Miracles An Exercise In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion

Author : Karen R. Zwier,David L. Weddle,Timothy D. Knepper
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022-11-03
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783031148651

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Miracles: An Exercise in Comparative Philosophy of Religion by Karen R. Zwier,David L. Weddle,Timothy D. Knepper Pdf

This volume provides a comparative philosophical investigation into a particular concept from a variety of angles—in this case, the concept of “miracle.” The text covers deeply philosophical questions around the miracle, with a multiplicity of answers. Each chapter brings its own focus to this multifaceted effort. The volume rejects the primarily western focus that typically dominates philosophy of religion and is filled with particular examples of miracle narratives, community responses, and polemical scenarios across widely varying religious contexts and historical periods. Some of these examples defy religious categorization, and some papers challenge the applicability of the concept “miracle,” which is of western and monotheistic origin. By examining miracles thru a wide comparative context, this text presents a range of descriptive content and analysis, with attention to the audience, to the subjective experiences being communicated, and to the flavor of the narratives that come to surround miracles. This book appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of religion and science, as well those in comparative religion. It represents, in written form, some of the perspectives and dialogue achieved in The Comparison Project’s 2017–2019 lecture series on miracles. The Comparison Project is an enterprise in comparing a variety of religious voices, allowing them to stand in dialogue.

Author : David L Weddle
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2010-07-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780814794838

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Miracles by David L Weddle Pdf

Despite the dominance of scientific explanation in the modern world, at the beginning of the twenty-first century faith in miracles remains strong, particularly in resurgent forms of traditional religion. In Miracles, David L. Weddle examines how five religious traditions—Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam—understand miracles, considering how they express popular enthusiasm for wondrous tales, how they provoke official regulation because of their potential to disrupt authority, and how they are denied by critics within each tradition who regard belief in miracles as an illusory distraction from moral responsibility. In dynamic and accessible prose, Weddle shows us what miracles are, what they mean, and why, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, they are still significant today: belief in miracles sustains the hope that, if there is a reality that surpasses our ordinary lives, it is capable of exercising—from time to time—creative, liberating, enlightening, and healing power in our world.

Author : Richard Swinburne
Publisher : Springer
Page : 79 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1970-06-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781349007769

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The Concept of Miracle by Richard Swinburne Pdf

Author : Laura E. Weed
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2023-01-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783031180132

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Mysticism, Ineffability and Silence in Philosophy of Religion by Laura E. Weed Pdf

The authors in this volume explore a wide variety of the contemporary approaches to mystical and religious experience to elucidate what religious experience is, in its own terms, and how its practitioners understand it. This anthology features contributions that point out that contemporary studies of consciousness, sociology, hermeneutics, neuroscience, medicine, and other fields, are revealing that there is much more to be said for the inner life of a human’s consciousness than reductionists and behaviorists will allow. This book is one of very few that primarily takes the stance of academic practitioners, explaining their own experience, rather than that of academics trying to explain the phenomena away, as really politics, or sociology, or delusion, or psychological pathology, or literary flights of fancy, or an aberration of any of the other academic fields. Most of the authors in this volume embrace the task of explaining and analyzing religious experience, mysticism, and the healing power of silence and presence, using the resources of all of the academic disciplines, as appropriate. The essays contained analyze religious, and non-religious, mystical and profoundly personal experiences across several world religions, and in areas such as art and music, as well as in solving personal crises such as family disruption and patriarchal oppression. The authors address the subject matter through analyses of the frequent and destructive failures of language, or just noise, to capture or express the nuances of the inner life of a person. It is this very ineffability of self that renders the spiritual, emotional and interior life of individuals beyond cognition and perception, of the straightforward sorts embraced by most cognitive disciplines. The contributors come from a variety of cross-disciplinary fields to bring forth the possibilities for an intuitive and creative, rich and growing inner life for a human. This text appeals to students, researchers, and practitioners.

