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3. It's clear that Whitehead operates in terms of his own version of the distinction that others have made between -- in my words-axial and preaxial religion. His term for the first is, of course, "rational religion," whereas he speaks of the second variously as "communal religion," or "social religion" (in such phrases, e.g., as "the antecedent social religions of ritual and mythical belief," or "the antecedent type of religion, ceremonial, mythical, and sociable"), or "the more primitive type," or "the less-developed religious forms." But, unfortunately, some of his several "Religion is ..." kind of statements, including such well known definitions, or quasi-definitions, as "Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness" (16), are not, as they appear to be, definitions of "religion" simply as such, but only of "rational religion," or "purified religion." Thus, having repeated the above definition, he says, "'this point of the origin of ratio/wi rational religion in solitariness is fundamental" (58; italics added). Or, again, "In a communal religion you study the will of God in order that He may preserve you; in a purified religion, rationalized under the influence of the world-concept, you study his goodness in order to be like him. It is the difference between the enemy you conciliate and the companion you imitate" (41).

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