Why Religions Matter
Abstract
What are religions? Why is it important to understand them? One answer is that religions and religious believers are extremely bad news: they are deeply involved in conflicts around the globe; they harm people of whom they disapprove; and they often seem irrational. Another answer claims that they are in fact extremely good news: religious beliefs and practices are universal and so fundamental in human nature that they have led us to great discoveries in our explorations of the cosmos and of who we are. The sciences began as part of that religious exploration. John Bowker demonstrates that there is truth in both answers and that we need both to understand what religion is and why it matters. He draws on many disciplines - from physics, genetics and the neurosciences to art, anthropology and the history of religions - to show how they shed entirely new light on religion in the modern world.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A further or second level Phenomenology is always hermeneutical and raises questions of the text that the text itself may not be asking or addressing.
“Thus, a further or second level Phenomenology is always hermeneutical and raises questions of the text that the text itself may not be asking or addressing (Bowker 2015, 304-5).”
From Śākta-Śaiva Meditation as Expanded Awareness in Medieval Kashmir (2023) · cites this paper as Bowker 2015, 304-5
Cites
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
Nagy, J., & Bettelheim, B. (1976) · MLN · doi:10.2307/2907161 · Cited by 1,639 · see citing works
Genome-wide association analysis identifies 13 new risk loci for schizophrenia
Multicenter Genetic Studies of Schizophrenia Consortium, Ripke, S., Psychosis Endophenotypes International Consortium, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2, O'Dushlaine, C., Chambert, K., Moran, J. L., Kähler, A. K., Akterin, S., Bergen, S. E., et al. (2013) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/ng.2742 · Cited by 1,496 · see citing works
The Human Condition—A Molecular Approach
Pääbo, S. (2014) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2013.12.036 · Cited by 197 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Śākta-Śaiva Meditation as Expanded Awareness in Medieval Kashmir
Flood, G. (2023) · Entangled Religions · doi:10.46586/er.14.2023.10995 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bowker, J.
- Corresponding author
- Bowker, John
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2015-03-30
- OpenAlex
- W1420310738
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 1.84
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Thammasat University Digital Collections (submittedVersion)
- TU Digital Collections (Thammasat University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Keywords
- religion, nature of religion, religious beliefs, science and religion, religion and conflict, history of religions, neuroscience of religion, art and religion, anthropology of religion
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