Author : Graham H. Twelftree
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2011-04-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781139828536

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The Cambridge Companion to Miracles by Graham H. Twelftree Pdf

The miracle stories of the founders and saints of the major world religions have much in common. Written by international experts, this Companion provides an authoritative and comparative study of miracles in not only Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism, but also, indigenous religions. The authors promote a discussion of the problems of miracles in our largely secular culture, and of the value of miracles in religious belief. The miracles of Jesus are also contextualized through chapters on the Hebrew Bible, classical culture to the Romans, Second Temple and early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. This book provides students with a scholarly introduction to miracles, which also covers philosophical, medical and historical issues.

Author : Yujin Nagasawa
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2017-11-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780191064326

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Miracles: A Very Short Introduction by Yujin Nagasawa Pdf

Jesus turned water into wine, Mohammad split the moon into two, and Buddha walked and spoke immediately upon birth. According to recent statistics, even in the present age of advanced science and technology, most people believe in miracles. In fact, newspapers and television regularly report alleged miracles, such as recoveries from incurable diseases, extremely unlikely coincidences, and religious signs and messages on unexpected objects. In this book the award-winning author and philosopher Yujin Nagasawa addresses some of our most fundamental questions concerning miracles. What exactly is a miracle? What types of miracles are believed in the world's great religions? What do recent scientific findings tell us about miracles? Can we rationally believe that miracles have really taken place? Can there be acts that are more religiously significant than miracles? Drawing on a vast variety of fascinating examples from across the major religions, Nagasawa discusses the lively debate on miracles that ranges from reported miracles in ancient scriptures in the East and West to cutting-edge scientific research on belief formation. Throughout, he drives us to ask ourselves if and how we can still believe in in miracles in the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : David Corner
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 175 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2007-01-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781441138002

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The Philosophy of Miracles by David Corner Pdf

Philosophers who wish to argue for the rationality of belief in God frequently employ a 'god-of-the-gaps' strategy. This strategy consists in trying to find a phenomenon that cannot be explained by natural science, and insisting that it can be explained only by reference to the activity of God. Philosophical discussion of miracles usually revolves around the attempt to link a miracle to God in just this way. One of the problems with this approach is that it is very difficult to identify anything as being forever beyond the power of science to explain. Science continues to advance upon the territory occupied by the god of the gaps. Thus it is desirable to develop an account of divine agency that will not be subject to revision in the face of scientific progress. This book is just such an account. Drawing on recent work in the theory of action, it shows that we can attribute God's agency to an event in nature without eliminating the possibility that it might be explained scientifically. In bringing God's actions out of the gaps, we avoid the possibility that future discoveries in science will make our talk of divine agency obsolete.

Author : Ton Bersee
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2021-02-04
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9042943955

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On the Meaning of 'miracle' in Christianity by Ton Bersee Pdf

Miracle narratives are an essential part of nearly all religious traditions. The importance of miracles also applies to Christianity. The Gospels record thirty-five miracles that Jesus is said to have performed, including twenty-three miraculous healings and nine nature miracles (for example, stilling a storm and turning water into wine). At the heart of Christian faith lies the story of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. However, the factuality of these events has been increasingly problematised, especially since the period of the Enlightenment. In this study, it is argued that the current debate between science-oriented critics of miracles and their religious opponents focuses predominantly on the question of factuality and evidence at the loss of the religious meaning of miracles. The suggestion that science and religion would be opposite approaches is denied in a proposal of a balanced hermeneutical approach of miracles that does justice to scientific findings, religious texts and experience.

Author : Alexandra Coțofană
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2023-11-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781805393894

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The Familial Occult by Alexandra Coțofană Pdf

The Familial Occult addresses the presence of occult experiences in some scholars' families and how that has affected their epistemological and ontological worlds, as well as their identities as scholars. Those with backgrounds in the familial occult often experience a series of conflicting relationships and different ways of interacting with binaries such as the subjective and objective, a powerful conceptual couple still governing academic thinking. While much has been written on encountering the occult in fieldwork or becoming an apprentice in an occult practice, little yet has been published in the academic literature about growing up with the occult.

