An Introduction to NTU Open Course 《宗教哲学》: Fifteen Lectures
An organized overview of NTU Open Course 《宗教哲学》’s fifteen lectures, introducing how Professor Fu Pei-rong understands religion, faith, critique, ritual, cultivation, and the dialogue between religion and civilization from a philosophical perspective.
NTU Open Course’s 《宗教哲学》 is a course well suited for beginners in religion, esotericism, and philosophy. It is not a proselytizing course for any particular religion, but an attempt to understand religious phenomena philosophically: What is religion? Why does faith arise? Can religious experience be understood? How do humans face God, myth, ritual, cultivation, mystical union, and conflicts with civilization?
According to the NTU Open Course description, this course reflects philosophically on religious issues by using philosophy’s mode of operation—clarifying concepts, setting criteria, and constructing systems—to explore religious phenomena and religious theory. The course first explains the difference between religion and philosophy of religion, then discusses religion and belief, religious definitions and types, historical critiques of religion and responses, and finally moves to topics such as the existence of God, myth and ritual, religious language, Hinduism, Buddhism, mysticism, the religious dimensions of Daoism, and religious dialogue and civilizational conflict.
For my website, this course can serve as a foundational reference for "religious and esoteric studies": on one hand, it avoids viewing religion only as superstition or psychological comfort; on the other hand, it avoids mystifying faith experience to an extreme. A truly valuable introductory course does not provide fixed answers, but trains a person to ask clearer questions.
1. Basic Course Information
- Course title: Philosophy of Religion / Philosophy of Religion
- Instructor: Fu Pei-rong
- Department: Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University
- Source: NTU Open Course
- Course size: 15 lectures in total
- Course date: February 2014
- Official note: This course is authorized for use by "Fu Pei-rong." For any further use of this work, separate authorization should be obtained from the rights holder.
2. Overview of the Fifteen Lectures
1. Introduction to Religion and Philosophy of Religion
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 01. Introduction to Religion and Philosophy of Religion
The first lecture is the entry point for the whole course and mainly distinguishes the difference between "religion" and "philosophy of religion." Religion usually involves faith, ritual, community, canonical texts, and transcendent experience; philosophy of religion, by contrast, does not rush to judge whether a belief is true or false, but first asks: What is religion? Why has religion persisted for so long in human society? Can propositions about religion be discussed rationally?
The value of this lecture is that it builds methodological awareness. In the face of religion, one should neither simply endorse it with emotion nor simply reject it with emotion; instead, one should learn to clarify concepts, identify problems, and understand religion’s place in human spiritual life. It shifts religious discussion from "whether one believes" to "how one understands."
For those studying esotericism, this lecture is especially important. Since esotericism, divination systems, religion, and philosophy are often entangled, without basic conceptual distinctions one can easily conflate experience, faith, symbolism, psychological comfort, and systems of knowledge. The first step in philosophy of religion is to ask questions clearly.
2. Conditions and Types of Religion
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 02. Conditions and Types of Religion
The second lecture discusses the basic conditions under which religion is established, and the types of religion in different cultures. In general, religion often includes recognition of the sacred or an ultimate reality, corresponding ritual practices, ethical norms, communal traditions, and responses to suffering, death, and meaning in life.
This lecture is suitable for building a foundational framework for classifying religions. Different religions do not all share the same conception of divinity, nor do they necessarily center on "one god." Some traditions place greater emphasis on cultivation, liberation, and wisdom; others emphasize revelation, salvation, and the relationship between humans and the divine.
If one uses a single standard to understand religion, misjudgments are easy. For example, imagining all religions as merely "believing in a god" makes it difficult to understand Buddhist and Daoist cultivation traditions, or cultural systems that emphasize ritual and ancestor veneration. The significance of this lecture is to remind readers that religion is a complex phenomenon, not a simple label.
3. Critique and Response to Religion (Part I)
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 03. Critique and Response to Religion (Part I)
The third lecture moves into critique of religion. Common critiques in modern discourse include: Is religion merely a product of fear and ignorance? Does religion produce social control? Does religion suppress human freedom? Do religious beliefs lack epistemic justification?
The emphasis here is not to simply deny religion, but to show the force of critique. Serious study of religion must be able to face challenges from atheism, rationalism, scientism, psychology, and sociology. If religion entirely refuses critique, it can become a closed system; if critique entirely lacks understanding of religion, it can become shallow.
