How do you become religious? What is a conversion experience? Does it happen all at once or gradually? What's the point of religion, anyway? These are questions that JF (a Catholic) and Phil (a Zennist) have often been asked since starting Weird Studies, and in this episode they attempt some answers.

Image: "Small Candle Flame" by Le Priyavrat, via Wikimedia Commons

REFERENCES

Ross Douthat, Believe

Dogen, Shobogenzo

New Atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

Weird Studies, Episode 99 on “Wild, Wild Country”

William James, Varieties of Religious Experience

George Steiner, Real Presences

Patrick Curry, Art and Enchantment

Max Picard, The Flight from God

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games