Can Religion be Explained Away?

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Animism and Religion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Is Animism Alive and Well?

      • Richard Eldridge

      Pages 3-25

   3. Is Animism Alive and Well? A Response to Professor Eldridge

      • Mario von der Ruhr

      Pages 26-45

3. Is Religion the Product of Projection?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 47-47

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   2. Is Religion a Product of Wishful Thinking?

      • Lars Hertzberg

      Pages 49-65

   3. Projection: A Metaphor in Search of a Theory?

      • Van A. Harvey

      Pages 66-82

4. Psychoanalysis and Religion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

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   2. Psychoanalysis as Ultimate Explanation

      • John Deigh

      Pages 85-105

   3. Psychoanalysis as Ultimate Explanation of Religion

      • ̊Ilham Dilman

      Pages 106-128

5. Religion as a Social Construct

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

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   2. Sources of the Self’s Senses of Itself: A Theistic Reading of Modernity

      • Stephen Mulhall

      Pages 131-160

   3. Doing Justice or Giving the Devil his Due

      • Peter Winch

      Pages 161-174

6. Religion as the Opium of the People

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 175-175

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   2. Is Religion the Opium of the People? Marxianism and Religion

      • Kai Nielsen

      Pages 177-223

   3. Is Religion the Opium of the People? A Reply to Kai Nielsen

      • David McLellan

      Pages 224-230

7. Is Immortality an Illusion?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 231-231

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   2. Dislocating the Soul

      • D. Z. Phillips

      Pages 233-251

   3. Immortality without Metaphysics: A Reply to D.Z. Phillips

      • John Hyman

      Pages 252-263

8. Voices in Discussion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 265-265

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As the century draws to its close, how should we think of religion? Some see it as the survival in our midst of an outmoded, primitive way of thinking, while others accuse the critics of simply being blind to the meaning of religious belief. From a different perspective, the clash between belief and unbelief is not seen as a matter of identifying incoherent systems of thought, but as a clash between different demands made on us by divergent ways of looking at the world. Criticisms will flow between these perspectives. There is, however, another kind of interest in this situation: an interest in giving just characterizations of these different voices, so that the nature of allegiances and oppositions to religion may be better understood.

• immortality
• religion
• religious belief

• University of Wales, Swansea, UK

  D. Z. Phillips

• Philosophy of Religion, The Claremont Graduate School, USA

  D. Z. Phillips

Policies and ethics