God, A Guide for the Perplexed is a non-fiction book by Keith Ward arguing the compatibility between science and religion.
In seven chapters Keith Ward takes the reader through the history of mankind's religious thought. He shows how philosophical questions have always been linked with religious questions, and how religion has never been merely a set of rules or doctrines, but a quest for meaning and a search for the blazing darkness that is God. Ward also discusses Hegel and Karl Marx. While the academic ground is covered lightly, the mystical, poetic and mysterious side of religion is also given due weight. The content is similar to, though the tone adopted is different from, Don Cupitt's The Sea of Faith .
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the central religious text of the Baháʼí Faith, written by Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the religion, in 1873. Though it is the main source of Baháʼí laws and practices, much of the content deals with other matters, like foundational principles of the religion, the establishment of Baháʼí institutions, mysticism, ethics, social principles, and prophecies. In Baha'i literature it is described as "the Mother-Book" of the Baháʼí teachings, and the "Charter of the future world civilization".
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
Sikhism, also known as Sikhi, is an Indian/Dharmic religion and philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, around the end of the 15th century CE. It is the most recently founded major organized faith and stands at fifth-largest worldwide, with about 25-30 million adherents.
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or preternatural knowledge, for example of future events. They can be revealed to the prophet in various ways depending on the religion and the story, such as visions, divination, or direct interaction with divine beings in physical form. Stories of prophetic deeds sometimes receive considerable attention and some have been known to survive for centuries through oral tradition or as religious texts.
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks can be summarized according to the classic distinction between the natural-scientific and human-scientific approaches. The first cluster amounts to objective, quantitative, and preferably experimental procedures for testing hypotheses about causal connections among the objects of one's study. In contrast, the human-scientific approach accesses the human world of experience using qualitative, phenomenological, and interpretive methods. This approach aims to discern meaningful, rather than causal, connections among the phenomena one seeks to understand.
John Harwood Hick was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.
Progressive revelation is a core teaching in the Baháʼí Faith that suggests that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance. Thus, the Baháʼí teachings recognize the divine origin of several world religions as different stages in the history of one religion, while believing that the revelation of Baháʼu'lláh is the most recent, and therefore the most relevant to modern society.
Unity of religion is a core teaching of the Baháʼí Faith which states that there is a fundamental unity in many of the world's religions. The principle states that the teachings of the major religions are part of a single plan directed from the same God. It is one of the core teachings of the Baháʼí Faith, alongside the unity of God, and the unity of humanity.
The Quinque viæ are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:
Keith Ward is an English philosopher, and theologian. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a priest of the Church of England. He was a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, until 2003. Comparative theology and the relationship between science and religion are two of his main topics of interest.
Some Answered Questions is a compilation of table talks of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá that were collected by Laura Clifford Barney between 1904 and 1906 across several pilgrimages. The book was first published in English in 1908. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was the son of Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, and was appointed by him as his successor and interpreter of his words.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith was a Canadian Islamicist, comparative religion scholar, and Presbyterian minister. He was the founder of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Quebec and later the director of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions. The Harvard University Gazette said he was one of the field's most influential figures of the past century. In his 1962 work The Meaning and End of Religion he notably questioned the modern sectarian concept of religion.
Is Religion Dangerous? is a book by Keith Ward examining the questions: "Is religion dangerous? Does it do more harm than good? Is it a force for evil?" It was first published in 2006. Looking at the evidence from history, philosophy, sociology and psychology, Ward focuses on the main question at issue: does religion do more harm than good? He begins by examining the key area of religion and violence and goes on to assess the allegations of irrationality and immorality, before exploring the good religion has done over the centuries. He suggests that without religion the human race would be considerably worse off and there would be little hope for the future.
This is an incomplete table containing prophets, sometimes called messengers, of the Abrahamic religions.
Ian Stephen Markham is an Episcopal priest and the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) since August 2007. Previously, he served at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut as Dean and Professor of Theology and Ethics.
Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a demiurgic entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
Willem Bernard "Wim" Drees is a Dutch philosopher. As of the 1st of November 2014 he is professor of philosophy of the humanities at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. From 2008 until 2018 he was the editor-in-chief of Zygon, Journal of Religion & Science and professor of philosophy of religion at Leiden University, the Netherlands.
The teachings of the Baháʼí Faith regard Buddhism as a religion founded by a Manifestation of God, and Baháʼu'lláh as the expected Maitreya Buddha. The authenticity of the current canon of Buddhist scriptures is seen as uncertain. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of Baháʼís from Buddhist background.
Sikhism has often been criticised by non-Sikhs regarding its texts, practices, and societal norms, but Sikhs and other scholars argue that these criticisms are flawed and are based on a biased and poor understanding of the texts, especially of the multiple languages used in the Sikh scriptures. They also argue that most western scholars who attempted to interpret eastern religious texts were missionaries and could not overcome the bias they carried with them, irrespective of whether they were translating the Quran, Vedas, Puranas or the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Nanak rejected ritualistic worship and encouraged belief in one true God, Waheguru. The veneration and bowing to the Guru Granth Sahib, has often been interpreted by western scholars as akin to idolatry, as observed by the Hindu faith, which defeats the ideology of Guru Nanak. Other scholars dismiss Sikhism as, either consciously or spontaneously, a syncretism of the Hindu Bhakti and Muslim Sufi movements.
Atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some other expression of feelings of remorse. From the Middle English attone or atoon, now meaning to be "at one", in harmony, with someone. Atonement "is closely associated to forgiveness, reconciliation, sorrow, remorse, repentance, reparation, and guilt". It can be seen as a necessary step on a path to redemption.