Concept Note

Philosophy of religion may be taken to be appropriately concerned with the essence of a religious life, much as physical science is concerned with the essence of matter, or geometry is concerned with the essential properties of space. This enterprise would then inevitably result in the contention that religion is one for the entire humanity. Universal religion is what it means to be religion for humankind. Is this distinction between cultural-anthropological and cultural-historical view on religion on the one hand, and the philosophical view of universal religion on the other hand, at loggerheads with one another? Is there any good reason to be skeptical about religious oneness as against plurality of religious beliefs? Are religious beliefs as justifiably divergent as cultural beliefs of various kinds? Is the idea of trans-cultural religion—a religion that is essentially above any culture-specific differences of beliefs—just a fiction of the universalist mind? These questions are of vital importance which is proposed for deliberation in this National Seminar.