Author : Robert A. Larmer
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2013-11-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780739184226

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The Legitimacy of Miracle by Robert A. Larmer Pdf

The core contention of The Legitimacy of Miracle is that a priori philosophical dismissals of the possibility or probability of justified belief in miracles fail. Whether or not it is rational to believe that events best understood as miracles actually occur is not to be decided on the basis of armchair theorizing, but rather on the basis of meticulous examination of the evidence. Such examination, however, needs to be set free from unwarranted assumptions that miracles are “impossible, improbable, or improper.” Philosophical analysis can play an important role in clearing away conceptual underbrush and question-begging presuppositions, but it cannot take the place of detailed consideration of historical and contemporary evidence. Robert Larmer demonstrates that the proper role of philosophy, as regards to the belief in miracles, is to provide an in-principle rejection of in-principle arguments either for or against. The arguments contained in this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of philosophy, theology, history, and religious studies, though it is written in a style accessible to anyone interested in a philosophical examination of belief in miracles.

Author : Ann Gleig,Associate Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies Ann Gleig,Dean of Students and Faculty Affairs and the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair Scott A Mitchell,Scott A. Mitchell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2024
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780197539033

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The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism by Ann Gleig,Associate Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies Ann Gleig,Dean of Students and Faculty Affairs and the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair Scott A Mitchell,Scott A. Mitchell Pdf

The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date scholarship available on Buddhism in America. It charts the history and diversity of Buddhist communities, including traditions and communities that have been previously neglected, and looks at the ways in which Buddhist practices such as mindfulness meditation have been adopted in non-Buddhist settings.

Author : R. Douglas Geivett,Gary R. Habermas
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2014-05-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780830897742

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In Defense of Miracles by R. Douglas Geivett,Gary R. Habermas Pdf

Can modern intellectuals believe in miracles? Editors R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas provide a collection of essays to refute objections to the miraculous and set forth the positive case for God's action in history.

Author : Ilkka Pyysiäinen
Publisher : Rowman Altamira
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0759106630

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Magic, Miracles, and Religion by Ilkka Pyysiäinen Pdf

Can scientists study religion? Ilkka Pyysiäinen says that they can. While the study of religion cannot be reduced to other disciplines, it must not ignore what other disciplines have learned about human thought and behavior. In this collection of essays, Pyysiäinen shows how findings from cognitive science can offer new directions to debates in religion. After providing a historical and theoretical overview of the cognitive science of religion, Pyysiäinen demonstrates how knowledge of the mind's workings can help deconstruct such concepts as "god," "ideology," "culture," "magic," "miracles," and "religion." For scholars of religion or for scholars of the mind-brain, Magic, Miracles, and Religion provides a helpful overview to this emerging field.

Author : Lawrence Shapiro
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2016-08-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231542142

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The Miracle Myth by Lawrence Shapiro Pdf

There are many who believe Moses parted the Red Sea and Jesus came back from the dead. Others are certain that exorcisms occur, ghosts haunt attics, and the blessed can cure the terminally ill. Though miracles are immensely improbable, people have embraced them for millennia, seeing in them proof of a supernatural world that resists scientific explanation. Helping us to think more critically about our belief in the improbable, The Miracle Myth casts a skeptical eye on attempts to justify belief in the supernatural, laying bare the fallacies that such attempts commit. Through arguments and accessible analysis, Larry Shapiro sharpens our critical faculties so we become less susceptible to tales of myths and miracles and learn how, ultimately, to evaluate claims regarding vastly improbable events on our own. Shapiro acknowledges that belief in miracles could be harmless, but cautions against allowing such beliefs to guide how we live our lives. His investigation reminds us of the importance of evidence and rational thinking as we explore the unknown.

Author : Mark Corner
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2017-11-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781351149105

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Signs of God by Mark Corner Pdf

Signs of God reveals why discussion of the nature of miracles is of central rather than marginal importance where belief in God is concerned. Miracles cannot be shunted to one side as an embarrassing hangover from a 'pre-scientific age'. Miracles have played an important role in the history of all the major world religions, and many religious believers claim that they continue to do so. Yet they have also been criticized from a philosophical viewpoint as incompatible with a belief in laws of nature, and those who seek to have their religious beliefs properly attuned to the modern world often prefer to do without them. This accessible book examines the nature of miracles both in philosophical and historical terms, and concludes that, whether or not miracles happen, it is difficult to see how religious belief could survive without them.