The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience and the Transcendent

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 12
Preface to the 2010 Reissue......Page 14
Foreword......Page 17
Part I:......Page 22
Pre-axial religion......Page 24
The axial age......Page 25
The new axial insights......Page 27
Religion as institution and religion as spirituality/mysticism......Page 28
The institutional balance sheet......Page 29
The ‘scientific’ study of religion......Page 32
‘Spirituality’ and spirituality......Page 35
Spirituality/mysticism......Page 40
Unitive mysticism......Page 42
What do we mean by religious experience?......Page 48
The kinds of religious experience......Page 49
A transformed world......Page 50
The sense of presence......Page 52
Visions and auditions......Page 54
Some rarer forms of religious experience......Page 56
The relation between the inner and outer aspects of religion......Page 57
From the sublime to the ridiculous......Page 60
Within the monotheisms......Page 62
Within Buddhism......Page 64
Individual and social fruits......Page 66
Part II:......Page 74
The contemporary naturalistic world-view......Page 76
Religious materialism?......Page 78
Brain to consciousness causality......Page 79
God and the limbic system......Page 83
Meditation and the brain......Page 84
Religious experience as mental aberration......Page 88
Religious experience and epilepsy......Page 91
Meditation and the brain......Page 96
Drugs and religious experience......Page 97
Pure consciousness......Page 99
7 Mind/Brain Identity?......Page 102
The correlation = identity fallacy......Page 103
Begging the question......Page 104
The identity theory......Page 106
The mystery of consciousness......Page 110
The Libet experiments......Page 113
Consciousness as a social product......Page 115
Consciousness and evolution......Page 118
Consciousness as an emergent property......Page 120
Biological naturalism......Page 124
The plasticity of the brain......Page 127
Brain plasticity observed in Buddhist meditation......Page 129
Compatibilist and non-compatibilist freedom......Page 133
Experimental evidence......Page 136
Quantum indeterminacy......Page 139
The problem of self-reference......Page 140
Part III:......Page 146
Our epistemic situation......Page 148
The principle of critical trust......Page 150
Critical trust and religious experience......Page 151
Differences and contradictions......Page 154
Experiencing as interpreting......Page 158
Levels of meaning......Page 161
Cognitive freedom......Page 163
Which religion?......Page 167
Salvation......Page 170
Responses to religious diversity......Page 171
Multiple aspect pluralism......Page 175
Polycentric pluralism......Page 177
The premises......Page 183
The basic distinction......Page 184
The Transcendent as beyond human description......Page 185
The problem......Page 187
The solution......Page 188
The problem......Page 193
But is pluralism compatible with existing religious practice?......Page 196
The existing religions......Page 197
Cosmic optimism......Page 202
Inspiration from the saints......Page 203
Prayer......Page 205
Meditation......Page 207
The origin of after-life beliefs......Page 212
Heaven and hell in the Christian tradition......Page 213
Reincarnation......Page 215
Many lives in many worlds......Page 218
Religion as institutions and as spirituality......Page 222
The primacy of religious experience......Page 223
Religion and neuroscience......Page 225
Epistemology and religious experience......Page 226
Notes......Page 228
Reference Bibliography......Page 235
Index......Page 246