Abstract
This chapter offers a new scientific engagement with the idea of religious truth, suggesting that it is the prerogative of the scholar of religion to take emic ideas seriously and to be open to the possibility that religions access a true level of reality. So long as we deny any truth to religion, we are not scientific and only confirm our own assumptions. The approach suggested here emerges from ideas regarding the social construction of reality: the socially constructed world is cultivated over centuries and reflects the main reality human beings live in. Religious practitioners learn how to navigate this realm, in waking consciousness, in dreams and in altered states. Scholars of religion should be careful before accepting a materialistic understanding of consciousness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Dynamics in the History of Religions |
| Publisher | Brill Academic Publishers |
| Pages | 353-380 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Publication series
| Name | Dynamics in the History of Religions |
|---|---|
| Volume | 13 |
| ISSN (Print) | 1878-8106 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 1878-8114 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Eviatar Shulman, 2023.
Keywords
- historical conditioning
- phenomenology of religion
- religion and truth
- religionsity and scholarship