http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2011/11/18/where-religion-comes-from-and-leads-us/ Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Thu, 16 May 2013 19:41:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2011/11/18/where-religion-comes-from-and-leads-us/comment-page-1/#comment-71458 manjeet chaturvedi Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:34:33 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=27488#comment-71458 Religion has universal appeal so far the moral and philosophical sermons of all major religious orders preach ‘welfare’, ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’, ‘protection’, ‘organization’, ‘sensitivity to environment, health, co-existence, human, animal & plant life, appreciation of aesthetics, regard to ecology and nature, creativity especially architecture, art, music, dance, dress & costume, all rhythmic activities’, and ‘discipline of institutional order’. Most of these are earthly things. The problem is that religion is practiced as if a supernatural ‘fact’, given ‘belief-system’and when then people following a religion refuse to budge. It is amazing however that recently interest of social sciences in religion and mainly in postures of ‘living with a faith’, ‘the power of prayer’ has been revived. So obvious are discussions, publications and funding of religion, faith, prayer, rituals, limits of science, intelligent design getting much much attention. Media, social media, cinematography concerning these and related issues (e.g. magic) are hyped along with other themes. So far these do not create another stream in the world of ideas outmaneuvering the scientific temper of scholarly pursuits, the lot of social scientists might find them more amusing than alarming.

]]>