1. Defining 'Religion'
Too Broad and Too Narrow
The Dialectic of Definition and Example
Reductionism and Functional Equivalence
Getting at Last to Definitions
A Working Definition of "Religion"
Part I: Truth, or What Religion Would Have Us Believe
2. Concepts of
Ultimate Being
God and Gods
Monism
Miscellany and Mixtures
Summaries
3. Historical Claims: Founders and Manifestations
Prophets
Sages
"Incarnations" of "God"
Secondary Founders
Non-historical Origins
4. Scripture as Source and Authority
Sikhism and the
Adi Granth: A Case Study
The General Concept of Scripture
Scripture and Prophets
Scripture and Sages
Canon
Secondary Scriptures
Conclusions on Scripture and the Possibility of Anti-scripture
5. The Languages of Religion
Religious Languages and Their
Importance
Stories: Myth, History, and Parables
Poetry
Wisdom and Instruction
Exegesis and Hermeneutics: The Science of Interpretation
6. Miscellaneous Doctrines: The Truth of Self, Suffering, and Salvation
The Self
Suffering and the Religious Problem of
Evil
Salvation
Epilogue to Part I: The Promise and the Problems of Religious Truth
Part II: Goodness, or What Religion Would Have Us Do
7. Ritual
Ritual and Religious Ritual
The Value and Uses of Ritual
Commemorative Ritual
Effective Ritual and Ritual
Magic
Worship
Problems of Religious Ritual
8. Moral Action
Obligation and the "Queerness" of Morality
Monotheism and Divine Commands
The Virtue of the Sages
Monism and Teleological Morality
Religious Exemplars
Problems of Religious Morality
Motivation for
Morality
9. Social Order and Government
Religion and Social Order
Religion and Economic Equality
"Church and State"
Religion and War
Epilogue to Part II: The Promise and the Problems of Religious Goodness
Part III: Beauty, or What Religion Would Have Us
Feel
10. Religious Experience
The Variety of Religious Experience
Visions, Voices and the Prophetic Call
Enlightenment
Mystical Experience
The Epistemology of Religious Experience
Conclusion
11. Religion and Art
Pictorial Art
Other Visual Arts: Calligraphy
and Architecture
Poetry and Music
Art as Performance
Summation
12. Beatitude, or Salvation Reconsidered
Varieties of Beatitude
"What Must I Do to be Saved?"
The Problem of Hell
The Goodness of the Highest Good
Epilogue to Part III: The Promise and the Problems of
Religious Beauty
Epilogue: Religion as Trinity
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Kent Richter is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at College of DuPage. He is the coauthor of Understanding Religion in a Global Society (2004).
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Invitation to World Religions - Jeffrey Brodd, Layne Little, Brad Nystrom, Robert Platzner, Richard Shek and Erin Stiles
