Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:35:17.760Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - Religion, truth, and progress

from Part I - Evolution and theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2014

By
Philip Kitcher
Edited by
R. Paul Thompson  and
Denis Walsh
R. Paul Thompson
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Denis Walsh
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

Contemporary atheism usually conceives religion as centered on a core of statements, each of them designed to correspond to the cosmic facts. Classic anthropological and sociological studies of religion often start in a different place with practices attending to the multi-dimensional character of religious life. Worlds change when people revise their ideas about the boundaries of objects or about how to classify things together or what is the normal course of a process. The chapter introduces notions of fictional truth that might be extended directly to notions of mythical and religious truth. It presents the idea of the permanent progressiveness underlying strong ethical truth, suggests introducing more stringent demands on a notion of mythical truth. Religious truth includes mythical truth, but isn't exhausted by it. There are many dimensions of religious practice, and statements play other roles besides the telling of stories or the recounting of lore.
Type
Chapter
Information
Evolutionary Biology
Conceptual, Ethical, and Religious Issues
 , pp. 45 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×