Rethinking History, Science, and Religion

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion PDF Author: Bernard Lightman
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082298704X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The historical interface between science and religion was depicted as an unbridgeable conflict in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Starting in the 1970s, such a conception was too simplistic and not at all accurate when considering the totality of that relationship. This volume evaluates the utility of the “complexity principle” in past, present, and future scholarship. First put forward by historian John Brooke over twenty-five years ago, the complexity principle rejects the idea of a single thesis of conflict or harmony, or integration or separation, between science and religion. Rethinking History, Science, and Religion brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars at the forefront of their fields to consider whether new approaches to the study of science and culture—such as recent developments in research on science and the history of publishing, the global history of science, the geographical examination of space and place, and science and media—have cast doubt on the complexity thesis, or if it remains a serviceable historiographical model.

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion PDF Author: Bernard Lightman
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082298704X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
The historical interface between science and religion was depicted as an unbridgeable conflict in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Starting in the 1970s, such a conception was too simplistic and not at all accurate when considering the totality of that relationship. This volume evaluates the utility of the “complexity principle” in past, present, and future scholarship. First put forward by historian John Brooke over twenty-five years ago, the complexity principle rejects the idea of a single thesis of conflict or harmony, or integration or separation, between science and religion. Rethinking History, Science, and Religion brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars at the forefront of their fields to consider whether new approaches to the study of science and culture—such as recent developments in research on science and the history of publishing, the global history of science, the geographical examination of space and place, and science and media—have cast doubt on the complexity thesis, or if it remains a serviceable historiographical model.

The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition

The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition PDF Author: Gary B. Ferngren
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138867833
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Science and Religion

Science and Religion PDF Author: John Hedley Brooke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139952986
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
John Hedley Brooke offers an introduction and critical guide to one of the most fascinating and enduring issues in the development of the modern world: the relationship between scientific thought and religious belief. It is common knowledge that in western societies there have been periods of crisis when new science has threatened established authority. The trial of Galileo in 1633 and the uproar caused by Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) are two of the most famous examples. Taking account of recent scholarship in the history of science, Brooke takes a fresh look at these and similar episodes, showing that science and religion have been mutually relevant in so rich a variety of ways that no simple generalizations are possible.

History and Religion

History and Religion PDF Author: Bernd-Christian Otto
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110437252
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
History is one of the most important cultural tools to make sense of one’s situation, to establish identity, define otherness, and explain change. This is the first systematic scholarly study that analyses the complex relationship between history and religion, taking into account religious groups both as producers of historical narratives as well as distinct topics of historiography. Coming from different disciplines, the authors of this volume ask under which conditions and with what consequences religions are historicised. How do religious groups employ historical narratives in the construction of their identities? What are the biases and elisions of current analytical and descriptive frames in the History of Religion? The volume aims at initiating a comparative historiography of religion and combines disciplinary competences of Religious Studies and the History of Religion, Confessional Theologies, History, History of Science, and Literary Studies. By applying literary comparison and historical contextualization to those texts that have been used as central documents for histories of individual religions, their historiographic themes, tools and strategies are analysed. The comparative approach addresses circum-Mediterranean and European as well as Asian religious traditions from the first millennium BCE to the present and deals with topics such as the origins of religious historiography, the practices of writing and the transformation of narratives.

The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860-1915

The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860-1915 PDF Author: Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813930510
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay argues that, although the existence and significance of the science of religion has been barely visible to modern scholars of the Victorian period, it was a subject of lively and extensive debate among nineteenth-century readers and audiences. She shows how an earlier generation of scholars in Victorian Britain attempted to arrive at a dispassionate understanding of the psychological and social meanings of religious beliefs and practices—a topic not without contemporary resonance in a time when so many people feel both empowered and threatened by religious passion—and provides the kind of history she feels has been neglected. Wheeler-Barclay examines the lives and work of six scholars: Friedrich Max Müller, Edward B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, William Robertson Smith, James G. Frazer, and Jane Ellen Harrison. She illuminates their attempts to create a scholarly, non-apologetic study of religion and religions that drew upon several different disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, the classics, and Oriental studies, and relied upon contributions from those outside as well as within the universities. This intellectual enterprise—variously known as comparative religion, the history of religions, or the science of religion—was primarily focused on non-Christian religions. Yet in Wheeler-Barclay’s study of the history of this field within the broad contexts of Victorian cultural, intellectual, social, and political history, she traces the links between the emergence of the science of religion to debates about Christianity and to the history of British imperialism, the latter of which made possible the collection of so much of the ethnographic data on which the scholars relied and which legitimized exploration and conquest. Far from promoting an anti-religious or materialistic agenda, the science of religion opened up cultural space for an exploration of religion that was not constricted by the terms of contemporary conflicts over Darwin and the Bible and that made it possible to think in new and more flexible ways about the very definition of religion.