For readers, this lecture helps establish a clearer position. Studying religion and esotericism does not mean endorsing every mystical experience; critiquing religion does not mean treating centuries of human spiritual traditions as scams. Training in philosophy of religion allows one to sustain a productive tension between critique and understanding.
4. Critique and Response to Religion (Part II)
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 04. Critique and Response to Religion (Part II)
The fourth lecture continues the previous one, further discussing how religion responds to critique. The rationality of religion need not be established only through scientific proof; it may also involve existential experience, value commitments, ultimate concern, moral practice, and existential orientation.
This lecture reminds us: if religion cannot respond to critique, it may degenerate into a closed belief system; but critique that completely ignores religion’s functions in meaning, ethics, and culture can become narrow in another way. Philosophy of religion seeks a discussable space between these two.
Many people discussing religion tend to fall into two extremes: one where "everything religious is sacred and beyond criticism," and another where "everything religious is mere superstition." This lecture is especially suitable for helping readers move beyond both extremes and see religion as a complex human phenomenon that has both problems and value.
5. Religious Experience
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 05. Religious Experience
The fifth lecture discusses religious experience. Many traditions place great importance on contact experience between a person and the sacred, an ultimate reality, or a transcendent realm, such as resonance in prayer, transformation in cultivation practice, a summons in suffering, or an inner vibration that cannot be fully expressed in ordinary language.
The issue with religious experience is that it may be deeply real for the experiencer, yet not equally persuasive to an observer. Therefore this lecture is well suited to understanding the tension between "personal experience" and "public argument." A person can respect the experience itself and still need to ask how that experience is interpreted, expressed, and examined.
This is also important for esoteric studies. Many esoteric, divinatory, cultivation, and spiritual experiences are highly personal. They may transform one’s sense of life, but they do not necessarily become public knowledge directly. The key insight of this lecture is how to balance respect for experience with rational accountability.
6. The Problem of God’s Existence
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 06. The Problem of God’s Existence
The sixth lecture addresses the classic question in philosophy of religion: Does God exist? Around this question, various argument lines have formed in the Western philosophical tradition, such as cosmological, teleological, ontological, and moral-order arguments.
Of course, there are also counterarguments: the problem of evil, the problem of suffering, natural explanations, and lack of empirical evidence. The value of this lecture is not to immediately offer a standard answer, but to show that "God’s existence" is not a slogan; it is a philosophical proposition that can be systematically discussed.
For Chinese readers, this lecture also has comparative-cultural significance. Traditional Chinese thought does not have a concept exactly equivalent to the Western monotheistic God, so understanding "the problem of God’s existence" should not be reduced to ordinary spirit worship; it should be placed in its Western philosophical, theological, and metaphysical context.
7. Myth and Ritual
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 07. Myth and Ritual
The seventh lecture discusses myth and ritual. Myth is not merely a fictional story; it often carries a community’s understanding of world origins, order, sacredness, and human predicament. Ritual is not merely formal either; through repetition, symbolism, and bodily participation, it turns abstract beliefs into shared, sensible experiences.
This lecture helps readers understand that religion does not exist only in doctrinal texts; it also exists in festivals, offerings, worship, taboos, clothing, space, and embodied action. The power of religion often comes from the combination of symbolic systems and lived practice.
From the perspective of an esoteric website, myth and ritual are highly significant. Many practices such as divination, calendar selection, sacrifices, symbols, and folklore are not isolated techniques; they are embedded in larger symbolic orders. Understanding this background helps avoid reducing traditional culture to disconnected tools without context.
8. Religious Language
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 08. Religious Language
The eighth lecture discusses religious language. Religion frequently uses symbolism, metaphor, imagery, and apophatic expressions, such as "the sacred," "eternity," "salvation," "emptiness," "the Way," and "the ineffable." These are not always reducible to ordinary descriptive statements about everyday experience.
Therefore, when understanding religious language, one should not only ask whether it is verifiable like a scientific proposition, but also ask what function it plays in faith communities, cultivation practice, and life interpretation. This lecture is illuminating for reading classics, theological texts, and esoteric texts.
Many traditional texts are difficult to read not only because their language is old, but because they use symbolic, revelatory, or cultivation-oriented language. If one forces their meaning into everyday literal interpretation, one often misreads; if one entirely abandons rational analysis, one may drift into vagueness. This lecture helps readers build a more nuanced understanding between language, symbolism, and meaning.
