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The Language of Meaning: Why Science Cannot Replace Religion

出版	CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018-06-28
主題	Religion / Religion & Science
ISBN	17206735009781720673507
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=Qn1ouQEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋We live in an exceptionally irreligious time. Since the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment of the early modern period, a steady onslaught of arguments against the central doctrines of most traditional religions has all but demolished them on factual grounds. Consequently, an impression has emerged that religion - or "spirituality," if you prefer - is for the ignorant and stupid, while anyone with much of a brain must believe that the material world is all we've got. Even those who want to be religious often don't think that they can be both religious and intellectually honest at the same time. We frequently hear arguments for the social and personal benefits of religion, but what we really need is a resoundingly convincing argument for religion's truth - and those have been in very short supply. As a result, our lives have become appallingly deprived of the existential meaning that religion once provided, for which no replacement can be found.In The Language of Meaning, philosopher of religion Daniel McCoy presents the argument for the truth of religion that we've been hoping to find for centuries. In a clear yet artful style of writing, this book demonstrates that truth can't be reduced to fact alone. Just as fact is an unavoidable part of life, so is some degree and kind of meaning. We are never for an instant entirely removed from fact or from meaning. Meaning is true in its own right, but in a very different way than a fact is true. Science is the human endeavor with the greatest mastery of fact, while religion is the human endeavor with the greatest mastery of meaning. The doctrines and practices of religions can only be properly understood not as attempts to convey fact, but as attempts to articulate and facilitate the experience of the divine, a source of meaning far deeper than any secular source. The factual arguments against religion have been missing the point all along. Science and religion have fundamentally different purposes and methods, and neither one must - or should - come at the expense of the other. We need both of them, and The Language of Meaning shows us how we can have both.