Religion and its History

Religion and its History PDF Author: Jörg Rüpke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000381129
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Religion and its History offers a reflection of our operative concept of religion and religions, developing a set of approaches that bridge the widely assumed gulf between analysing present religion and doing history of religion. Religious Studies have adapted a wide range of methodologies from sociological tool kits to insights and concepts from disciplines of social and cultural studies. Their massive historical claims, which typically idealize and reify communities and traditions, and build normative claims thereupon, lack a critical engagement on the part of the researchers. This book radically rethinks and critically engages with these biases. It does so by offering neither an abridged global history of religion nor a small handbook of methodology. Instead, this book presents concepts and methods that allow the analysis of contemporary and past religious practices, ideas, and institutions within a shared framework.

The Study of Religion

The Study of Religion PDF Author: George D. Chryssides
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780936702
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 739

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Book Description
This updated textbook unravels the complex issues related to methodology and theory in the study of religion. It equips students with the knowledge needed for the academic study of religion, explaining the history of the methodology, including ideas of key theorists, and discusses key issues in the field, such as gender, phenomenology, and the insider/outsider discourse. Updated throughout, additional material includes: -New chapter on colonialism and post-colonialism -New chapter on insider/outsider discourse -Coverage of 'cyber-religion' and the internet as a research tool in religious studies Study and classroom features in each chapter include: -Chapter outlines -Case studies -Boxed key concepts -Discussion questions -Chapter bibliographies The text is illustrated throughout with 35 images, and extra resources can be found online, including additional coverage of 'levels of religion'.

Religion Enters the Academy

Religion Enters the Academy PDF Author: James Turner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820337404
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
Religious studies—also known as comparative religion or history of religions—emerged as a field of study in colleges and universities on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century. In Europe, as previous historians have demonstrated, the discipline grew from long-established traditions of university-based philological scholarship. But in the United States, James Turner argues, religious studies developed outside the academy. Until about 1820, Turner contends, even learned Americans showed little interest in non-European religions—a subject that had fascinated their counterparts in Europe since the end of the seventeenth century. Growing concerns about the status of Christianity generated American interest in comparing it to other great religions, and the resulting writings eventually produced the academic discipline of religious studies in U.S. universities. Fostered especially by learned Protestant ministers, this new discipline focused on canonical texts—the “bibles”—of other great world religions. This rather narrow approach provoked the philosopher and psychologist William James to challenge academic religious studies in 1902 with his celebrated and groundbreaking Varieties of Religious Experience.

Before Religion

Before Religion PDF Author: Brent Nongbri
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154178
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ancient religion. Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures.

Theorizing Religions Past

Theorizing Religions Past PDF Author: Harvey Whitehouse
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759115354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Historians bound by their singular stories and archaeologists bound by their material evidence donOt typically seek out broad comparative theories of religion. But recently Harvey WhitehouseOs Omodes of religiosityO theory has been attracting many scholars of past religions. Based upon universal features of human cognition, WhitehouseOs theory can provide useful comparisons across cultures and historical periods even when limited cultural data is present. In this groundbreaking volume scholars of cultures from prehistorical hunter-gatherers to 19th century Scandinavian Lutherans evaluate WhitehouseOs hypothesis that all religions tend toward either an imagistic or a doctrinal mode depending on how they are remembered and transmitted. Theorizing Religions Past provides valuable insights for all historians of religion and especially for those interested in a new cognitive method for studying the past.