The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism


Book Description

Ecological crisis is being widely discussed in society today and therefore, the subject of religious naturalism has emerged as a major topic in religion. The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-four chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts: • Varieties of religious naturalism and its relations to other outlooks • Some earlier religious naturalists • Pantheism, materialism, and the value-ladenness of nature • Ecology, humans, and politics in naturalistic perspective • Religious naturalism and traditional religions • Putting religious naturalism into practice • Critical discussions of religious naturalism. Within these sections central issues, debates, and problems are examined, including: defining religious naturalism; religious underpinnings of ecology; natural piety; the religious-aesthetic; ecstatic naturalism as deep pantheism; spiritual ecology; African-American religious naturalism; Christian religious naturalism; Dao and water; Confucianism; environmental action; and practices in religious naturalism. The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, theology, and philosophy. The Handbook will also be useful for those in related fields, such as environmental ethics and ecology.




Religious Naturalism Today


Book Description

Previously a forgotten option in religious thinking, religious naturalism is coming back. It seeks to explore and encourage religious ways of responding to the world on a completely naturalistic basis without a supreme being or ground of being. In this book, Jerome A. Stone traces its history and analyzes some of the issues dividing religious naturalists. He includes analysis of nearly fifty distinguished philosophers, theologians, scientists, and figures in art and literature, both living and dead. They range from Ursula Goodenough, Gordon Kaufman, William Dean, Thomas Berry, and Gary Snyder to Jan Christiaan Smuts, William Bernhardt, Gregory Bateson, and Sharon Welch.




The Routledge Handbook of Liberal Naturalism


Book Description

The central question of naturalism - the relation of philosophy to science - was one of the defining strands of twentieth-century thought and remains a major source of debate and controversy. Today many argue that philosophy should fold itself into the sciences, especially the natural sciences. Liberal naturalists argue that such scientific naturalism demands reductive and Procrustean conceptions of knowledge and reality. Moreover, many philosophical problems are beyond the scope of the sciences, such as the nature of persons, the normativity of the space of reasons, and how best to understand the peculiar mix of objectivity and subjectivity of ethics and art. The Routledge Handbook of Liberal Naturalism is the first collection to present a comprehensive overview of liberal naturalism, a philosophical outlook that lies between scientific naturalism and supernaturalism. Comprising 37 chapters by an international team of contributors, it examines important cutting-edge topics including: what is liberal naturalism? is metaphysics a viable project? naturalism in the history of philosophy, including Hume, Dewey, and Quine contemporary liberal naturalists such as P.F. Strawson, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, and John Rawls related kinds of naturalism, including subject naturalism, common-sense naturalism and biological naturalism the bearing of liberal naturalism on contemporary debates in epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics. Essential reading for students and researchers in all areas of philosophy, this volume will be of particular interest for those studying philosophical naturalism, philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics.




The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, challenges, past and present global issues and debates in this exciting subject. The first collection of its kind, this volume comprises over 25 chapters by a team of international contributors. This Handbook is divided into five parts, each taking global developments in the field into account: Theoretical Reflections Power and Authority Conflict, Radicalization and Populism Dialogue and Peacebuilding Trends Within these sections, central issues, debates and developments are examined, including religious and secular press; ethics; globalization; gender; datafication; differentiation; journalistic religious literacy; race and religious extremism. This volume is essential reading for students and researchers in journalism and religious studies. This Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as sociology, communication studies, media studies and area studies.




The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics


Book Description

The ethical treatment of non-human animals is an increasingly significant issue, directly affecting how people share the planet with other creatures and visualize themselves within the natural world. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is a key reference source in this area, looking specifically at the role religion plays in the formation of ethics around these concerns. Featuring thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into two parts. The first gives an overview of fifteen of the major world religions’ attitudes towards animal ethics and protection. The second features five sections addressing the following topics: Human Interaction with Animals Killing and Exploitation Religious and Secular Law Evil and Theodicy Souls and Afterlife This handbook demonstrates that religious traditions, despite often being anthropocentric, do have much to offer to those seeking a framework for a more enlightened relationship between humans and non-human animals. As such, The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, theology, and animal ethics as well as those studying the philosophy of religion and ethics more generally.




