How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others

255 Pages·2020·13.525 MB·English

by  Tanya M. Luhrmann

HOW GOD
BECOMES
REAL

HOW GOD
BECOMES
REAL
Kindling the Presence
of Invis!ible Others
T. M. LUHRMANN
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Luhrmann, T. M. (Tanya M.), 5979– author.
Title: How God becomes real : kindling the presence of invisible others / 
T. M. Luhrmann.
Description: Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 2323. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identi;ers: LCCN 2323322882 (print) | LCCN 232332288< (ebook) |
ISBN 9=63895584487 (acid-free paper) | ISBN 9=63895255967 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Spirituality. | Presence of God.
Classi;cation: LCC BL824 .L64 2323 (print) | LCC BL824 (ebook) |
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LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2323322882
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/232332288<
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
1
!e Faith Frame "
2
Making Paracosms #$
3
Talent and Training $%
4
How the Mind Matters &'
5
Evidence for the Way Gods and Spirits Respond "('
6
Why Prayer Works ")*
7
A God Who Responds "$*
Acknowl edgments "%$
General Notes on Methods "%&
Bibliographic Essays and Notes "%'
Bibliography #('
Index ##'
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PREFACE
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
— Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan
When I ponder why faith endures, I am struck by how little our theo-
ries consider two straightforward features of religion. First, religion is a
practice in which people go to e!ort to make contact with an invisible
other. Second, p eople who are religious want change. "ey want to feel
di!erently than they do. Yet instead of exploring these features, most
theories of religion begin by treating belief in an invisible other both as
taken for granted and as a cognitive mistake. "ey assume that a prayer
for rain is actually a prayer for rain and that it fails. "en these theories
go on to explain why apparently foolish beliefs can be held by sensible
people. P eople are afraid of aloneness and so proj ect a parent (Freud);
the experience of the social is so power ful that p eople have symbolized
it as God (Durkheim); people dream and have odd experiences that seem
evidence of something super natural (Tylor, James); people have evolved
an attributional style such that when they think quickly and automati-
cally they intuit the presence of an invisible other (Boyer, Barrett); trans-
lations of nature stories have slipped and stumbled so much over the
course of time that a “disease of language” led to mythologies about oth-
erworldly beings (Müller). "ese theories presume that belief is direct
and unproblematic— that in most cultures, p eople simply take spirit and
the super natural to be there.
"at doesn’t make sense. Gods and spirits cannot be seen. You can-
not shake their hands, look them in the eye, or hear their voice when
they speak. It seems odd to assume that people just take for granted that
they are pre sent. Moreover, p eople sometimes have elaborate ideas about
what t hese invisible beings w ill deliver to them, and t hese promises o#en
fall short. In many cases, gods are supposed to know one’s thoughts and
determine one’s fate, and in many cases they promise justice and rewards
to those who worship them. Yet even for the faithful, life can sometimes
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