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Religion: the Failed Narrative

Author: Richard C. Johnson

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2011-01-13

Total Pages: 63

ISBN-13: 1450276385

God emerges like a hologram in our consciousness and is falsely presented as the champion who will save us from death. Science, with its focused methodology, tells the true story. God is the main character in religion, but he is a figment of the imagination. Humans experience consciousness like amnesia victims: We dont know where we came from or why we are here, and we fantasize that we keep on living after our bodies physically die. Thus humanity turns to religion, a powerful source of consolation and comfort. Science, however, offers some more concrete answers. Author Richard C. Johnson argues that God emerges as an adjunct of human consciousness, where he is conjured up in response to the isolation engendered by self-awareness. Huge conflict results, Johnson explains, because claims about God are made from doctrine rather than observation. The result of these conflicts has consistently been war. In an age of nuclear weapons and terrorism, religious conflict must be deconstructed by honest discussion. Johnson explores this seemingly impossible task and proposes methods by which it can be accomplished. In Religion: The Failed Narrative, Johnson convinces us that irrational religion cannot guide us and that only rational science has proven to be a capable leader.

Religion is Not about God

Author: Loyal D. Rue

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0813535115

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Annotation If religion is not about God, then what on earth is it about? Loyal Rue contends that religion is a series of strategies that aims to influence human nature so that we might think, feel, and act in ways that are good for us, both individually and collectively.

Religion

Author: Richard C. Johnson

Publisher:

Published: 2011-01

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9781450276375

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God emerges like a hologram in our consciousness and is falsely presented as the champion who will save us from death. Science, with its focused methodology, tells the true story. God is the main character in religion, but he is a figment of the imagination. Humans experience consciousness like amnesia victims: We don't know where we came from or why we are here, and we fantasize that we keep on living after our bodies physically die. Thus humanity turns to religion, a powerful source of consolation and comfort. Science, however, offers some more concrete answers. Author Richard C. Johnson argues that God emerges as an adjunct of human consciousness, where he is conjured up in response to the isolation engendered by self-awareness. Huge conflict results, Johnson explains, because claims about God are made from doctrine rather than observation. The result of these conflicts has consistently been war. In an age of nuclear weapons and terrorism, religious conflict must be deconstructed by honest discussion. Johnson explores this seemingly impossible task and proposes methods by which it can be accomplished. In "Religion: The Failed Narrative," Johnson convinces us that irrational religion cannot guide us and that only rational science has proven to be a capable leader.

Frederick Douglass and the Philosophy of Religion

Author: Timothy J. Golden

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-12-06

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0739191683

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Frederick Douglass and the Philosophy of Religion: An Interpretation of Narrative, Art, and the Political addresses Douglass’s narrative method and the reformed epistemology of analytic theism within the context of Incarnational theology. Timothy J. Golden argues that in this context, Douglass’s use of narrative maintains a robust moral, social, and political engagement—and thus a closer connection to an authentic Christian theology—in a way that analytic theism does not. To show this contrast, Golden presents existential and phenomenological interpretations of Douglass, reading him alongside Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Levinas. Golden concludes the book with reflection on how Douglass’s Incarnational theology connects to his future philosophical and theological work, which understands consciousness (subjectivity) as saturated in time understood as history. Golden argues that the resulting view of consciousness helps to overcome abstraction in a variety of philosophical subfields, including jurisprudence and gender studies.

Victorian Narratives of Failed Emigration

Author: Tamara S Wagner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-26

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1317002164

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In her study of the unsuccessful nineteenth-century emigrant, Tamara S. Wagner argues that failed emigration and return drive nineteenth-century writing in English in unexpected, culturally revealing ways. Wagner highlights the hitherto unexplored subgenre of anti-emigration writing that emerged as an important counter-current to a pervasive emigration propaganda machine that was pressing popular fiction into its service. The exportation of characters at the end of a novel indisputably formed a convenient narrative solution that at once mirrored and exaggerated public policies about so-called 'superfluous' or 'redundant' parts of society. Yet the very convenience of such pat endings was increasingly called into question. New starts overseas might not be so easily realizable; emigration destinations failed to live up to the inflated promises of pro-emigration rhetoric; the 'unwanted' might make a surprising reappearance. Wagner juxtaposes representations of emigration in the works of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Frances Trollope, and Charlotte Yonge with Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian settler fiction by Elizabeth Murray, Clara Cheeseman, and Susanna Moodie, offering a new literary history not just of nineteenth-century migration, but also of transoceanic exchanges and genre formation.

