The Philosophy of Religion Author:George Trumbull Ladd Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE STANDARD OF RKLIGIOUS VALUES It is an instructive fact that men generally find it difficult or impossible to take toward the subject of rel... more »igion an attitude of indifference or of unemotional and purely scientific inquiry. On the contrary, religious beliefs and ceremonies are customarily regarded with feelings of approbation or disapprobation, which tend to become of a somewhat intense ethical or Eesthetical character. The religious experience is, indeed, often somewhat hyperaesthetical. Even the most consistent agnostic of to-day is almost sure to regard all positive religion either scornfully or sadly—thus showing the same tendency to an emotional attitude toward the subject which characterizes the religious devotee. This attitude, however, is not so much due to the intellectual weaknesses of humanity, or to the unscientific insincerity of the average attempt at an unprejudiced search for " pure " truth in religion—" the truth for its own sake " ; it is rather due to the very nature of religion itself and of the claims which the religious experience always makes upon the mind and heart of man. For religion is essentially an affair, in large measure, of ethical and aesthetical emotions. On this account, and more especially because of the relations in which its beliefs and cult are supposed to stand toward both the lower and the higher interests of human life and human destiny, it necessarily claims to have value, to be a thing of worth. Now since this claim to have value arises from the essential nature of religion in general, and since in fact there are many and varied sorts of religions, comparisons of value are inevitable in the study of the religious life and development of man. The different, greater positive religions all are wont to insist—each one—...« less