Eight Theories of Religion

Eight Theories of Religion
Author: Daniel L. Pals
Publisher:
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call "religious" so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Revised and updated in this second edition, Eight Theories of Religion considers how these fundamental questions have engaged the most important thinkers of the modern era. Accessible, systematic, and succinct, the text examines the classic interpretations of religion advanced by theorists who have left a major imprint on the intellectual culture of the twentieth century. The second edition features a new chapter on Max Weber, a revised introduction, and a revised, expanded conclusion that traces the paths of further inquiry and interpretation traveled by theorists in the most recent decades. Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, begins with Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer--two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It then considers the great "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, all of whom have exercised wide influence up to the present day. The discussion goes on to examine the leading challenges to reductionism as articulated by sociologist Max Weber (new to this edition) and Romanian-American comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, it explores the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. Each chapter offers biographical background, theoretical exposition, conceptual analysis, and critical assessment. This common format allows for close comparison and careful evaluation throughout. Ideal for use as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the central text in sociology of religion and courses centered on the explanation and interpretation of religion, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject.

Eight Theories of Ethics

Eight Theories of Ethics
Author: Gordon Graham
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2004-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134375522

Is it possible to study ethics objectively, or are moral judgements inevitably subjective? Are ancient theories of ethics of any contemporary relevance? Which ethical theory offers the most convincing explanation of how best to live one's life? Eight Theories of Ethics is a comprehensive introduction to the theories of ethics encountered by first-time students. Gordon Graham introduces the fundamental concepts that underpin ethics, such as relativism and objectivity, and then devotes his attention to each of the eight major theories of ethics: * egoism * hedonism * naturalism and virtue theory * existentialism * Kantianism * utilitarianism * contractualism * religion. Throughout the book, Gordon Graham draws on examples from great moral philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant and Mill, and also from contemporary debates over human nature, the environment and citizenship. Eight Theories of Ethics is written in an engaging and student-friendly style, with detailed suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter - including original sources and contemporary discussions. It is ideal for anyone coming to this area of philosophy for the first time, and for those studying ethics in related disciplines such as politics, law, nursing and medicine.

Introducing Religion

Introducing Religion
Author: Daniel L. Pals
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780195181494

'Introducing Religion' presents the key writings of 11 theorists that explain the phenomenon of religion - its origin, historical growth, and world-wide variations - without relying on the authority of the Bible or the articles of dogma.

Visions of Religion

Visions of Religion
Author: Stephen S. Bush
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199387419

Winner of the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities Three understandings of the nature of religion--religion as experience, symbolic meaning, and power--have dominated scholarly discussions, in succession, for the past hundred years. Proponents of each of these three approaches have tended to downplay, ignore, or actively criticize the others. But why should the three approaches be at odds? Religion as it is practiced involves experiences, meanings, and power, so students of religion should attend to all three. Furthermore, theorists of religion should have an account that carefully conceptualizes all three aspects, without regarding any of them as more basic than the others. Visions of Religion provides just such an account. Stephen S. Bush examines influential proponents of the three visions, arguing that each approach offers substantial and lasting contributions to the study of religion, although each requires revision. Bush rehabilitates the concepts of experience and meaning, two categories that are much maligned these days. In doing so, he shows the extent to which these categories are implicated in matters of social power. As for power, the book argues that the analysis of power requires attention to meaning and experience. Visions of Religion accomplishes all this by articulating a social practical theory of religion that can account for all three aspects, even as it incorporates them into a single theoretical framework.

Ten Theories of Religion

Ten Theories of Religion
Author: Daniel Pals
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2021-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9780190935085

Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call religious so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Ideal as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the main text in theory and method in religious studies or in sociology of religion courses, Ten Theories of Religion, Fourth Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject.

