H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.
David E. Guinn (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195178739
- eISBN:
- 9780199784943
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195178734.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that ...
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This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that would place religious commitments and grounds for action in a sphere isolated from that of public discourse and public choice. In the process, this chapter brings into question John Rawls's defense of a public discourse that seeks to marginalize religious commitments.Less
This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that would place religious commitments and grounds for action in a sphere isolated from that of public discourse and public choice. In the process, this chapter brings into question John Rawls's defense of a public discourse that seeks to marginalize religious commitments.
Caroline Franks Davis
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198250012
- eISBN:
- 9780191681233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198250012.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
It is only comparatively recently in the history of civilisation that there has been widespread scepticism regarding religious experiences. Arguments against the plausibility of religious doctrines ...
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It is only comparatively recently in the history of civilisation that there has been widespread scepticism regarding religious experiences. Arguments against the plausibility of religious doctrines and reductionist accounts of religious experiences are now widely accepted, and many people lead atheistic lives which are to all appearances perfectly adequate. Therefore, religious individuals can no longer assume that experiences judged to be ‘genuine’ by fellow believers are immune from further attack. They are challenged on all sides, by philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, members of other religious traditions, and even by members of their own tradition with widely differing views. This book examines the value of religious experiences as evidence for religious claims. Its goal is to discover the role which religious experience can legitimately play in the defence of religious doctrines.Less
It is only comparatively recently in the history of civilisation that there has been widespread scepticism regarding religious experiences. Arguments against the plausibility of religious doctrines and reductionist accounts of religious experiences are now widely accepted, and many people lead atheistic lives which are to all appearances perfectly adequate. Therefore, religious individuals can no longer assume that experiences judged to be ‘genuine’ by fellow believers are immune from further attack. They are challenged on all sides, by philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, members of other religious traditions, and even by members of their own tradition with widely differing views. This book examines the value of religious experiences as evidence for religious claims. Its goal is to discover the role which religious experience can legitimately play in the defence of religious doctrines.
Michael Horace Barnes
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195396270
- eISBN:
- 9780199852482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195396270.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter reviews the status of religious thought today as a result of developments in science and its cognitive style. One convenient division identifies three major types of religious ...
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This chapter reviews the status of religious thought today as a result of developments in science and its cognitive style. One convenient division identifies three major types of religious truth-claims: the miraculous, the cosmological, and the metaphysical. The history of modern science presents an obvious challenge to the plausibility of the belief in miracles. The range of knowledge of natural causality has expanded until supernatural interventions have been squeezed into a few gaps. Science has defined the boundaries of plausibility for religious beliefs. Many theologians have in fact accepted those boundaries, even though they sometimes seem to say otherwise. Science has discovered an enormous amount of fundamental intelligibility to the universe, and has vindicated the hopes of generations that such intelligibility exists. Religious thought which does not accept this may find in it a fundamental reason to affirm the ultimate and religious validity of being a knower in the world.Less
This chapter reviews the status of religious thought today as a result of developments in science and its cognitive style. One convenient division identifies three major types of religious truth-claims: the miraculous, the cosmological, and the metaphysical. The history of modern science presents an obvious challenge to the plausibility of the belief in miracles. The range of knowledge of natural causality has expanded until supernatural interventions have been squeezed into a few gaps. Science has defined the boundaries of plausibility for religious beliefs. Many theologians have in fact accepted those boundaries, even though they sometimes seem to say otherwise. Science has discovered an enormous amount of fundamental intelligibility to the universe, and has vindicated the hopes of generations that such intelligibility exists. Religious thought which does not accept this may find in it a fundamental reason to affirm the ultimate and religious validity of being a knower in the world.
William J. Wainwright (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195138092
- eISBN:
- 9780199835348
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138090.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The philosophy of religion as a distinct discipline is an innovation of the last 200 years, but its central topics—the existence and nature of the divine, humankind’s relation to it, the nature of ...
