Contents: Acknowledgements. Introduction. I. Beliefs diversified: 1. When deviance becomes Sin: Christian world-view re-examined/Anton Senekal. 2. Buddhist compassion and the moral Nihilism/Jeffrey Grupp. 3. Religion and social change: Hinduism revisited/Pramod Kumar Singh. 4. The very idea of religion: an Islamic perspective/Mahmoud Khatami. 5. Karma, God and rebirth/P.K. Mohapatra. II. Religion theorized: 6. Rethinking Marx and religion/Alberto Toscano. 7. Nietzsche and religion/Hakan Sandgren. 8. Durkheim and the sociology of religion/Swapan Kumar Pramanick. 9. Max Weber: the sociology of religion/Kathleen A. Riddell. 10. Interrogating religion: a critique from the enlightenment perspective/Soumyajit Patra. III. The local and the global: 11. Understanding tribal religion: the Garos in Bangladesh/Zahidul Islam and S.M. Arif Mahmud. 12. Understanding Punjabi folk religion: grappling the field and framework/Harvinder Singh Bhatti. 13. Education for experience: One view of Tibetan Tantric initiation/Brian J. Given. 14. Globalization and religion: beyond the primacy of the political/Ananta Kumar Giri. References. Notes on contributors. Index.
"Contemporary discourses on religion generally centre either on its ideological dimensions or on its practical implications, though there is always an implicit tension between these two. This book tries to bridge the gap and explore this complex phenomenon in the context of rising popularity of rationalist outlook in social life, and of 'secularization and de-divinization' perspective in sociological and philosophical literatures. In order to provide a complete and comprehensive analysis of religion this book focuses on:
- Traditional religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.
- Classical theories of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber.
- The Enlightenment Critique of Religion.
- Tribal Religion and folk religion.
- Religion and globalization.
Scholars from USA, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Bangladesh, Iran and India have contributed to this volume and the melange of diverse viewpoints has enriched the quality of the book. This book will undoubtedly prove useful to the scholars and students of sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history and religion studies." (jacket)