The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha

Author: Laura Feldt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-14

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 131754384X

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The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha argues that perspectives drawn from literary-critical theories of the fantastic and fantasy are apt to explore Hebrew Bible religious narratives. The book focuses on the narratives' marvels, monsters, and magic, rather than whether or not the stories depict historical events. The Exodus narrative (Ex 1-18) and a selection of additional Hebrew Bible narratives (Num 11-14, Judg 6-8, 1 Kings 17-19, 2 Kings 4-7) are analysed from a fantasy-theoretical perspective. The 'fantasy perspective' helps to make sense of elements of these narratives that - although prominently featured in the stories - have previously often been explained by being explained away. These case studies can illuminate Hebrew Bible religion and offer wider perspectives on religious narrative generally. In light of the fantasy-theoretical approach, these Hebrew Bible stories - with the Exodus narrative at the centre - read not as foundational stories, affirming triumphantly and unambiguously the bond between the deity, his people, and their territory, but rather as texts that harbour and even actively encourage ambiguity and uncertainty, not necessarily prompting belief, orientation, and a sense of meaningfulness, but also open-ended reflection and doubt. The case studies suggest that other religious narratives, both in and beyond the Judaic tradition, may also be amenable to interpretation in these terms, thus questioning a dominant trend in myth studies. The results of the analyses lead to a discussion of the role of ambiguity, uncertainty, and transformation in religious narrative in broader perspective, and to a questioning of the emphasis in the study of religion on the capacity of religious narrative for founding and maintaining institutions, orienting identity, and defending order over disorder. The book suggests the wider importance of incorporating destabilisation, disorientation, and ambiguity more strongly into theories of what religious narrative is and does.

Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion

Author: William E. Arnal

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-09-11

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1317543963

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Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion presents a provocative critique of the unwillingness of modern scholars to publically distinguish research into comparative religion from confessional studies written within denominationally-affiliated institutions. The book offers the 19th Century founders of the study of religion as a bracing corrective to contemporary timidity. The issue was analysed and documented by Wiebe a quarter of a century ago. Here, marking Wiebe's work, a wide range of contributors reassess the methodology and ambition of contemporary religious research. The book argues that conceptualizing religion as part of the world of human action and experience is the first requirement of the study of religion.

Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

Author: Dirk Johannsen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-01-29

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 900442167X

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Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion studies narrativity as situated modes of engaging with reality in religious contexts across the globe, equally shaped by the immersive character of the stories told and the sensory qualities of their performances.

The Religious History of American Women

Author: Catherine A. Brekus

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-11-13

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780807867990

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More than a generation after the rise of women's history alongside the feminist movement, it is still difficult, observes Catherine Brekus, to locate women in histories of American religion. Mary Dyer, a Quaker who was hanged for heresy; Lizzie Robinson, a former slave and laundress who sold Bibles door to door; Sally Priesand, a Reform rabbi; Estela Ruiz, who saw a vision of the Virgin Mary--how do these women's stories change our understanding of American religious history and American women's history? In this provocative collection of twelve essays, contributors explore how considering the religious history of American women can transform our dominant historical narratives. Covering a variety of topics--including Mormonism, the women's rights movement, Judaism, witchcraft trials, the civil rights movement, Catholicism, everyday religious life, Puritanism, African American women's activism, and the Enlightenment--the volume enhances our understanding of both religious history and women's history. Taken together, these essays sound the call for a new, more inclusive history. Contributors: Ann Braude, Harvard Divinity School Catherine A. Brekus, University of Chicago Divinity School Anthea D. Butler, University of Rochester Emily Clark, Tulane University Kathleen Sprows Cummings, University of Notre Dame Amy Koehlinger, Florida State University Janet Moore Lindman, Rowan University Susanna Morrill, Lewis and Clark College Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Augustana College Pamela S. Nadell, American University Elizabeth Reis, University of Oregon Marilyn J. Westerkamp, University of California, Santa Cruz

Religion, Narrative and Public Imagination in South Asia

Author: James Hegarty

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1136645888

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The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the greatest works of world literature and pivotal for the understanding of both Hindu traditions and wider society in ancient, medieval and modern South Asia. This book presents a new synthesis of philological, anthropological and cognitive-linguistic method and theory in relation to the study of narrative text by focusing on the form and function of the Mahabharata in the context of early South Asia. Arguing that the combination of structural and thematic features that have helped to establish the enduring cultural centrality of religious narrative in South Asia was first outlined in the text, the book highlights the Mahabharata’s complex orientation to the cosmic, social and textual past. The book shows the extent to which narrative is integral to human social life, and more generally the creation and maintenance of religious ideologies. It highlights the contexts of origin and transmission and the cultural function of the Mahabharata in first millennium South Asia and, by extension, in medieval and modern South Asiaby drawing on both textual and epigraphic sources. The book draws attention to what is culturally specific about the origination and transmission of early South Asian narrative and what can be used to enrich our orientation to narrative in human social life more globally.