9. The Features of Monotheism: Judaism
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 09. The Features of Monotheism: Judaism
The ninth lecture uses Judaism as an example to explain core features of monotheism. Judaism emphasizes the one God, covenant, law, prophetic tradition, and historical consciousness, and has had deep influence on later Christian and Islamic traditions.
The focus here is not only introducing knowledge about Judaism, but understanding how monotheism connects God, human beings, history, ethics, and communal identity. Compared with traditions that stress cultivation or natural order, monotheism often emphasizes revelation, responsibility, and historical mission.
For readers with a Chinese cultural background, this lecture helps clarify the difference between Abrahamic religions and East Asian traditions. Chinese traditions may more readily understand life through Heaven, ritual order, self-cultivation, ancestors, and cosmic order; monotheistic traditions often understand human-world relations through creation, covenant, salvation, law, and historical mission.
10. Religious Cultivation: Hinduism
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 10. Religious Cultivation: Hinduism
The tenth lecture turns to Hinduism and discusses the meaning of religious cultivation. Hindu tradition is complex and plural, involving the relation between Brahman and self, karma and rebirth, liberation, yoga, ritual, divine devotion, and multiple paths of practice.
This lecture can help readers understand that religion is not only belief in certain doctrines, but may also be an integrated framework of bodily and mental training, worldviews, and life practice. For those researching esotericism, cultivation, and East Asian thought, Hinduism provides an especially important comparative case.
The complexity of Hinduism also reminds us that religion should not be understood only as a system of doctrines. Religion may also include bodily disciplines, meditation methods, social identity, cosmic structure, mythic narratives, and a path to liberation. It is a whole civilizational system, not merely a few abstract creeds.
11. Buddhist Insight
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 11. Buddhist Insight
The eleventh lecture discusses Buddhism. Buddhism focuses on the core problem-field of suffering, origin, cessation, and path, and concerns how humans understand the root of suffering and move toward awakening and liberation through practice. Unlike God-centered religions, Buddhism emphasizes dependent origination, impermanence, non-self, and wisdom practice.
This lecture is especially important for Chinese readers, because Buddhism has profoundly influenced East Asian culture, ethics, literature, art, and popular belief. Understanding Buddhism also helps distinguish philosophical Buddhism, religiously practiced Buddhism, and Buddhist elements in popular religion.
The insight of Buddhism lies not only in religious belief, but in offering a method to observe life’s suffering, desire, attachment, and illusions about self. For those exploring "self-clinging," fate consciousness, life anxiety, and spiritual freedom, Buddhist thought has a strong complementarity with philosophy of religion.
12. Mysticism
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 12. Mysticism
The twelfth lecture discusses mysticism. Mystical experience usually refers to direct experience between a person and the sacred, ultimate reality, or an ineffable realm. It may appear in Christian, Islamic Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, and other traditions.
What is most interesting about mysticism is that it often crosses boundaries of language, institutions, and doctrine, giving people a sense of an experience that surpasses the everyday self. But it also raises problems: How is such experience expressed? How can one distinguish genuine experience from psychological illusion? How can one prevent private experience from overriding public rationality?
This lecture is closely related to esotericism, mysticism, and cultivation experience. Many people are drawn to religion or esotericism not because they first adopt a theory, but because they are moved by an experience, resonance, or life turning point. Discussion of mysticism can help reflect on the value and risks of such experience.
13. “Respect the Spirits from a Distance”: A Proper Attitude toward Religious Belief
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 13. “Respect the Spirits from a Distance”: A Proper Attitude toward Religious Belief
The thirteenth lecture takes "Respect the spirits and keep them at a distance" as an entry point to discuss a proper attitude toward religious belief. This phrase does not simply deny religion; it emphasizes respect for mystery, the sacred, and the unknown, while not allowing them to replace rational judgment and practical responsibility.
This lecture aligns closely with my site’s positioning: one can study esotericism and religion deeply while keeping distance; one can respect tradition while staying alert. A mature attitude is neither blind faith nor contempt, but building boundaries after understanding.
"Respect" means not being flippant or mocking, not sweeping the unknown world away as simple superstition; "keeping distance" means not becoming obsessed, dependent, or allowing spirit-centered notions to swallow everyday life. This attitude is especially important for modern people studying religion, divination, and traditional culture.
