Religion: A User’s Guide

If religion functions like a drug, what are the benefits and side effects? There may be forms that are more healthy than others. There are definitely forms that are entirely toxic.

This guide gives theoretical foundations for those wanting to use religion to build community and agency without losing their autonomy.

Benefits of Healthy-enough religion

  • Community

  • Collective Action

  • Ancient stories and traditions carrying millennia of wisdom

  • Practices to grow one’s inner strength

  • How else do we theorize the centrality of love?

Dangers of High-control Religion

  • Hierarchical thinking, loss of autonomy

  • Exploitation & victimization

  • Dogma used to monopolize wisdom

  • Practices to distract from the realities of the human condition

  • Religion is just another way to judge thy neighbor

Lectures Begin Fall 2026. Locations TBD. YOUTUBE / PATREON to follow.

Lecture 1: THE SKEPTIC Know Your Limits & Glimpse the True

Lecture 2: THE GEOMETER & THE SCIENTIST Know Your Mind; Mirror Reality Cleanly

Lecture 3: THE POET Mythologize the Divine, the Sacred, and the Good

Lecture 4: THE INDIVIDUAL Critically & Productively Engage Your Community

Dr. Anderson’s approach builds on his experience studying and teaching the following:

  • The Problem of Evil

  • Early Modern Theories of God, Soul, and Freedom

  • Early Modern Theories of the Natural World

  • Critical Thinking, Forms of Reasoning, & Logic

  • The History and Philosophy of Science

  • Ethical Theory: Human Flourishing and Moral Responsibility

  • Philosophy of Religion

  • Philosophical Foundations for Theology (Graduate Course)

Dr Anderson takes a pluralistic approach to religious truth, but speaks primarily in the language of the Platonic and Christian traditions.