Religious experience and philosophical analysis

Contents: Preface Introduction: a critical analysis Part I Autobiographical: Methods in my life. Part II Religious Experience and the Logic of Religious Discourse: The comparative logical analysis of religious doctrines Empiricism and religions: Understanding religious experience. Part III Mystical Experience: Interpretation and mystical experience The purification of consciousness and the negative path What would Buddhaghosa have made of The Cloud of Unknowing?. Part IV Comparative Studies: Numen, Nirvana and the definition of religion What is religion? Theravada Buddhism and the definition of religion The work of the Buddha and the work of Christ The logos doctrine and Eastern beliefs The comparative view of the person: East and West Buddhism and the death of God Types of religious liberation: an implicit critique of modern politics. Part V Religious Studies and Religious Education: Method and Theory in the Study of Religions: Religion as a discipline? What is comparative religion? The structure of the comparative study of religion Scientific studies of religion Religious studies and the comparative perspective The study of religion as a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural presence among the human sciences Comparative religion clichA(c)s The political implications of religious studies. Part VI Religious Ethics: Gods, bliss and morality The ethics of Chinese Communism Clarity and imagination as Buddhist means to virtue Religious values and the university Sacred civilities A global ethic arising from the epistemology of religious and similar value-systems. Appendices Name index.