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"This dynamic collection of edited transcripts begins with Not What Should Be, But What Is! In this powerful talk on the contrasts between classical Eastern and traditional Western mythologies, Watts questions whether the image of a divine patriarch is still intellectually plausible in light of our ever growing understanding of the universe. He then takes a revealing look at the mystical origins of Christianity in Jesus - His Religion, Or the Religion About Him? and explores how Christianity has diverged historically from those teachings in a brilliant and well researched critique of the Church. In Democracy in the Kingdom of Heaven Watts then carries his inquiry one step further, and asks if indeed a monarchical religion still makes sense in a democratic society. Watts takes a fascinating look at the ultimately anthropomorphic quality of man's view of his god in Images of Man. Here he is only half kidding when he says that "In the beginning there was Man, and he created God in his image," pointing to the highly subjective nature of our inquiry into the highest orders of reality. In the final chapter, Religion and Sexuality, Watts again looks at organized religion, but with more than a touch of humor as he suggests that churches today are sexual regulation societies, and precious little else. To make this point Watts asks, "How else can you get thrown out?" He then goes on to discuss the social implications of the Church's investment in moral issues, and demonstrates that this may in fact be a ploy to cover up for the lack of any substantial religious teaching in organized religion today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The way most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to empirical reality, argues Ryan P. Burge. In 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, Burge strives to be an impartial referee and to overcome these caustic misperceptions by using both rigorous data analysis and straightforward explanations.
The Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion offers a fully rounded and highly authoritative point of access to all aspects of ancient religious life and thought. Dr Simon Price and Dr Emily Kearns, area advisers for the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, have come together to select, revise, edit, and in some cases wholly recast, a large number of key entries from OCD to create this handy, accessible reference work on mythology and religion in the Graeco-Roman world. Bringing to the attention of a wider audience the authority and scholarly rigour of OCD, the Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion provides students, teachers, and general readers with an affordable comprehensive, and wide-ranging A-Z reference source. The Dictionary is unique in that in addition to Greek myths and Roman festivals it covers Greek and Roman religious places, monuments, religious personnel, divination, astrology, and magic, and also contains many entries on Judaism and Christianity in Greek and Roman times.
In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.
The essays in this volume explore different aspects of the relation between Greek myth and Greek thought between the Archaic period (Homer and Hesiod) and the Hellenistic period, highlighting both the continuities and the contrasts in the Greek interpretations and 'uses' of myth. With the exception of the essay by Louis Gernet, all bear traces of the authors; attempts to combine older views stemming essentially from Durkheim and his pupils with Levi-Strauss's version of structuralism. Because the potential field is unmanageably large this selection concentrates on four important areas: the value of Greek myth in revealing the underlying coherence of Greek views of divinity; the manner in which Greek myth constructed meanings for Greek culture as a whole by selecting and combining certain motifs derived from different areas of life; the relationship between myth and delicate areas of social existence such as the nature of the value of certain objects and the passage of individuals from one status to another; and finally, the role of the myth in providing 'forms' for breaking rules - both in order to confirm the norm and to provide symbolic and actuals means of escape from dominant social rules and meanings. This book should be of interest to students in a number of disciplines concerned with myth and ancient society.
This volume contains the collected papers of Albert Henrichs on numerous subjects in ancient Greek myth and religion. What was ancient Greek religion really like? What is the reality of belief and action that lies behind the unwieldy sources, which stem from vast areas and epochs of the ancient world? What is the meaning, intended and otherwise, of religious action and speech in ancient Greece? Who were the Greek gods, how were they worshipped, and how were they viewed by those who worshipped them? One of the leading students of ancient Greek religion over the past five decades, Albert Henrichs, the Eliot Professor of Greek Literature at Harvard University, combines wide and deep learning, a pragmatic, incisive approach to the sources, and an apt use of comparative perspectives. Henrichs breaks new ground in discussing sacrifice, libation, cultic identity, religious action and speech, epiphany, and the personalities of the gods. Special attention is devoted to ancient Greek sources on the ancient Persian prophet Mani, founder of Manichaeism. As a group, Albert Henrichs’ papers on Greek religion offer a basic education on Greek myth and religion and constitute a blueprint for serious study of the subject.
An accessible introduction to the complex topic of Myth. Ellwood examines theories, meanings and interpretations, all of which are structured around a typical programme of study.
When this book first appeared (1886), the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, Amurath to Amurath succeeds; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological position was the ghost theory of Mr
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) was one of the twentieth century's foremost students of religion and cultural environments. This book examines the emergence, function, and value of religion and myth in his work.Nicolae Babuts, Robert Ellwood, Eric Ziolkowski, John Dadosky, Robert Segal, Mac Linscott Ricketts, Douglas Allen, and Liviu Borda examine Eliade's views on the interaction between the sacred and the profane. Each explores Eliade's phenomenological approach to the study of religion and myth. They show that modern rites of initiation, cultural activities, and spectacles like bullfighting, film, and, perhaps surprisingly, reading and writing, all harken back to the archetypal structures of the mythical imagination. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Eliade's phenomenological approach is that it reveals what we have in common with pre-Socratic man: the mind's structural capacity to endow objects and events with spiritual values and meanings.As a study of Eliade's concept of the mythic imagination, the book posits an analogy between the myths of the past and modern imitations. The authors suggest that in spite of their differences and their separate historical sources, myths represent basic structures of human consciousness. This book is essential reading for all students of religion, philosophy, and literature.