A Point by Point Response to Donald Wiebe: A Manifesto for the Scientific Study of Religion

A point by point response to Wiebe’s ‘Manifesto’, mostly in support of the ‘methodological naturalism’—with added precautions on the current use of the term ‘science’. A philosophy for the study of religion is called for, with an epistemological range that caters for collective methodologies and social ontologies; respects the analytic distinction between ‘subject matter’ and ‘theoretical object’—and, ultimately, the theory-ladenness of all talk about ‘religion’. Naturalism is not about givens in the study of meaningful human behavior.