Ninian Smart on World Religions

John J Shepherd is Principal Lecturer in Religious Studies at University of Cumbria, UK

Contents: Preface; Introduction: a critical analysis; Part I Autobiographical: Methods in my life. Part II Religious Experience and the Logic of Religious Discourse: The comparative logical analysis of religious doctrines; Empiricism and religions: Understanding religious experience. Part III Mystical Experience: Interpretation and mystical experience; The purification of consciousness and the negative path; What would Buddhaghosa have made of The Cloud of Unknowing?. Part IV Comparative Studies: Numen, Nirvana and the definition of religion; What is religion?; Theravada Buddhism and the definition of religion; The work of the Buddha and the work of Christ; The logos doctrine and Eastern beliefs; The comparative view of the person: East and West; Buddhism and the death of God; Types of religious liberation: an implicit critique of modern politics. Part V Religious Studies and Religious Education: Method and Theory in the Study of Religions: Religion as a discipline?; What is comparative religion?; The structure of the comparative study of religion; Scientific studies of religion; Religious studies and the comparative perspective; The study of religion as a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural presence among the human sciences; Comparative religion clichés; The political implications of religious studies. Part VI Religious Ethics: Gods, bliss and morality; The ethics of Chinese Communism; Clarity and imagination as Buddhist means to virtue; Religious values and the university; Sacred civilities; A global ethic arising from the epistemology of religious and similar value-systems. Appendices; Name index.