World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 409

beliefs and practices in the societal and individual life of people. If we pursue on this line, an understanding of religion as a homogeneous category seems to be at shake. A glimpse of the historical evolution of the so-called 'world religions' alone would reveal us the inadequacy of linear or uni-dimensional approach. What would be thereby revealed seems to be the fact that there exists heterogeneity in the ways of conceiving the divine reality, in the method of propitiating gods, in the codes of morality and life style, in the path ways of territorial expansion, in the modes of articulation in other cultures, and so. Then what is often presented as religious, spiritual, or sacred could be deciphered as the historical notions, which are conceptualized as signifying some essential reality.
Viewed from this point, the indifference of the west towards the institutionalized religions and its enthusiasm towards the so-called civil religions would appear to be suspicious and problematic. The intellectual context of the west is predominantly religious, in the sense it shows a kind of unconscious obsession with certain other religions and cultures. Despite much positive reconsideration or critical thinking from certain intellectual corners, the major thrust of the western discourse and political policies still remain to follow some models, which are characteristically antithetical to religious consciousness in general and obsessive to other non-western religions in particular. This would be the same case with ideological formations, which adopt or follow the western models. It is this context that the increase of religious phenomenon is perceived to be somewhat astonishing and surprising. This has obviously aroused a feeling of wonder, if not despair, among the people who have been very enthusiastic about the coming of a historical period of enlightenment wherein scientific thinking and rational behavior of humanity would be prevailing rule, instead of irrational superstitious belief in religious dogmas and rituals. The wonder in the loss of optimism about the 'secular culture' has often been articulated in the expressions like 'again religion!
In the present circumstances, the general apprehension that prevails on the religious-fact seems to be conveying a sense of anachronism. The anachronism about religion is raised in view of the emergence of a socialworld, which makes religion trivial. The modern social-world is characterized with the conditions where the process of historical disappearance of religion as a socio-political force and cultural expression is put on the track. When this process of replacement of elimination of religion is seen to be on the way, as evidenced by the high-modern societies in the west, manifestations of any primordial urges of faith cannot sustain or stabilize their pace in longer time. However, when the primordial instincts are not manifested in their innocuous purity and simplicity, the enthusiasm of the mundane can no longer pin its hopes in progress and development. The modernity gets in dilemma when it is encountered by its own brain-Childs. Of course this may
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