Overview

Many people believe that science provides facts while religion is just opinion or beliefs. This book explores the structure and value of science and religious experience, and demonstrates how similar they are and how equally valuable and valid they are. After defining different forms of knowledge, e.g. biological, personal, moral, religious, the author explains how the structures of both the humanities and the sciences involve what we grasp through our senses, and how we interpret those impressions first by description, then by evidence collected, then by reason and understanding - all based on the foundation of basic beliefs. One can no more prove scientific theory or that Moses heard God's call, for each is upheld by a believing community. For factual claims are interpretations in both science and religion. In this work, objective science is examined against the subjective world of personal relations, the humanities and religion. Many scientists and religionists acknowledge a hierarchy of different forms of knowledge, e.g. empirical, chemical, personal and religious. Some fundamentalists (both scientific and religious) focus on one form of knowledge, when a range of forms of knowledge would provide a more balanced multi-focal perspective.

Full Product Details

Author:   Grahame Miles
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 24.60cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 17.10cm
Weight:   0.956kg
ISBN:  

9781845191160

ISBN 10:   1845191161
Pages:   429
Publication Date:   26 February 2007
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Sources of Uplifting Experiences; How Do We Know What Knowledge Is?: A European Search for Objective Knowledge; How Do We Know What Knowledge Is?: An American Search for Personal Knowledge; Are There Different Kinds of Knowledge?; Changing Views of Scientific Knowledge; The Integrity of Science; Forgotten Knowledge; Is All Knowledge Relative?; Religion and Transcendence; Religious and Mystical Experience Empirical Studies; Religious and Mystical Experience Humanist Studies; Religious and Mystical Experience The Model Builders; Religious Experience and Interpretation; Religious Experience; Philosophy and Religious Experience; Gathering Threads; The Wallas Models of Religious Experience in Context; Science and Religious Experience; Glossary; Index.

Reviews

This is a fascinating read as well as an invaluable resource for students and teachers, a comprehensive account of a vast and complex subject. -- Marianne Rankin, Chair of the Alister Hardy Society, in the BASR Bulletin, 2008.

Author Information

Grahame Miles taught Religious Education in Grammar and Comprehensive Schools, in selective and open-access Sixth Form Colleges, and in Primary Schools. He was Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Homerton College in the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1997. Two research projects focused on the development of religious concepts, attitudes and understanding in students aged 15-18, and one project with pupils aged 6-11years.

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