Religion in Human Evolution

Religion in Human Evolution
Author: Robert N. Bellah
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 777
Release: 2017-05-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0674252934

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Theory and Method in the Study of Religion

Theory and Method in the Study of Religion
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004257578

Theory and Method are two words that cause considerable consternation in the academic study of religion. Although everyone claims to be aware of and to engage them, the fact of the matter is that they remain poorly understood. Some see the terms as irritants that get in the way of data interpretation and translation. Others may invoke them sporadically to appear in vogue but then return quickly and myopically to their material and with little concern for the larger issues that such terms raise. To contribute to these debates, the present volume reproduces select articles from Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (MTSR) from the first 25 volumes of the journal, and allows a group of younger scholars to introduce and review them, asking if the issues raised are still relevant to the field. Contributors include: Matt Sheedy, Robert A. Segal, James B. Apple, Neil McMullin, Rebekka King, Russell McCutcheon, Craig Martin, Donal Wiebe, Emma Cohen, Robert N. McCauley, E. Thomas Lawson, Steven Engler, Mark Q. Gardiner, Bruce Lincoln, Sarah E. Rollens, Burton Mack, Yasmin Merchant, Herb Bergh, Jennifer Hall, Darlene Juschka, Ella Paldam, and Armin Geertz.

Religion in a Tswana Chiefdom

Religion in a Tswana Chiefdom
Author: B. A. Pauw
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2018-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429944543

Originally published in 1960, this book is a study of religion among the Tlhaping, a rural Bantu society who were the first among the Tswana tribes to come into contact with Europeans. The religious organization of the Tlhaping has been viewed within the framework of the people’s social structure and economy. The book traces the declining influence of paganism before surveying the types of churches, their organization, activities, rituals and revelations, with particular reference to Bantu separatist churches.

God

God
Author: C. Stephen Layman
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268202044

This book explores a wide range of philosophical issues in their connection with theism, including views of free will, ethical theories, theories of mind, naturalism, and karma-plus-reincarnation. In this clear and logical guide, C. Stephen Layman takes up eight important philosophical questions about God: Does God exist? Why does God permit evil? Why think God is good? Why is God hidden? What is God’s relationship to ethics? Is divine foreknowledge compatible with human free will? Do humans have souls? Does reincarnation provide the best explanation of suffering? Based on more than thirty years of experience in teaching undergraduates and in leading philosophical discussions related to God, Layman has arranged the text to deal with each of these eight questions in one or two chapters apiece. Many philosophical works take up questions about God, but the chapters of this book plunge the reader very quickly into the arguments relevant to each question. Layman presents the arguments cogently and simply, yet without oversimplifying the issues. The book emphasizes strengths and weaknesses of both theism and its metaphysical rivals. Readers will gain a clearer understanding of theism and naturalism, and of their sometimes surprising implications. The book can be used as a text in philosophy of religion and introductory philosophy courses. Professional philosophers will find significant, novel arguments in many of the chapters.

Modes of Religiosity

Modes of Religiosity
Author: Harvey Whitehouse
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780759106154

Religions--whatever else they may be--are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvious fact of religious transmission, Harvey Whitehouse goes on to construct a testable theory of how religions are created, passed on, and changed. At the center of his theory are two divergent 'modes of religiosity: ' the imagistic and the doctrinal. Drawing from recent advances in cognitive science, Whitehouse's theory shows how religions tend to coalesce around one of these two poles depending on how religious behaviors are remembered. In the 'imagistic mode, ' rituals have a lasting impact on people's minds, haunting not only our memories but influencing the way we ruminate on religious topics. These psychological features are linked to the scale and structure of religious communities, fostering small, exclusive, and ideologically heterogeneous ritual groupings or factions. In the 'doctrinal mode', on the other hand, religious knowledge is primarily spread through intensive and repetitive teaching; religious communities are contrastingly large, inclusive, and centrally regulated. While these tendencies have long been recognized in the history of the study of religion, the modes of religiosity theory is unique in that it explains why these tendencies exist. More importantly, Whitehouse does not give the final word, but invites us to join a series of collaborative networks among anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, and psychologists, currently trying to falsify, confirm, or refine the theory. Are you tired of the flood of descriptions and interpretations of religions which offer no clear strategy for evaluation, comparison, and testing? Modes of Religiosity can provide you with a new way to think when you think about religion.