ABSTRACT
Philosophers have always emphasized that responsible opinions must be based on argument rather than on private preference or group conviction. For analytic philosophy of religion, belief in God constitutes the basic category of religious belief: and God is defined in terms common to all the monotheistic faiths. Even philosophers of religion who have attempted to develop rather different methodologies to those considered thus far continue to operate with a framework that makes a distinction between what might be called true religion and superstition. D. Z. Phillips, the foremost exponent of Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, adopts precisely this true/false dichotomy. Phillips' attempt to engage with the actual nature of religious practice, grounded in a given faith community, is open to criticism precisely because of this tendency to differentiate between genuine religion and superstition. An alternative reading can also be offered for Freud's account of the connection between religious ritual and neurotic illness.