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The philosophy of religion as a distinct discipline is an innovation of the last 200 years, but its central topics—the existence and nature of the divine, humankind’s relation to it, the nature of religion, and the place of religion in human life—have been with us since the inception of philosophy. Philosophers have long critically examined the truth of and rational justification for religious claims, and have explored such philosophically interesting phenomena as faith, religious experience, and the distinctive features of religious discourse. The second half of the twentieth century was an especially fruitful period, with philosophers using new developments in logic and epistemology to mount both sophisticated defenses of, and attacks on, religious claims. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion contains newly commissioned chapters by twenty-one prominent experts who cover the field in a comprehensive but accessible manner. Each chapter is expository, critical, and representative of a distinctive viewpoint. The Handbook is divided into two parts. The first, “Problems,” covers the most frequently discussed topics, among them arguments for God’s existence, the nature of God’s attributes, religious pluralism, the problem of evil, and religious epistemology. The second, “Approaches,” contains four essays assessing the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of practicing philosophy of religion—analytic, Wittgensteinian, continental, and feminist.Less
The philosophy of religion as a distinct discipline is an innovation of the last 200 years, but its central topics—the existence and nature of the divine, humankind’s relation to it, the nature of religion, and the place of religion in human life—have been with us since the inception of philosophy. Philosophers have long critically examined the truth of and rational justification for religious claims, and have explored such philosophically interesting phenomena as faith, religious experience, and the distinctive features of religious discourse. The second half of the twentieth century was an especially fruitful period, with philosophers using new developments in logic and epistemology to mount both sophisticated defenses of, and attacks on, religious claims. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion contains newly commissioned chapters by twenty-one prominent experts who cover the field in a comprehensive but accessible manner. Each chapter is expository, critical, and representative of a distinctive viewpoint. The Handbook is divided into two parts. The first, “Problems,” covers the most frequently discussed topics, among them arguments for God’s existence, the nature of God’s attributes, religious pluralism, the problem of evil, and religious epistemology. The second, “Approaches,” contains four essays assessing the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of practicing philosophy of religion—analytic, Wittgensteinian, continental, and feminist.
Michael D. McNally
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190907
- eISBN:
- 9780691201511
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190907.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims ...
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This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims to religion as religion. Where a religious claim conforms to the subjective, interior spirituality that has become naturalized in the United States, it has worked reasonably well in the courts. This is emphatically not the case where claims involve religious relationships with, uses of, and obligations to, land. The chapter explains how courts reason their way out of taking steps to protect Native American religious freedom when sacred places are threatened, a puzzling matter in that courts consistently acknowledge the sincerity of the religious beliefs and practices associated with those sacred places. Along the way the chapter develops a fuller sense of the workings of the discourse of Native American spirituality as it comes to control judicial comprehension of Native religious freedom claims.Less
This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims to religion as religion. Where a religious claim conforms to the subjective, interior spirituality that has become naturalized in the United States, it has worked reasonably well in the courts. This is emphatically not the case where claims involve religious relationships with, uses of, and obligations to, land. The chapter explains how courts reason their way out of taking steps to protect Native American religious freedom when sacred places are threatened, a puzzling matter in that courts consistently acknowledge the sincerity of the religious beliefs and practices associated with those sacred places. Along the way the chapter develops a fuller sense of the workings of the discourse of Native American spirituality as it comes to control judicial comprehension of Native religious freedom claims.
Paul Helm
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199256631
- eISBN:
- 9780191698330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256631.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines the thesis that religious claims can be debated and discussed in a philosophical vein in a similar way to, say, scientific or political claims. It distinguishes two broad views ...
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This chapter examines the thesis that religious claims can be debated and discussed in a philosophical vein in a similar way to, say, scientific or political claims. It distinguishes two broad views of faith, evidential deficiency and evidential proportion. The evidential deficiency view sees religious faith, and particularly religious trust, as making up for gaps in the evidence for the religious claims believed by adopting a degree of certitude not warranted by the evidence. The evidential proportion view of faith sees the cognitive element in faith as being correlated with evidence: weak evidence, weak belief; strong evidence, strong belief. The believer should strive to conform the strength of his beliefs to the strength of the evidence for the proposition or propositions believed. Aside from the beliefs arising from evidence, however, there are beliefs arising from a person's awareness of his own needs and goals. These further beliefs turn the object of belief into an object of trust, although actual trust requires action beyond belief.Less
This chapter examines the thesis that religious claims can be debated and discussed in a philosophical vein in a similar way to, say, scientific or political claims. It distinguishes two broad views of faith, evidential deficiency and evidential proportion. The evidential deficiency view sees religious faith, and particularly religious trust, as making up for gaps in the evidence for the religious claims believed by adopting a degree of certitude not warranted by the evidence. The evidential proportion view of faith sees the cognitive element in faith as being correlated with evidence: weak evidence, weak belief; strong evidence, strong belief. The believer should strive to conform the strength of his beliefs to the strength of the evidence for the proposition or propositions believed. Aside from the beliefs arising from evidence, however, there are beliefs arising from a person's awareness of his own needs and goals. These further beliefs turn the object of belief into an object of trust, although actual trust requires action beyond belief.
