to Liberia Ann Wilkins and famous eighteenth-century preacher George Whitefield. These bodies are used as case studies to demonstrate the prevalence of numinousness, even among American Protestants who had traditionally eschewed material religion. The author makes the claim that the invisibility of religion is a verdant precondition for its materialization.

Religious Conscience and the Private Market

When should an appeal to religious conscience exempt a business owner from providing a private market service? Recent cases in state and federal courts evince the need for a philosophical treatment of the success conditions for religious conscience exemptions. In this essay I assume that the conscience objection is focused on a law to perform a private market services. I begin with some conceptual clarifications, proceed to examine cases, and argue for an account. I propose that a religious conscience exemption ought to be granted if the act concerns a sacred matter according to an epistemically live religious tradition, a tradition that is believed by a group of persons and is not common knowledge that it is false. On the view I argue for an appeal to common knowledge is crucial for fairly balancing the competing rights of religious autonomy and anti-discrimination.

Tradisi dan Modernitas Perspektif Seyyed Hossein Nasr

<p>This article is intended to scrutinize Seyyed Hosssein Nasr’s thought about the negative dimensions of modernity and put it into the problems of the world where the idea of materialism ends due to greed of modern people. Nasr’s aim is actually to save humanity from destructive elements of modernity due to the idea of materialism, although the traditional-ism project that he proposed has still looked for a momentum within human consciousness and that is not to neglect the sacred matter in under-standing their world. In a reflection of his traditionalism, Nasr presupposes the creation of a progressive world presented with self-awareness to the existence of the Absolute and the Infallible. Nasr believes that modern people could live with their idea of perennial philosophy that connects everything in this world into the realm of the sacred. Benefits of modernity, according to Nasr, will be tarnished if people deny every sacred matter.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p>