The World's Religions offers a fascinating insight into a wide range of faiths, their history and their followers. In the richly illustrated new edition of this popular book, religions are described through their symbols, rituals, followers, architecture and art. References, statistics, maps and pictures have been updated and added. The text has been thoroughly revised to highlight recent developments, such as the spread of Islam, African-American and Hispanic-American religious experience, and women priests.

"Dimensions of the Sacred is arguably one of the most comprehensive and readable accounts of religion that we have had in the past thirty years. Not only does it provide a rich analysis of religious experience, but he also includes much that has been overlooked by other interpreters of the world's religions."—Richard D. Hecht, coauthor of The Sacred Texts of the World

Ninian Smart came to public prominence as the founding Professor of the first British university Department of Religious Studies in the late 1960s. His pioneering views on education in religion proved hugely influential at all levels, from primary schools to academic teaching and research. An unending string of publications, many of them accessible to the general public, sustained a reputation that became worldwide. Here, for the first time, a selection of Ninian Smart's wide-ranging writings is organised systematically under a set of categories which both comprehend and also illuminate his varied output over a career spanning half a century. The editor, John Shepherd, was Principal Lecturer in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Cumbria. He first met Smart as a postgraduate student, and recently helped establish the Ninian Smart Archive at the University of Lancaster.

Ninian Smart believes that the modern study of religion should occur in the context of a radical reappraisal of our educational system. This is a worldview analysis of religion appropriate to today's global city. It attacks narrowness whether found in Western philosophy or Christian theology, and argues for a disestablishmentarian stance. Religion and the Western Mind presents the explosive possibilities of religions -- of world views that have the power to shape history. It offers a theory regarding the need of nations for religious justifications. It examines three fundamental backlashes: the Moral Majority, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Gush Emunim. It looks at the contrasting Indian and Sri Lankan responses to Western influence and delineates the Indian tradition in a new way. And finally it diagnoses the future, exploring the ethical inferences of the worldview and supporting a position that runs like a thread through this book.

World Philosophies presents in one volume a superb introduction to all the world’s major philosophical and religious traditions. Covering all corners of the globe, Ninian Smart’s work offers a comprehensive and global philosophical and religious picture. In this revised and expanded second edition, a team of distinguished scholars, assembled by the editor Oliver Leaman, have brought Ninian Smart’s masterpiece up to date for the twenty-first century. Chapters have been revised by experts in the field to include recent philosophical developments, and the book includes a new bibliographic guide to resources in world philosophies. A brand new introduction which celebrates the career and writings of Ninian Smart, and his contribution to the study of world religions, helps set the work in context.

The ten chapters in this book cover the world religions--Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, the Hindu traditions--as well as every significant regional religious tradition. There is also special coverage of regional cults, missionary activities, and indigenous belief systems in every part of the world.

The major religions of the world are a mystery to many high school teens. Now you can help them unlock the doors of these traditions with our new text, World Religions: A Voyage of Discovery. The book is an introductory survey that helps eleventh and twelfth graders understand the people, dimensions, and religious principles of the world's major religions. The textbook includes a chapter on each of eleven major world religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and others. The text offers the Catholic perspective on interreligious dialogue, an overview of basic questions that religions address, and Ninian Smart's seven dimensions of religion. A glossary and word pronunciations in each chapter help students learn unfamiliar terms. In addition, the second edition of this text incorporates the following new features: a new chapter on modern trends in religion; new, more detailed maps; a new section on the Aztec religion of Mesoamerica; a sidebar in each chapter offering examples of the seven dimensions of religion; and review questions at the end of each chapter.

Globalization and high-speed communication put twenty-first century people in contact with adherents to a wide variety of world religions, but usually, valuable knowledge of these other traditions is limited at best. On the one hand, religious stereotypes abound, hampering a serious exploration of unfamiliar philosophies and practices. On the other hand, the popular idea that all religions lead to the same God or the same moral life fails to account for the distinctive origins and radically different teachings found across the world’s many religions. Understanding World Religions presents religion as a complex and intriguing matrix of history, philosophy, culture, beliefs, and practices. Hexham believes that a certain degree of objectivity and critique is inherent in the study of religion, and he guides readers in responsible ways of carrying this out. Of particular importance is Hexham’s decision to explore African religions, which have frequently been absent from major religion texts. He surveys these in addition to varieties of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Ambitiously undertaking to develop a strategy for making the study of religion "scientific," Ninian Smart tackles a set of interrelated issues that bear importantly on the status of religion as an academic discipline. He draws a clear distinction between studying religion and "doing theology," and considers how phenomenological method may be used in investigating objects of religious attitudes without presupposing the existence of God or gods. He goes on to criticize projectionist theories of religion (notably Berger's) and theories of rationality in both religion and anthropology. On this basis he builds a theory of religious dynamics which gives religious ideas and entities an autonomous place in the sociology of knowledge. His overall purpose is thus "to indicate ways forward in the study of religion which free it from being crypto-apologetics or elevating poetry." Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

For a contemporary world in which religious belief exercises a more potent - some might say more dangerous - influence on global events than many would have thought possible a generation ago, the nature and interpretation of the core tenets of religious faith has become a matter of compelling and widespread interest, both within and outside practising religious communities.Each of the 14 chapters of Sacred Texts is devoted to one of the principal religious and other belief systems of humanity, both defunct and extant. The chapters follow a consistent pattern: a short and accessible introduction to the faith in question, followed by extracts that clearly illustrate its mythic narratives, its spiritual and theological doctrines, its central moral teachings, its rituals and modes of worship, and its mystical traditions. Accompanying notes make clear the meanings of all the quoted passages. Taken together, the extracts provide a rounded and coherent picture of each religious tradition.Sacred Texts covers not only Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism and Sikhism, but also small-scale traditional religions, new religions, and secular worldviews such as humanism. It is an essential reference for those who wish to understand the nature - and continuing appeal - of religious belief in a globalised, multi-faith world.