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Author: Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004310452 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
Luther H. Martin and Donald Wiebe together have spent the better part of a century exploring possibilities for a scientific study of religion. The following essays are a record of their conversations together and of their conversations and controversies with a number of leading scholars in religious studies that address that possibility. As with any scientific endeavor, knowledge advances when research assumptions and experimental designs are collegially discussed and critically assessed. It is hoped that these essays might provide the occasion for scholars in the field to discuss the theoretical and methodological issues they have raised, to debate and expand upon them, or, in the spirit of forthright scientific inquiry, to refute the arguments they have made.
Author: Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004310452 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
Luther H. Martin and Donald Wiebe together have spent the better part of a century exploring possibilities for a scientific study of religion. The following essays are a record of their conversations together and of their conversations and controversies with a number of leading scholars in religious studies that address that possibility. As with any scientific endeavor, knowledge advances when research assumptions and experimental designs are collegially discussed and critically assessed. It is hoped that these essays might provide the occasion for scholars in the field to discuss the theoretical and methodological issues they have raised, to debate and expand upon them, or, in the spirit of forthright scientific inquiry, to refute the arguments they have made.
Author: Elaine Howard Ecklund Publisher: OUP USA ISBN: 0195392981 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
That the longstanding antagonism between science and religion is irreconcilable has been taken for granted. And in the wake of recent controversies over teaching intelligent design and the ethics of stem-cell research, the divide seems as unbridgeable as ever.In Science vs. Religion, Elaine Howard Ecklund investigates this unexamined assumption in the first systematic study of what scientists actually think and feel about religion. In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls "spiritual entrepreneurs," seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion. The book centers around vivid portraits of 10 representative men and women working in the natural and social sciences at top American research universities. Ecklund's respondents run the gamut from Margaret, a chemist who teaches a Sunday-school class, to Arik, a physicist who chose not to believe in God well before he decided to become a scientist. Only a small minority are actively hostile to religion. Ecklund reveals how scientists-believers and skeptics alike-are struggling to engage the increasing number of religious students in their classrooms and argues that many scientists are searching for "boundary pioneers" to cross the picket lines separating science and religion.With broad implications for education, science funding, and the thorny ethical questions surrounding stem-cell research, cloning, and other cutting-edge scientific endeavors, Science vs. Religion brings a welcome dose of reality to the science and religion debates.
Author: Paul Draper Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131729274X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
While orthodox religion by its very nature is conservative, philosophy at its best is inherently radical. It challenges authority, tradition, and the whole idea of "dogma." For this reason, philosophy of religion can be explosively controversial. It is bound to disturb those who peddle incontrovertible truth and fascinate those who seek spiritual truth and are willing to follow the argument wherever it leads. This volume is designed for such seekers. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers of religion to explore and debate radical new ideas about religion, God, and ultimate reality. Four related questions are addressed: How might religion make progress? Is life after death a real possibility? Must a perfect God be motivated by our well-being? What alternatives are there to traditional theism and materialist atheism? The book begins with a vision for the field of philosophy of religion and ends with a capstone chapter that touches on all of the topics debated in the other chapters. The addition of chapter overviews, annotated suggestions for further reading, and annotated guides to three additional controversies make it an ideal textbook in addition to being an important source for scholars and seekers of all kinds.
Author: Luther H. Martin Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350032476 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
With contributions from founders of the field, including Justin Barrett, E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley, Paschal Boyer, Armin Geertz and Harvey Whitehouse, as well as from younger scholars from successive stages in the field's development, this is an important survey of the first twenty-five years of the cognitive science of religion. Each chapter provides the author's views on the contributions the cognitive science of religion has made to the academic study of religion, as well as any shortcomings in the field and challenges for the future. Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-five Years calls attention to the field whilst providing an accessible and diverse survey of approaches from key voices, as well as offering suggestions for further research within the field. This book is essential reading for anyone in religious studies, anthropology, and the scientific study of religion.
