Reddit mentions of The Idea of the Holy

The definition (or, if you'd rather, description) that I favor is that, religion is a body of rituals used to constitute the group or individual's relation to the divine.

Okay, that requires a lot of qualification, and this may get a little technical, but bear with me.

First of all, it should go without saying that the divine need not actually exist for the group or individual to make an attempt to establish a relation to it.

Second, (working backwards) we should be clear on what we mean by divine. In most cases, that's something like a deity, but it need not always be. Nailing it down to a specific quality is difficult, and would probably require a pretty long explication -- something like Rudolf Otto's [The Idea of the Holy][1], although I'm not entirely sure his conception of the [numinous][2] really encompasses everything we need encompassed. Even if we look at non-theistic varieties of Buddhism, we find some intimation of the divine, be it karma, atman/anatman, or samsara. To balance simplicity and specificity, we might say that the divine encompasses anything held by a given religious tradition to be imbued with a quality that makes it ontologically preeminent.

As an aside, I should point out that divine doesn't necessarily translate into "good" or "perfect" or even "supernatural" (which is, as far as I can tell, a relatively modern dichotomy).

Third, I want to emphasize that the point of these rituals (which we'll get to in a moment) is to establish a kind of relation. We tend to think in terms of the sort of relations we know from Western religions -- "salvation" essentially describes a kind of relation that the Christian seeks to establish with God/Jesus; the Covenant is a similar, though distinct sort of relation between Israel and Yahweh. Nirvana can be seen as a kind of relation the Buddhist attains with reference to samsara -- the relation here would generally be described as "escape from", which goes some distance towards illustrating the diversity of relations possible. That also opens the door, incidentally, to practices that some theorists would consider distinct from religion proper, such as magic. Witch-doctors may, for example, attempt to establish a relation of control over demons or gods; the shaman seeks to emancipate his spirit-self from his body; and so on.

Fourth, I want to draw a distinction, with reference to relation, between constitute and establish. I use "constitute" in my definition/description because it seems to me to connote creativity, more so than "establish" which could be taken to involve a kind of patterning. While it's true that all religion eventually takes the form of a pattern (hence, "established religion") the basic act of religion is creative, often profoundly so. The more counter-intuitive a religious formulation (eg. "eat this bread, which is my flesh; drink this wine, which is my blood; this do in remembrance of me"), the more we're looking at a fertile act of creation. The repetition of such rituals and their dissemination to new adherents is as much reconstitution as it is rote.

Fifth, what do we mean by ritual? A ritual is a repeatable operation performed on a symbol or symbols. The best way to illustrate what I mean may be to point to a rather unorthodox example: PZ Myers' Crackergate. It is, in principle, repeatable; it consists of a particular operation; and the substance on which it operates is a symbol. The only way in which Crackergate differs from a religious ritual is that it was intended to deny divinity -- it was practically the model of an irreligious ritual.

And lastly, the preceding paragraph raises the question of what I mean by symbol. It's important to be specific about this, since we call lots of things symbols that wouldn't really fit into our definition. We might say, for instance, that a green light is a symbol for go, but that's not really the sort of symbol we have in mind here. It isn't enough that the symbol convey some meaning, in the way that a red letter A enclosed in a circle stands for anarchy. What we're after is an emblem, in any medium, that not only signifies some other thing, but also takes part in some quality of that thing. In the most basic sense, we say that each religion considers its symbols sacred. But the image of a Crucifix is not sacred in and of itself -- rather, it participates in the sacredness of the thing it symbolizes, namely the sacrifice of Jesus. We gesture towards the range of participation by pointing to, on the one hand, the care religious believers lavish on their houses of worship, and on the other hand, the debate over whether or not transubstantiation results in a cracker and some wine becoming the actual flesh and blood of Jesus.

Anyway... I know that was long and somewhat involved, but I hope you stuck with it. The test of those criteria, I would say, is this: Can we think of any religions that lack fail to fit that description? And secondly, can we think of any things that are clearly not religions that fit it as well as a religion would? For my part, I don't think we can, but I'm open to suggestions.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Holy-R-Otto/dp/0195002105
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous

Well, it depends on what you want to study. If you want to go for religious experience, phenomenology, and epistemology, Yandell's "The Epistemology of Religious Experience", Otto's "The Idea of the Holy", James' "Varieties ...", and Alston's "Perceiving God" would be good.

For Medieval philosophy you really can't beat Aquinas. Since the SCG and ST are pretty hefty, it'd be good to start with Aristotle's metaphysica and physica (late late late edit: not just that, but read his works on souls as well as his other works). McKeon's "The Basic works of Aristotle" is an okay translation. There's a better one, but the name eludes me. After that, Aquinas' "On Being and Essence" is a must-read for metaphysics. Then either flip through the SCG or ST, or even better, find a companion for the two works (Peter Kreeft, Feser, and Sir A. Kenny are all decent). Beyond Aquinas, and a bit earlier than him, are Augustine and the Church fathers. I can't really say much on them because I'm not too familiar-- I fell in love with the Medieval philosopher-theologians before I converted, I didn't really pay much mind to those earlier than them in the Christian tradition. However, Augustine is usually the man I've heard recommended.

Beyond the books, philosophy papers between, say, Bergmann, Pruss, Almeida, et al. are wonderful. Almeida's "On Vague Eschatology", "A New Cosmological Argument Undone" (in response to Pruss), Almeida's refutation of Rowe's new evidentialist argument from evil, and his reply to Alston's skeptical theist response to Rowe's new evidentialist argument. Usually these will be followed by a response, and counter-response, etc.

For Oderberg, and in general for the Neo-Aristotelians, Tahko's collection of essays by varying neo-Aristotelians in "Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics", Oderberg's "Whatever is Changing...", and Oderberg's "Real Essentialism" are not explicitly Christian or related to the philosophy of religion (except the second, that is explicitly about the First Way of St. Thomas Aquinas) but implicitly related via the essentialists (particularly the Aristotelians) in the Christian tradition.

edit: Question for you: Which works of Plantinga? Also, by Zacharias, you mean Ravi Zacharias? I've never read much on him but I've heard he's okay. What is your take on him?

I mean, you should also just read Rudolph Otto's /The Idea of the Holy/

http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Holy-R-Otto/dp/0195002105

book is sick, bro.