The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion


Book Description

Philosophy of religion has experienced a renaissance in recent times, paralleling the resurgence in public debate about the place and value of religion in contemporary Western societies. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts: theoretical orientations conceptions of divinity epistemology of religious belief metaphysics and religious language religion and politics religion and ethics religion and scientific scrutiny. Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: religious experience, religion and superstition, realism and anti-realism, scientific interpretation of religious texts, feminist approaches to religion, religion in the public square, tolerance, religion and meta-ethics, religion and cognitive science, and the meaning of life. Together, they offer readers an informed understanding of the current state of play in the liveliest areas of contemporary philosophy of religion. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion is essential reading for students and researchers of philosophy of religion from across the Humanities and Social Sciences.




The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion


Book Description

This substantially revised second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion remains the only comprehensive survey in English of methods and methodology in the discipline. Designed for non-specialists and upper undergraduate-/graduate-level students, it discusses the range of methods currently available to stimulate interest in unfamiliar methods and enable students and scholars to evaluate methodological issues in research. The Handbook comprises 39 chapters – 21 of which are new, and the rest revised for this edition. A total of 56 contributors from 10 countries cover a broad range of topics divided into three clear parts: • Methodology • Methods • Techniques The first section addresses general methodological issues: including comparison, research design, research ethics, intersectionality, and theorizing/analysis. The second addresses specific methods: including advanced computational methods, autoethnography, computational text analysis, digital ethnography, discourse analysis, experiments, field research, grounded theory, interviewing, reading images, surveys, and videography. The final section addresses specific techniques: including coding, focus groups, photo elicitation, and survey experiments. Each chapter covers practical issues and challenges, theoretical bases, and their use in the study of religion/s, illustrated by case studies. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion is essential reading for students and researchers in the study of religion/s, as well as for those in related disciplines.




The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations


Book Description

The historical interplay of Hinduism as an ancient Indian religion and Christianity as a religion associated (in India, at least) with foreign power and colonialism, continues to animate Hindu–Christian relations today. On the one hand, The Routledge Handbook of Hindu–Christian Relations describes a rich history of amicable, productive, even sometimes syncretic Hindu–Christian encounters. On the other, this handbook equally attends to historical and contemporary moments of tension, conflict, and violence between Hindus and Christians. Comprising thirty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook is divided into seven parts: Theoretical and methodological considerations Historical interactions Contemporary exchanges Sites of bodily and material interactions Significant figures Comparative theologies Responses The handbook explores: how the study of Hindu–Christian relations has been and ought to be done, the history of Hindu–Christian relations through key interactions, ethnographic reflections on current dynamics of Hindu–Christian exchange, important key thinkers, and topics in comparative theology, ultimately providing a framework for further debates in the area. The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations is essential reading for students and researchers in Hindu–Christian studies, Hindu traditions, Asian religions, and studies in Christianity. This handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as anthropology, political science, theology, and history.




The Routledge Companion to Theism


Book Description

There are deep and pervasive disagreements today in universities and colleges, and popular culture in general, over the credibility and value of belief in God. This has given rise to an urgent need for a balanced, comprehensive, accessible resource book that can inform the public and scholarly debate over theism. While scholars with as diverse interests as Daniel Dennett, Terry Eagleton, Richard Dawkins, Jürgen Habermas, and Rowan Williams have recently contributed books to this debate, "theism" as a concept remains poorly understood and requires a more thorough and systematic analysis than it has so far received in any single volume. The Routledge Companion to Theism addresses this need by investigating theism's history as well as its relationship to inquiry in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and to its wider cultural contexts. The contents are not confined within the philosophy of religion or even within the more expansive borders of philosophy. Rather, The Routledge Companion to Theism investigates its subject through the lens of a wide variety of disciplines and explores the ramifications of theism considered as a way of life as well as an intellectual conviction. The five parts of the volume indicate its inclusive scope: I. What is Theism?; II. Theism and Inquiry; III. Theism and the Socio-Political Realm; IV. Theism and Culture; V. Theism as a Way of Life. The result is a well ordered and thorough collection that should provide a wide spectrum of readers with a better understanding of a subject that's much discussed, but frequently misunderstood. As the editors note in their Introduction, while stimulating and informing the contemporary debate, a key aim of the volume is to open new avenues of inquiry into theism and thereby to encourage further research into this vital topic. Comprised of 54 essays by leading scholars in philosophy, history, theology, religious studies, political science, education and sociology, The Routledge Companion to Theism promises to be the most useful, comprehensive resource on an emerging subject of interest for students and scholars.




Between Naturalism and Religion


Book Description

Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age – the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself. The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jürgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.