Author: Andrew Ralls Woodward Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1532660200 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
Most comparisons of science and religion are really comparisons of science and Christianity, or science and Islam, and so forth. In Scientific Models for Religious Knowledge, the author aims to get outside typical polarized debates between traditional, a priori theism and radical, scientistic naturalism. Instead, a new science and religion compatibility system--between a scientific study of religion and a religious epistemology--is our new, elusive problem. Moreover, we shall look at a comparison and contrast of modern science with the simple deference of the human mind to the actions of culturally postulated superhuman agents. This book pays critical attention to the contributions of scholars in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science, and the scientific study of religion. Scientific Models for Religious Knowledge is useful for readers looking to expand their learning in the philosophies of science and religion as these subjects are taught and analyzed in modern research universities.
Author: Russell T. McCutcheon Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110721864 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 218
Book Description
Although many would today argue that the onetime dominance of the phenomenology of religion has receded, and with it the traditional approach to studying religion as a unique and deeply-felt experience that defies explanation, the essays collected here take quite the opposite stand: that this approach has merely been re-branded and continues to characterize much work being done in the field today. Offering a different way forward—one that is based on experiences gained by the members of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, a program that has successfully reinvented itself over the past 20 years—the book includes a variety of practical suggestions for how members of Religious Studies departments can revise their approach to studying and teaching about religion. Seeing religion instead as mundane but always exemplary of basic social elements found all across cultures, the volume argues that the way forward for this field lies not in the specialness of its object of study but, instead, the fact that thinking and acting as if something is special is itself an ordinary aspect of history and culture. Making just this shift helps the scholar of religion to contribute to wide, interdisciplinary conversations all across the Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrating the practical relevance of their work.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309451051 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 153
Book Description
Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life decisions about medical care, the safety of foods, what to do about climate change, and many other issues. Communicating science effectively, however, is a complex task and an acquired skill. Moreover, the approaches to communicating science that will be most effective for specific audiences and circumstances are not obvious. Fortunately, there is an expanding science base from diverse disciplines that can support science communicators in making these determinations. Communicating Science Effectively offers a research agenda for science communicators and researchers seeking to apply this research and fill gaps in knowledge about how to communicate effectively about science, focusing in particular on issues that are contentious in the public sphere. To inform this research agenda, this publication identifies important influences â€" psychological, economic, political, social, cultural, and media-related â€" on how science related to such issues is understood, perceived, and used.
Author: Donald Wiebe Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350103446 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.
Author: Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004549315 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 431
Book Description
This book includes a collection of articles by leading researchers on the topic of religious contact in the study of religion. Resulting from the final conference of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "Dynamics in the History of Religions"–one of the largest research initiatives in the interdisciplinary study of religion worldwide in recent years (2008-2020)—this book encapsulates the twofold aim of this conference: first, to "step back" and reflect upon the merits and challenges of studying religious dynamics as a result of intra-, inter-, and extra-religious contact, and second "to look beyond" and pave ways for future approaches to study religion as a social phenomenon.
Author: Leonardo Ambasciano Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350062405 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
An Unnatural History of Religions examines the origins, development, and critical issues concerning the history of religion and its relationship with science. The book explores the ideological biases, logical fallacies, and unwarranted beliefs that surround the scientific foundations (or lack thereof) in the academic discipline of the history of religions, positioning them in today's 'post-truth' culture. Leonardo Ambasciano provides the necessary critical background to evaluate the most important theories and working concepts dedicated to the explanation of the historical developments of religion. He covers the most important topics and paradigm shifts in the field, such as phenomenology, postmodernism, and cognitive science. These are taken into consideration chronologically, each time with case studies on topics such as shamanism, gender biases, ethnocentrism, and biological evolution. Ambasciano argues that the roots of post-truth may be deep in human biases, but that historical justifications change each time, resulting in different combinations. The surprising rise of once-fringe beliefs, such as conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific claims, and so-called scientific creationism, demonstrates the alarming influence that post-truth ideas may exert on both politics and society. Recognising them before they spread anew may be the first step towards a scientifically renewed study of religion.
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Author: Elaine Howard Ecklund
Author: Paul Draper
Author: Luther H. Martin
Author: Andrew Ralls Woodward
Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: Donald Wiebe
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Author: Leonardo Ambasciano