IngentaConnect THE NEW SCIENCES OF RELIGION

Author: Grassie, William¹

Source: Zygon, Volume 43, Number 1, March 2008 , pp. 127-158(32)

Abstract:

In this essay I examine the new sciences of religion, spanning the traditional fields such as the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of religion to new fields such as the economics, neurosciences, epidemiology, and evolutionary psychology of religion. The purpose is to welcome these approaches but also delineate some of their philosophical and theological limitations. I argue for pluralistic methodologies in the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena. I argue that religious persons and institutions should welcome these investigations, because science affects only interpretative strategies and does not present a fundamental challenge to core religious commitments. Indeed, the new sciences of religion can help religions in becoming more effective and wholesome. I am critical of confusing the scientific study of religion with scientism and trace this ideological project back to August Comte. In the end I deconstruct the metaphoric boundary that places religion on the inside as the object and science as the subject on the outside looking in.

Keywords: anthropology of religion; economics of religion; epidemiology of religion; evolutionary psychology; neurosciences of religion; neurotheology; psychology of religion; sociology of religion

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2008.00903.x

Affiliations: 1: Founder of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, 28 Garrett Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, and currently serves as a Senior Fulbright Fellow in the Department of Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy, Sri Lanka;, Emai

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