Jack Tannous
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691179094
- eISBN:
- 9780691184166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691179094.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter details how people dealt with doctrinal difference in the post-Chalcedonian Middle East. Some of the ways in which disagreement was handled include violence. Another route a Christian ...
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This chapter details how people dealt with doctrinal difference in the post-Chalcedonian Middle East. Some of the ways in which disagreement was handled include violence. Another route a Christian leader might take was persuasion and argument. Indeed, a culture of debate was part of the landscape of this period before the sixth century and well after it; debates might be between Christians and non-Christians, as well as both formal and informal; and it is a traditional scholarly focus on this form of dealing with post-Chalcedonian religious difference that can be credited for giving the impression that the late Roman Middle East was an enormous patristic seminar run amok. The tendency toward dispute was a result of several factors: the religious diversity of the Middle East, coupled with the Christian impulse to mission and conversion, and a belief in the exclusive truth of its religious claims.Less
This chapter details how people dealt with doctrinal difference in the post-Chalcedonian Middle East. Some of the ways in which disagreement was handled include violence. Another route a Christian leader might take was persuasion and argument. Indeed, a culture of debate was part of the landscape of this period before the sixth century and well after it; debates might be between Christians and non-Christians, as well as both formal and informal; and it is a traditional scholarly focus on this form of dealing with post-Chalcedonian religious difference that can be credited for giving the impression that the late Roman Middle East was an enormous patristic seminar run amok. The tendency toward dispute was a result of several factors: the religious diversity of the Middle East, coupled with the Christian impulse to mission and conversion, and a belief in the exclusive truth of its religious claims.
Michael D. McNally
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190907
- eISBN:
- 9780691201511
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190907.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter explores what results when Native peoples articulate religious claims in the language of culture and cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law. It argues that ...
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This chapter explores what results when Native peoples articulate religious claims in the language of culture and cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law. It argues that cultural resource laws have become more fruitful in two respects. First, there is more emphatic insistence on government-to-government consultation between federal agencies and tribes. Second, in 1990, National Historic Preservation Act regulations were clarified by designating “Traditional Cultural Properties” as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1992, that law was amended to formally engage tribal governments in the review process. In light of these developments, protection under the categories of culture and cultural resource have proved more capacious for distinctive Native practices and beliefs about sacred lands, but it has come at the expense of the clearer edge of religious freedom protections, while still being haunted, and arguably bedraggled, by the category of religion from which these categories ostensibly have been formally disentangled.Less
This chapter explores what results when Native peoples articulate religious claims in the language of culture and cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law. It argues that cultural resource laws have become more fruitful in two respects. First, there is more emphatic insistence on government-to-government consultation between federal agencies and tribes. Second, in 1990, National Historic Preservation Act regulations were clarified by designating “Traditional Cultural Properties” as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1992, that law was amended to formally engage tribal governments in the review process. In light of these developments, protection under the categories of culture and cultural resource have proved more capacious for distinctive Native practices and beliefs about sacred lands, but it has come at the expense of the clearer edge of religious freedom protections, while still being haunted, and arguably bedraggled, by the category of religion from which these categories ostensibly have been formally disentangled.
Hans G. Kippenberg
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846311871
- eISBN:
- 9781846315671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846315671.015
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter discusses the international prohibition on violence and religious claims on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. It deals with the shift in the interpretation of the Middle East ...
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This chapter discusses the international prohibition on violence and religious claims on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. It deals with the shift in the interpretation of the Middle East conflict, examining when and why the parties ceased to interpret the Middle East conflict in a secular way and embraced a religious perspective and how this affected their actions.Less
This chapter discusses the international prohibition on violence and religious claims on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. It deals with the shift in the interpretation of the Middle East conflict, examining when and why the parties ceased to interpret the Middle East conflict in a secular way and embraced a religious perspective and how this affected their actions.
Aaron Langenfeld
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823278404
- eISBN:
- 9780823280513
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823278404.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Aaron Langenfeld reflects on how the discipline of comparative theology should be related to the normative grounds for religious truth claims to which theology as a whole is committed. Confirming a ...
