Ninian Smart

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Ninian Smart

Professor Roderick Ninian Smart (6 May, 1927–29 January,2001) was a Scottish writer and university educator. He is considered by many to have been a pioneer in the field of secular religious studies.

Educated at Glasgow Academy, he was in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1945–48, where he learned Chinese (via Confucian texts) and had his first extended contact with Sri Lankan Buddhism. He established his prowess in philosophy at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1949, and subsequently in Sanskrit and Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, at Yale.

After lectureships at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the University of London, he was appointed professor, successively at the universities of Birmingham (1961–66), Lancaster (1967–82), where he was the department's founding professor, and theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara (1976–98). He was also visiting professor at Yale, Wisconsin, Princeton, Queensland, and the respected Religious Studies department at Lampeter.

After retiring, Smart returned to Lancaster, where he died in 2001, aged 73.

Smart is well-known for his seven-part definition of religion.

• Experience - "Religious experience," very non-ordinary
• Social - More than one person claiming Experience
• Narrative - Story of Experience for later participants
• Dogma - Beliefs, must be rational and logical within entire system
• Ethical - Behaviours that correspond to beliefs
• Ritual - Repeated access to Experience
• Material - Material manifestation for participants

Writings

• Reasons Faiths: An Investigation of Religious Discourse, Christian and non-Christian (1958) Routledge 2000 hardcover: ISBN 0-415-22564-7
• Historical Selections In the Philosophy of Religion. (1962) New York: Harper & Row.
• The Religious Experience of Mankind. (1969) New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 5th edition 1996: ISBN 0-02-412141-X (4th and 5th editions titled The Religious Experience)
• Philosophy of Religion (1970) Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 1992: ISBN 0-19-520138-8
• In Search of Christianity. (1979) New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-067401-6
• Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilization (1981). Gifford lectures. Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-067402-4
• Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Belief (1983) New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 3rd edition 1999. ISBN 0-13-020980-5
• Religion and the Western Mind (1987) State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-88706-383-7
• The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. (1989) Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1998: ISBN 0-521-63748-1. A historical approach.
• Buddhism and Christianity: Rivals and Allies (1993) University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1520-3
• Religions of the West. (1993) New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-156811-6
• Choosing a Faith (1995) Marion Boyars Publishers. ISBN 0-7145-2982-6
• Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs. (1999) University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21960-0
• World Philosophies. (2000) Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22852-2
• Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (3 edition 1999) Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-020980-5

External links

• Scott London, "The Future of Religion: An Interview With Ninian Smart" (April, 1999). Retrieved September 16, 2006.
• University of Alabama Bio of Ninian Smart Retrieved September 16, 2006.
• Richard Hecht, "In Memoriam" (The University of California at Santa Barbara Obituary of Ninian Smart in 2001). Retrieved September 16, 2006.

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