Religion And The Critical Mind

Many people have a deep curiosity about religion and its shortcomings. This book, written for the general reader, takes a comprehensive look at the critiques of religion in Western history and the courageous thinkers who developed those critiques. While many people know the names of the thinkers covered, they often have little knowledge of their views and the contexts in which they worked. Here is a new look at our heritage in the criticism of religion.

Irfan Ahmad makes the far-reaching argument that potent systems and modes for self-critique as well as critique of others are inherent in Islam--indeed, critique is integral to its fundamental tenets and practices. Challenging common views of Islam as hostile to critical thinking, Ahmad delineates thriving traditions of critique in Islamic culture, focusing in large part on South Asian traditions. Ahmad interrogates Greek and Enlightenment notions of reason and critique, and he notes how they are invoked in relation to "others," including Muslims. Drafting an alternative genealogy of critique in Islam, Ahmad reads religious teachings and texts, drawing on sources in Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, and English, and demonstrates how they serve as expressions of critique. Throughout, he depicts Islam as an agent, not an object, of critique. On a broader level, Ahmad expands the idea of critique itself. Drawing on his fieldwork among marketplace hawkers in Delhi and Aligarh, he construes critique anthropologically as a sociocultural activity in the everyday lives of ordinary Muslims, beyond the world of intellectuals. Religion as Critique allows space for new theoretical considerations of modernity and change, taking on such salient issues as nationhood, women's equality, the state, culture, democracy, and secularism.

Religion Today introduces students to key concepts in religious studies through a compelling problem-solving framework. Each chapter opens with a contemporary case study that helps students engage in current religious issues, explore possible solutions to difficult religious problems today, and learn key themes and concepts in religious studies. To enhance student learning, a free Student Study Guide is available for download from Rowman & Littlefield. The Study Guide features chapter summaries, definition quizzes for students to test themselves on key terms, and possible learning activities.

Religion and the Critical Mind provides an overview of the Western heritage of the criticism of religion. Anton Jacobs surveys criticisms from within and without religion from the time of the Hebrew prophets and classical Greek thinkers until the Enlightenment and shows how developments during the Renaissance, Reformation, and the scientific revolution laid foundations for later, modern critiques. While sympathetic to religion, Jacobs listens carefully to its best critics and dedicates a chapter to each of the modern critics of religion: Voltaire, Marx, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Freud, and Russell. He supplies context for their criticism and gauges their impact on religion. While effectively arguing that there are only three real stances a modern person can take on religion and offering an apologia for all religions, Jacobs makes a persuasive case in favor of religious participation.

Kehoe (anthropology, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) seeks to inoculate her students against the mushy thinking she finds concerning shamans and shamanism. She traces the misinformation to a sensational mid-20th-century French tome by which expatriate Romanian Mircea Eliade hoped to acquire a reputation and a place in a European or American university. (He succeeded.) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Exploring the richness of American thought and experience in the mid-eighteenth century, Alan Heimert develops the intellectual and cultural significance of the religious divisions and debates engendered by one of the most critical episodes in American intellectual history, the Great Awakening of the 1740's. The author's concern throughout is to discover what were the essential issues in a dispute that was not so much a controversy between theologians as a vital competition for the ideological allegiance of the American people. This is not a standard history of any one area of ideas. Mr. Heimert's sources include nearly everything published in America from 1735. His study, in its range and conception, is an original contribution to an understanding of the relationship between colonial religious thought and the evolution of American history.

This book offers a compelling examination of the problem of evil and the doctrine of sin. It engages with and advances extant discussions on the topic by drawing together philosophical arguments, theological reflections, scientific evidence, Biblical exegesis, and real-life stories. The chapters provide a comprehensive evaluation of objections by anti-theodicists and atheists, and bring recent philosophical work concerning the arguments for Christian theism and advances in science and religion to bear on the discussion. The author defends the Cosmic Conflict Theodicy against philosophical and theological objections, and uses it together with the Connection Building Theodicy, Adamic Fall Theodicy, arguments for divine hiddenness, and Afterlife Theodicy to address the vexing problem of horrendous evil.

Studying religion in college or university? This book shows you how to perform well on your course tests and examinations, write successful papers, and participate meaningfully in class discussions. You'll learn new skills and also enhance existing ones, which you can put into practice with in-text exercises and assignments. Written by two award-winning instructors, this book identifies the close reading of texts, material culture, and religious actions as the fundamental skill for the study of religion at undergraduate level. It shows how critical analytical thinking about religious actions and ideas is founded on careful, patient, yet creative “reading” of religious stories, rituals, objects, and spaces. The book leads you through the description, analysis, and interpretation of examples from multiple historical periods, cultures, and religious traditions, including primary source material such as Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord's Prayer), the gohonzon scroll of the Japanese new religion Soka Gakkai, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). It provides you with typical assignments you will encounter in your studies, showing you how you might approach tasks such as reflective, interpretive or summary essays. Further resources, found on the book's website, include bibliographies, and links to useful podcasts.

Originally Published by Scholars Press Now Available from Duke University Press This work responds to a renewed emphasis on teaching in the academy. Written from the perspective of a classroom teacher, it is a practical application of the principles behind the critical thinking movement to the study of religion. Emphasizing that the acquisition of critical thinking depends less on what is taught than on how it is taught, the author presents concrete examples from his own experience to illustrate a student-centered approach to teaching. By demonstrating how the study of religion contributes to the development of critical thinking--through the acquistion of problem-solving, decision-making, and metacognitive skills--Penaskovic suggests its value to a broader liberal arts curriculum as well. Both a theoretical view of critical thinking and a nuts-and-bolts manual on how it can be used and assessed in the classroom, this work will challenge new and veteran teachers alike to reexamine and renew what the do in the classroom.

Thinking about ultimate reality is becoming increasingly transreligious. This transreligious turn follows inevitably from the discovery of divine truths in multiple traditions. Global communications bring the full range of religious ideas and practices to anyone with access to the internet. Moreover, the growth of the nones and those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious creates a pressing need for theological thinking not bound by prescribed doctrines and fixed rituals. This book responds to this vital need. The chapters in this volume each examine the claim that if the aim of theology is to know and articulate all we can about the divine reality, and if revelations, enlightenments, and insights into that reality are not limited to a single tradition, then what is called for is a theology without confessional restrictions. In other words, a Theology Without Walls. To ground the project in examples, the volume provides emerging models of transreligious inquiry. It also includes sympathetic critics who raise valid concerns that such a theology must face. This is a book that will be of urgent interest to theologians, religious studies scholars, and philosophers of religion. It will be especially suitable for those interested in comparative theology, inter-religious and interfaith understanding, new trends in constructive theology, normative religious studies, and global philosophy of religion.