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Aaron Langenfeld reflects on how the discipline of comparative theology should be related to the normative grounds for religious truth claims to which theology as a whole is committed. Confirming a fundamental characteristic of comparative theology, he proposes that this challenge cannot be met if the question of truth is neglected; rather, it must be preserved as the central focus in concrete comparative work. To justify this proposition, in his Christian-Muslim work on salvation Langenfeld elaborates a fundamental insight regarding the Muslim critique of Christian anthropology, particularly regarding the concept of original sin, which is presumed in the Christian understanding of salvation and redemption. Langenfeld suggests we can see more easily how comparative theology really does proceed like other substantive forms of theology and thus is fairly measured by familiar theological standards, even if breaking new ground interreligiously.Less
Aaron Langenfeld reflects on how the discipline of comparative theology should be related to the normative grounds for religious truth claims to which theology as a whole is committed. Confirming a fundamental characteristic of comparative theology, he proposes that this challenge cannot be met if the question of truth is neglected; rather, it must be preserved as the central focus in concrete comparative work. To justify this proposition, in his Christian-Muslim work on salvation Langenfeld elaborates a fundamental insight regarding the Muslim critique of Christian anthropology, particularly regarding the concept of original sin, which is presumed in the Christian understanding of salvation and redemption. Langenfeld suggests we can see more easily how comparative theology really does proceed like other substantive forms of theology and thus is fairly measured by familiar theological standards, even if breaking new ground interreligiously.
Stanislaw Krajewski
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199769308
- eISBN:
- 9780190258283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199769308.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter reflects on the merits of pluralism by developing the idea of intellectual humility. Drawing upon the Torah, it first describes Moses' leadership not as courageous or wise but rather as ...
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This chapter reflects on the merits of pluralism by developing the idea of intellectual humility. Drawing upon the Torah, it first describes Moses' leadership not as courageous or wise but rather as only very humble. It then examines a sense of the truth as universal, or absolute or relative. Each of these perceptions of the truth brings in their wake problems when they confront claims of competing truth. How should one think about the source of such claims, which is to say, how should one think about God? Next, it turns to the topic of religious pluralism in both its subjectivist and objectivist forms. It uses the notion of oscillation, and applies it to the objectivist and subjectivist approaches to religious claims. Finally, it returns to the problematic meaning of Israel as “chosen.” It argues that true dialogue allows for total respect for all sides involved through a combined awareness of both epistemic ignorance and convenantal certainty.Less
This chapter reflects on the merits of pluralism by developing the idea of intellectual humility. Drawing upon the Torah, it first describes Moses' leadership not as courageous or wise but rather as only very humble. It then examines a sense of the truth as universal, or absolute or relative. Each of these perceptions of the truth brings in their wake problems when they confront claims of competing truth. How should one think about the source of such claims, which is to say, how should one think about God? Next, it turns to the topic of religious pluralism in both its subjectivist and objectivist forms. It uses the notion of oscillation, and applies it to the objectivist and subjectivist approaches to religious claims. Finally, it returns to the problematic meaning of Israel as “chosen.” It argues that true dialogue allows for total respect for all sides involved through a combined awareness of both epistemic ignorance and convenantal certainty.
Jerome Slater
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190459086
- eISBN:
- 9780190074609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190459086.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous ...
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In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, justified the creation of a Jewish state, somewhere, was strong. However, the arguments that the Jews had an eternal right to Palestine were weak. The religious claim that God gave Palestine to the Jews is challenged by Christian and Islamic counterclaims. The argument that 2,000 years ago the Jews were predominant in Palestine until they were driven out by the Romans has long been shown by archaeologists and historians to have little foundation. Even if true, it would be irrelevant to establishing a convincing claim for exclusive Jewish sovereignty today. Likewise, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate to Britain, the basis for the Zionist claims based on modern history, were simply colonialist impositions.Less
In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, justified the creation of a Jewish state, somewhere, was strong. However, the arguments that the Jews had an eternal right to Palestine were weak. The religious claim that God gave Palestine to the Jews is challenged by Christian and Islamic counterclaims. The argument that 2,000 years ago the Jews were predominant in Palestine until they were driven out by the Romans has long been shown by archaeologists and historians to have little foundation. Even if true, it would be irrelevant to establishing a convincing claim for exclusive Jewish sovereignty today. Likewise, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate to Britain, the basis for the Zionist claims based on modern history, were simply colonialist impositions.