The Importance of Religion Meaning and Action in Our Strange World

includes index and biblioraphy

Introduction: Religion and the Human Condition Mediating Our Strange World Theories of Religion Religion and Religions Defining Religion The Argument Alienation and the Human Condition The Primacy of Perception and the System of Signs The Invisible and the Transcendent The Truths of Religion ACTION Clearing the Ground Reification: The Marxist Legacy Rationalization: The Weberian Legacy Knowledge and Action Methodology The Meaning of Religious Action The Sociology of Religious Meaning Meaning and Action Moral Acts Ritual and the Body A Rite of Affliction The Meaning of Sacrifice A Phenomenology of Sacrifice The Meanings of Death The Inner Journey Languages of Spirituality The Spiritual Habitus Part Two SPEECH The Reception of the Text Routes to the World of Life Theories of the Text The Reception of Sacred Texts Sacred Text and Act Tradition, Language, and the Self Linguistic Universals Linguistic Relativity Language and Religious Experience Language as a Model of Religion Conclusion Religion and Rationality What is Rationality? Rational Religious Communities Rationality and Cosmology WORLD The Mystery of Complexity and Emergence A History of Antagonism Complexity and Constraint The Ontology of Process Conclusion The Union of Nature and Imagination Art and the Real Cosmological Art Pavel Florensky Abhinavagupta Secular Art Re-Spiritualizing Art Conclusion Religion and Politics Religion in the Public Sphere The Secular Public Sphere The Traditionalist View Fundamentalism The Religious Citizen