Comparative Religion category: 1410 books

A leading scholar explores the importance of physical objects and sensory experience in the practice of religion. ** ** Humans are needy. We need things: objects, keepsakes, stuff, tokens, knickknacks, bits and pieces, junk, and treasure. We carry special objects in our pockets and purses, and place...

The classic anthropological analysis of religion from a pioneer in the field From the preface: “Scientific efforts to learn just what are the forms and functions of religion have not been few; it is the purpose of this book to review some of them and to synthesize the suggestions...

From recent sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, to arguments about faith schools and religious indoctrination, this volume considers the interconnection between the actual lives of children and the position of children as placeholders for the future. Childhood has often been a particular...

Japanese Religions on the Internet draws attention to how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Its intention is to contribute to wider discussions about religion and the Internet by providing an important example – based on one of the Internet’s most...

After the surprising publishing success of the so-called New Atheists it has become clear that there is a market for critical discussions about religion. A religion is much more complex than a set of beliefs which cannot be proven, as the New Atheists argue. There is, in fact, much more to religion...

It is probably a utopia, but is a concrete utopia and with evident practical application: a rational religion, perhaps the only one that can claim this status. While the three famous religions of the book preserve the monolithic authority of monotheism, the oldest known religion in the History...

Religion: Material Dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, social formations, and mobile circulations, the book explores the making, ordering, and circulating of religious...

Social scientists sometimes seem not to know what to do with religion. In the first century of sociology's history as a discipline, the reigning concern was explaining the emergence of the modern world, and that brought with it an expectation that religion would simply fade from the scene as societies...

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the...

How do religion, gender and sexuality interact? How have they impacted, and continue to impact, human culture? The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality and Gender brings together, for the first time, the key texts in the field. Designed as a textbook for use in a classroom setting, it offers thought-provoking...

Is religion compatible with science? "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra famously attempted to draw parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. What Capra conspicuously avoided was any comparison between the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – and physics. These...

The right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in international human rights documents, is unique in its formulation in that it provides protection for the enjoyment of the rights "in community with others". This book explores the notion of the collective dimension of freedom of...

This book provides a critical philosophical analysis of the claim that contemporary cognitive approaches to religion undermine theistic beliefs. Recent scientific work into the evolution and cognition of religion has been driven by and interpreted in terms of a certain kind of philosophical and methodological...

Existing literature regarding the events of September 11 and our world afterward has focused mostly on the West and the Middle East. Asian Perspectives on the World's Religions after September 11 extends this discussion to include Asia—a continent and culture far too important to be ignored in any...