This book examines the meaning of religion within the scientific, evidence-based history of our known past since the big bang. While our current major religions are only centuries or millennia old, our volume discusses the origins and development of human religious practice and belief over our species’ existence of 300,000 years.
The volume also connects the scientific approach to natural and social history with ancient truths of our religious ancestors using new lines of inquiry, new technologies, new modes of expression, and new concepts. It brings together insights of natural scientists, social scientists, philosophers, writers, and theologians to discuss narratives of the universe. The essays discuss that to apprehend religion scientifically, or to interpret and explain science theologically, the subject must be examined through a variety of disciplinary lenses simultaneously and raise several theoretical, philosophical, and moral problems.
With a singular investigation into the meaning of religion in the context of the 13.8 billion-year history of our universe, this book will be indispensable for scholars and students of religious studies, big history, sociology and social anthropology, philosophy, and science and technology studies.
Table of Contents:
List of figures
List of contributors
1 Science and Religion/Religion and Science
Lowell Gustafson, David Blanks, and Barry H. Rodrigue
PART I
Deep Time, Science, and Religion
2 Science and Religion in Big History: The Dialogue Model
David Blanks
3 Meaningful Mystery
Todd L. Duncan
4 The Children of Climate Change and Their Search for Meaning
Barry H. Rodrigue
5 Not by Bread Alone: Religion in Big History And an Anthropologist’s Understanding
Brian Spooner
6 Is God Big Enough? Of Religion and Big History
William Grassie
7 The Nature of Humans, Science, and Religion
Davidson Loehr
8 A Big-History Perspective on Science and Religion: Peaceful Coexistence and Progress for Humanity
Mathew Chandrankunnel
9 The Ties That Bind
Lowell Gustafson
10 The Three Questions:
Understanding Religion Epistemologically
Ken Baskin
11 Religion in Big History: A Neurobiological and Psychological Theory
Lacy Loar-Gruenler
PART II
Deep Time, Religion, and Science
12 Teilhard, Big History, and the Question of Cosmic Purpose
John F. Haught
13 Whither Thou Go, O Universe? Why Religion and Evolution Belong Together
Ilia Delio
14 Shinto in the Light of Big History
Hiroko Shiota
15 Big History and Earth Spirituality: Toward a Significant Eco-Social Paradigm
Siddhartha
16 The Vedas, Tribal Perspectives, and Big History
H. Sudarshan
17 Searching the Name: Metaphors of the Divine in Our Evolving Cosmos
Jerry Harp
18 The Nature of Our Consciousness
Orla O’Reilly Hazra
19 Women’s Spirituality as a Measure of Deep Time and Social Ecology
Richa Minocha
20 Islam and Big History: A New Creation Myth for Peace and Coexistence
Hideki Iwaki
21 Deep Time From the Viewpoint of Islam
Shamshuddin Jusop and Tan Chee Keong
22 When Did Homo Sapiens Become Homo Religiosus? Just-so Stories, Evolution, and Big History
Ted Peters
Index
About the Author :
Lowell Gustafson is professor of political science at Villanova University, USA.
Barry H. Rodrigue is an archaeologist, geographer, and professor of anthropology at Symbiosis International University, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
David Blanks teaches in the Department of History and Political Science, Arkansas Tech University, USA.
