The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Varieties of Religious Experience PDF 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."

The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Varieties of Religious Experience PDF Author: William James
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1877527467
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 824

Get Book

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."

Thoughts on Religious Experience

Thoughts on Religious Experience PDF Author: Archibald Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conversion
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description


The Neuroscience of Religious Experience

The Neuroscience of Religious Experience PDF Author: Patrick McNamara
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139483560
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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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.

The Significance of Religious Experience

The Significance of Religious Experience PDF 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.

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God

Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God PDF 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.

Religious Experience

Religious Experience PDF 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.

The Epistemology of Religious Experience

The Epistemology of Religious Experience PDF Author: Keith E. Yandell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521477413
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Arguing against the notion that religious experience is ineffable, while advocating the view that it can provide evidence of God's existence, this text contends that social science and nonreligious explanations of religious belief and experience do not cancel out the force of the experience.

Handbook of Religious Experience

Handbook of Religious Experience PDF 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.

Perceiving God

Perceiving God PDF Author: William P. Alston
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the "perception of God"—his term for direct experiential awareness of God—makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience. Through the perception that God is sustaining one in being, for example, one can justifiably believe that God is indeed sustaining one in being. Alston offers a detailed discussion of our grounds for taking sense perception and other sources of belief—including introspection, memory, and mystical experience—to be reliable and to confer justification. He then uses this epistemic framework to explain how our perceptual beliefs about God can be justified. Alston carefully addresses objections to his chief claims, including problems posed by non-Christian religious traditions. He also examines the way in which mystical perception fits into the larger picture of grounds for religious belief. Suggesting that religious experience, rather than being a purely subjective phenomenon, has real cognitive value, Perceiving God will spark intense debate and will be indispensable reading for those interested in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, as well as for theologians.

The Study of Religious Experience

The Study of Religious Experience PDF Author: Bettina E. Schmidt
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781792568
Category : Experience (Religion)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The renowned scientist Sir Alister Hardy approached the complex field of religious and spiritual experience in a similar disciplined and scientific manner in which he approached natural science. Asking people from the public to send him accounts of first-hand experiences with spiritual or religious powers, he established the Religious Experience Research Centre that has remained at the forefront of the academic study of religious experiences. This book will take his work forward and show how to study religious and spiritual experiences in the 21st century. The Study of Religious Experience aims to show how a range of disciplines - including anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, theology, biblical studies and history - approach the topic of religious experience, how this approach is applied and what contributions they make to the study of religious experience.