14. Religious Dimensions of Daoism
Course video: Religion and Philosophy of Religion 14. The Religious Dimensions of Daoism
The fourteenth lecture discusses Daoism’s religious dimensions. Daoist thought itself includes philosophical aspects, but historically has developed in complex relation with cultivation, immortal traditions, Daoist ritual, life-nurturing arts, and folk religion.
This lecture helps understand that in Chinese tradition, "philosophy" and "religion" are not always sharply separated. 《老子》《庄子》 can be read as philosophical classics, while Daoist tradition can be understood as religious practice; the two are related, but should not be simply conflated.
For those researching Chinese divination, Daoist and Daoist traditions are especially important. Much material concerning human-nature relations, yin-yang transformation, cultivation and health, immortals' lineages, ritual offerings, and folk belief is connected to Daoist or Daoist-related traditions. Understanding this background helps one grasp the cultural soil of Chinese esotericism more accurately.
15. Religious Dialogue and Civilizational Conflict, Religion’s Current State and Future
The fifteenth lecture is the course summary, discussing religious dialogue, civilizational conflict, and religion’s present condition and future in the modern world. Modern society has not eliminated religion; rather, different faith traditions increasingly encounter one another under globalization, migration, politics, technology, and cultural conflict.
Its practical significance is strong: religion can be a resource for understanding the other, settling life, and rebuilding ethics, but it can also be mobilized by identity politics, communal conflict, and extremism. Therefore the task of philosophy of religion is not only to interpret religion, but to help modern people form a more mature and appropriate view of religion.
In an era of globalization, even someone who does not believe in religion cannot completely avoid religious issues. Religion shapes history, politics, ethics, family life, art, and identity. A mature modern person should at least have basic capacity to understand different faith traditions, rather than remain at curiosity, mockery, or blind worship.
3. Why I Recommend This Course
The biggest strength of this course is that it does not turn religion into simple propaganda for belief, nor does it crudely compress religion into superstition, a scam, or merely psychological comfort. What it truly does is "philosophical understanding": first clarify concepts, then present the questions, and finally let viewers form their own judgments.
For people studying esotericism, divination, I Ching studies, religion, and symbolic systems, this course is especially worth watching. Many esoteric questions also touch philosophical-religious questions at their core: Why do humans need meaning? How do humans face uncertainty? How do symbolic systems influence action? How is traditional knowledge repositioned in modern society?
If someone understands only divinatory technique and does not grasp religious, philosophical, and cultural context, they easily remain at the level of tools; if someone speaks only of mysterious experiences and does not train concepts and discernment, they may also fall into confusion. NTU’s 《宗教哲学》 course fits this gap well.
More importantly, this course is relatively plainspoken in presentation, and does not require readers to have strong philosophical training from the beginning. It is suitable as an introduction to philosophy of religion, and also as intellectual supplementation for esoteric researchers: it can help one understand faith, while also reminding one to keep boundaries; it can enter tradition while maintaining modern rational self-awareness.
4. Copyright Notice
This article only organizes and introduces the syllabus and learning value of NTU Open Course 《宗教哲学》 so that readers can better understand the course content and viewing path. Course videos, lecture notes, titles, teaching content, and related copyrights belong to the original author, instructor, and NTU Open Course rights holders; this site does not claim copyright ownership of the course itself.
For the full course, please refer to the official course page or official YouTube playlist. For downloading, adaptation, reprinting, commercial use, or other further use, please follow official copyright notices and obtain authorization from relevant rights holders.
Related themes can also be referenced in this site’s religion category: 《普世主义的局限》 and the Yu Bin Spiritual World series.
FAQs
Which religious traditions are discussed in this article?
Please refer to the specific explanations in the main text. The religion section of this site covers multiple traditions, including Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, and Charismatic), Eastern religions, and mysticism, with different positions and perspectives in each article.
Is this a religious propaganda article or an academic discussion?
This site’s articles focus on cultural observation and academic introduction, do not represent a particular religious position, and do not function as religious persuasion. Readers should read with their own faith background and critical thinking.
How can I learn more deeply about the religious topics addressed?
It is recommended to consult the primary sources, academic papers, or course resources listed under “References” at the end of the article. Readers interested in the intersection of Eastern religions and divination culture may also use the site’s I Ching divination tool as a cultural entry point.
Where are the related series mentioned in the article?
The religion category on this site includes multiple series, including the "Yu Bin Spiritual World series" (nine essays), which can be browsed through the blog category page for related articles.
References
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