An Introduction to Religious Language

An Introduction to Religious Language
Author: Valerie Hobbs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-12-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1350095761

Religious language is all around us, embedded in advertising, politics and news media. This book introduces readers to the field of theolinguistics, the study of religious language. Investigating the ways in which people talk to and about God, about the sacred and about religion itself, it considers why people make certain linguistic choices and what they accomplish. Introducing the key methods required for examining religious language, Valerie Hobbs acquaints readers with the most common and important theolinguistic features and their functions. Using critical corpus-assisted discourse analysis with a focus on archaic and other lexical features, metaphor, agency and intertextuality, she examines religious language in context. Highlighting its use in both expected locations, such as modern-day prayer and politics, and unexpected locations including advertising, sport, healthcare and news media, Hobbs analyses the shifting and porous linguistic boundaries between the religious and the secular. With discussion questions and further readings for each chapter, as well as a companion website featuring suggested answers to the reflection tasks, this is the ideal introduction to the study of religious language.

Religious Language, Meaning, and Use

Religious Language, Meaning, and Use
Author: Robert K. Bolger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-08-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350059706

Can the meaning of religious language be separated from its use? In Religious Language, Meaning, and Use, Robert Bolger and Robert Coburn address what has become a contentious though often overlooked account of the relationship between religious belief and religious practice. Through philosophical argumentation and by means of a variety of sermon-like essays on religious topics, this book seeks to return religion to the place in which the meaning and practical impact of its beliefs become inseparable from the life of the believer. Part I begins by considering, through the loose lens of Wittgenstein's philosophical method, how religious language has been misunderstood leading straightway to a variety of challenges and conceptual confusions. Part II presents previously unpublished essays written by Robert C. Coburn who has, for over 50 years, been at the forefront of the study of metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Making a compelling case for a religious practice that avoids trivializing religious belief, this book promises to be a corrective to those who see faith as nothing more than ethics in disguise and to those metaphysicians who see faith as a set of beliefs.

What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion?

What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion?
Author: Elizabeth Burns
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2017-10-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317595467

What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion? grapples with the core topics studied on philosophy of religion undergraduate courses including: the meaning of religious language, including 20th century developments the nature of the Divine, including divine power, wisdom and action arguments for the existence of the Divine challenges to belief in the Divine, including the problems of evil, divine hiddenness and religious diversity believing without arguments arguments for life after death, including reincarnation. In addition to the in-depth coverage of the key themes within the subject area Elizabeth Burns explores the topics from the perspectives of the five main world religions, introducing students to the work of scholars from a variety of religious traditions and interpretations of belief. What is this thing called Philosophy of Religion? is the ideal introduction for those approaching the philosophy of religion for the first time, containing many helpful student-friendly features, such as a glossary of important terms, study questions and further reading.

The Language of God

The Language of God
Author: Francis Collins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2008-09-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1847396151

Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

A Confusion of the Spheres

A Confusion of the Spheres
Author: Genia Sch?nbaumsfeld
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 700
Release: 2010-03-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191614831

Cursory allusions to the relation between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein are common in philosophical literature, but there has been little in the way of serious and comprehensive commentary on the relationship of their ideas. Genia Sch?nbaumsfeld closes this gap and offers new readings of Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's conceptions of philosophy and religious belief. Chapter one documents Kierkegaard's influence on Wittgenstein, while chapters two and three provide trenchant criticisms of two prominent attempts to compare the two thinkers, those by D. Z. Phillips and James Conant. In chapter four, Sch?nbaumsfeld develops Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's concerted criticisms of certain standard conceptions of religious belief, and defends their own positive conception against the common charges of 'irrationalism' and 'fideism'. As well as contributing to contemporary debate about how to read Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's work, A Confusion of the Spheres addresses issues which not only concern scholars of Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, but anyone interested in the philosophy of religion, or the ethical aspects of philosophical practice as such.

Language and Religion

Language and Religion
Author: Robert Yelle
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2019-02-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1614514321

This volume draws on an interdisciplinary team of authors to advance the study of the religious dimensions of communication and the linguistic aspects of religion. Contributions cover: poetry, iconicity, and iconoclasm in religious language; semiotic ideologies in traditional religions and in secularism; and the role of materiality and writing in religious communication. This volume will provoke new approaches to language and religion.

A Secular Age

A Secular Age
Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 889
Release: 2018-09-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674986911

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Studies in Religion

Studies in Religion
Author: Glyn Richards
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1349241474

These studies in religion embrace Hindu, Buddhist and Christian themes and examine the spiritual insights and philosophical reflections of prominent thinkers from different religious traditions. Where appropriate comparisons are drawn between the views of representatives of the different traditions from an empathetic standpoint and in a way that would meet with the approval of adherents of those religions. The main aim of these essays in the pluralistic religious situation of today is to enable us to escape from the small island of our own cultural tradition and to explore the richness and diversity of other cultures with their wide variety of religious experiences.

Speaking Christian

Speaking Christian
Author: Marcus J. Borg
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2011-04-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0062078682

In Speaking Christian, acclaimed Bible scholar Marcus Borg, author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, argues that the very language Christians use has become dangerously distilled, distorted, and disconnected from the beliefs which once underpinned it. Stating a case that will resonate with readers of N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian, Borg calls for a radical change to the language we use to invoke our beliefs—the only remedy that will allow the Church's words to once again ring with truth, power, and hope.