The Significance of Religious Experience PDF Download

Author: Howard Wettstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190226757
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In this volume of essays, Howard Wettstein explores the foundations of religious commitment. His orientation is broadly naturalistic, but not in the mode of reductionism or eliminativism. This collection explores questions of broad religious interest, but does so through a focus on the author's religious tradition, Judaism. Among the issues explored are the nature and role of awe, ritual, doctrine, religious experience; the distinction between belief and faith; problems of evil and suffering with special attention to the Book of Job and to the Akedah, the biblical story of the binding of Isaac; the virtue of forgiveness. One of the book's highlights is its literary (as opposed to philosophical) approach to theology that at the same time makes room for philosophical exploration of religion. Another is Wettstein's rejection of the usual picture that sees religious life as sitting atop a distinctive metaphysical foundation, one that stands in need of epistemological justification.

Author: Paul K. Moser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108471420
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Offers a new approach to religious experience and the kind of evidence it provides. Understanding Religious Experience will benefit those interested in the nature of religion and can be used in relevant courses in religious studies, philosophy, theology, Biblical studies, and the history of religion.

Author: Wayne Proudfoot
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520908503
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
How is religious experience to be identified, described, analyzed and explained? Is it independent of concepts, beliefs, and practices? How can we account for its authority? Under what conditions might a person identify his or her experience as religious? Wayne Proudfoot shows that concepts, beliefs, and linguistic practices are presupposed by the rules governing this identification of an experience as religious. Some of these characteristics can be understood by attending to the conditions of experience, among which are beliefs about how experience is to be explained.

Author: William James
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1877527467
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 824

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Book Description
Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."

Author: Ann Taves
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069114088X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Annotation Ann Taves addresses the subject of religious experience directly and the problems of reductionism and humanistic fears of the sciences indirectly and by example. The orientation of this book is practical more than philosophical.

Author: Patrick McNamara
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139483560
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionised our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in psychology and anthropology posit evolutionary explanations for the ubiquity and persistence of religious beliefs and the reports of religious experiences across human cultures, while gesturing toward physical bases for these behaviours. What is missing from this literature is a strong voice speaking to these behavioural and social scientists - as well as to the intellectually curious in the religious studies community - from the perspective of a brain scientist.

Author: Ralph W. Hood
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780891350941
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
HANDBOOK OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE is generally recognized as the classic book on the psychology of religious experience. It is the gold standard against which other books in this field are measured. This monumental volume examines in great breadth and depth the nature, roots, ecology, expressions, explanations, and facilitational modes of religious experience. Ultimately, religious experience is central since it is the source, context, and validation of all religion, all religious activities, and all theories of religion. Scripture and sacrament are basically religious experiences. Religious experience is basically the encounter with God in its highest form.

Author: Harold A. Netland
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493434896
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
For many Christians, personal experiences of God provide an important ground or justification for accepting the truth of the gospel. But we are sometimes mistaken about our experiences, and followers of other religions also provide impressive testimonies to support their religious beliefs. This book explores from a philosophical and theological perspective the viability of divine encounters as support for belief in God, arguing that some religious experiences can be accepted as genuine experiences of God and can provide evidence for Christian beliefs.

Author: Matthew C. Bagger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139425668
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Many philosophers of religion have sought to defend the rationality of religious belief by shifting the burden of proof onto the critic of religious belief. Some have appealed to extraordinary religious experience in making their case. Religious Experience, Justification and History restores neglected explanatory and historical considerations to the debate. Through a study of William James, it contests the accounts of religious experience offered in recent works. Through reflection on the history of philosophy, it also unravels the philosophical use of the term 'justification'. Matthew Bagger argues that the commitment to supernatural explanations implicit in the religious experiences employed to justify religious belief contradicts the modern ideal of human flourishing. For contrast, and to demonstrated the indispensability of history, he includes a study of Teresa of Avila's mystical theology. The controversial supernatural explanations implicit in extraordinary religious experience places the burden of proof on the believer.

Author: Juliet Mousseau
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814645445
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Written by a diverse group of younger women religious from North America, In Our Own Words offers a collection of essays on issues central to apostolic religious life today. The thirteen authors represent different congregations, charisms, ministries, and histories. The topics and concerns that shape these chapters emerged naturally through a collaborative process of prayer and conversation. Essays focus on the vows and community life, individual identity and congregational charisms, and leadership among younger members leading into the future. The authors hope these chapters may form a springboard for further conversation on religious life, inviting others to share their experiences of religious life in today’s world.