Importance of Religion

Gavin Flood is Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Oxford where he is also the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. He is the author of Introduction to Hinduism (1996) and The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory, Tradition (2006); and editor of the Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

• Preface xi Acknowledgments xvIntroduction: Religion and the Human Condition 1Mediating Our Strange World 6Theories of Religion 8Religion and Religions 12Defining Religion 14The Argument 17Alienation and the Human Condition 17The Primacy of Perception and the System of Signs 23The Invisible and the Transcendent 24The Truths of Religion 26Conclusion 27Part One ACTION1 Clearing the Ground 37Reification: The Marxist Legacy 40Rationalization: The Weberian Legacy 44Knowledge and Action 46Methodology 49Conclusion 502 The Meaning of Religious Action 53The Sociology of Religious Meaning 55Meaning and Action 58Moral Acts 60Ritual and the Body 63A Rite of Affliction 66The Meaning of Sacrifice 69A Phenomenology of Sacrifice 71The Meanings of Death 73Conclusion 743 The Inner Journey 80Languages of Spirituality 83The Spiritual Habitus 91Conclusion 95Part Two SPEECH4 The Reception of the Text 101Routes to the World of Life 102Theories of the Text 106The Reception of Sacred Texts 109Sacred Text and Act 111Conclusion 1135 Tradition, Language, and the Self 115Linguistic Universals 117Linguistic Relativity 118Language and Religious Experience 122Language as a Model of Religion 125Conclusion 1276 Religion and Rationality 130What is Rationality? 131Rational Religious Communities 139Rationality and Cosmology 141Conclusion 146Part Three WORLD7 The Mystery of Complexity and Emergence 153A History of Antagonism 155Complexity and Constraint 159The Ontology of Process 164Conclusion 1668 The Union of Nature and Imagination 171Art and the Real 172Cosmological Art 175Pavel Florensky 177Abhinavagupta 178Secular Art 180Re-Spiritualizing Art 182Conclusion 1859 Religion and Politics 189Religion in the Public Sphere 190The Secular Public Sphere 195The Traditionalist View 197Fundamentalism 200The Religious Citizen 201Conclusion 205Summary 210Epilogue 217References 221Index 237

“Finally, it should be pointed out that the book is well presented, with a wealth of interesting primary sources and secondary literature discussed. . . At any rate, the book should contribute to the ongoing debate between religionists and reductionists within our field.”  (Numen, 1 May 2015)“Summing Up: Recommended.  Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.”  (Choice, 1 January 2013)