It could be argued, however, that there are no ways to authenticate religions as an outsider. McCutcheon (1999) asks to what extent can someone study, understand, or explain the beliefs, words, or even actions of another. McCutcheon writes, based on German scholars in the nineteenth century, about Geisteswissenschaften (the science of studying the spirit) and Naturwissenschaften (the science of studying nature). He argues that unlike the sciences, the study of human subjects is far more complicated as we have desires, fears, expectations and reasons for doing what we do and saying what we say, reasons which may not be apparent from an initial study of behaviours that can be observed by an outsider. Therefore, human behaviour and belief systems
