Daniel L. Pals: Nine Theories of Religion “Introduction”
According to Pals, what was the source of the traditional reluctance to entertain scientific theories of religion?
What does Pals see as the historic significance of Max Müller?
What is the important contrast Pals draws between “substantive” and “functional” theories of religion?
Pals issues an important caution about running to a dictionary for a definition of the word ‘religion’. Defining, he claims, is linked to explaining. What does he mean by that and why is it such an important disclaimer?
Huston Smith: The World’s Religions Chapter One: “Point of Departure”
Given what Smith says in this little introductory chapter, how do you imagine he would interpret the fact of the diverse truth claims of the world’s religions?
What does the Lincoln Steffans fable suggest about how Smith understands the nature of religion? Do you take that understanding to be controversial and/or problematic? Why or why not?
Smith cites Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism approvingly, and if the book were to have been written more recently, that cosmopolitanism would likely have been cast as a now-familiar “multi-culturalism.” How might cosmopolitanism and/or multiculturalism interpret the fact of diverse truth claims offered by the various world religions? Why this way rather than some other?
Answer the questions below in well devolved paragraphs:
MULTICULTURALISM AND RELIGIOUS TRUTH
In his “Point of Departure”, Huston Smith cites Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism approvingly, and if the book were to have been written more recently, that cosmopolitanism would likely have been cast as a now-familiar multi-culturalism. How might cosmopolitanism and/or multiculturalism interpret the fact of diverse truth claims offered by the various world religions?
Defining “Religion”
Pals issues an important caution about running to a dictionary for a definition of the word ‘religion’. Defining, he claims, is linked to explaining. What does he mean by that and why is it such an important disclaimer?
THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION
Often, when new students have trouble with courses like this one, it is because they will want to trump the academic discourse on religion with their own experience of religion or with their pre-theoretical understandings of their own religious community.
Why is it supposed to be important to distinguish theology from “the academic study of religion? Similarly, why distinguish academic religious studies from religion studied from within a “faith community”?
Belief and Faith
For John Gray, apparently “Faith” is a solution to the problem presented by “Belief”. How is that supposed to work?
Smith and the “truth” of Religion
Given what Smith says in this little introductory chapter, how do you imagine he would interpret the fact of the diverse truth claims of the world’s religions?
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