The Meaning and End of ReligionWilfred Cantwell Smith, maintained in this vastly important work that Westerners have misperceived religious life by making "religion" into one thing. He shows the inadequacy of "religion" to capture the living, endlessly variable ways and traditions in which religious faith presents itself in the world. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 15 | |
Other Cultures The Religions | 51 |
The Special Case of Islam | 80 |
Is the Concept Adequate? | 119 |
The Cumulative Tradition | 154 |
Faith | 170 |
Conclusion | 193 |
Religion in the West | 203 |
Index | 335 |
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Common terms and phrases
actually adjective ancient Egypt Arabic Aramaic Arnobius become believe Buddhist called Calvin century chap chapter China Chinese Chris Christ Christian Christian faith Christian religion Church concept religion Confucianism cumulative tradition edition English entity expression fact formulated gion gious Gnosticism Greek Hindu Hinduism human idea ideal India instance intellectual interpretation involved Islam Jewish Judaism Kartir Lactantius later Latin less ligion London man's Mandaean Manichee matter meaning men's Middle-Persian Migne modern Muhammad mundane Muslim notion noun observer one's particular perhaps personal faith personalist phrase piety plural problem question Qur'an recent recognize reference reified reli religious community religious history religious system religious tradition scholars sense Shinto significant Sikh Sikhism situation suggest systematic Taoism term religio theology things tion trans transcendent translation true religion ummah understand usage voll Western word religio worship writing Zarathushtra Zoroastrianism Zwingli
Popular passages
Page 307 - What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's. isle ; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile : In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown : The heathen in his blindness, Bows down to wood and stone.
Page 246 - The faith which, under the name of Islam,* he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary fiction, THAT THERE is ONLY ONE GOD, AND THAT MAHOMET IS THE APOSTLE OF GOD.
Page 30 - That which is called the Christian Religion existed among the Ancients, and never did not exist, from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christianity.
Page 262 - The Reasons of the Christian Religion. The First Part, of Godliness : Proving by Natural Evidence the Being of God, the Necessity of Holiness, and a future Life of Retribution; the Sinfulness of the World; the Dessert of Hell; and what hope of Recovery Mercies intimate. The Second Part of Christianity. Proving by Evidence Supernatural and Natural, the certain Truth of the Christian Belief: and answering the Objections of Unbelievers.
Page 81 - This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My. favour unto you, and have chosen for you as religion AL-ISLAM.
Page 203 - ... qui autem omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter retractarent et tamquam relegerent, <hi>* sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo, ut elegantes ex eligendo ex diligendo diligentes ex intellegendo intellegentes ; his enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quae in religioso.
Page 156 - I mean the entire mass of overt objective data that constitute the historical deposit, as it were, of the past religious life of the community in question...
Page 144 - What obstructs a definition of Hinduism, for instance, is precisely the richness of what exists, in all its extravagant variety from century to century and from village to village. The empirical religious tradition of the Hindus developing historically in the minds and hearts and institutions and...
Page 197 - The end of religion, in the classical sense of its purpose and goal, that to which it points and may lead, is God. Contrariwise, God is the end of religion also in the sense that once He appears vividly before us, in his depth and love and unrelenting truth all else dissolves ; or at least religious paraphernalia drop back into their due and mundane place, and the concept 'religion
Page 63 - Hinduism' is, in my judgement, a particularly false conceptualisation, one that is conspicuously incompatible with any adequate understanding of the religious outlook of Hindus. Even the term 'Hindu' was unknown to classical Hindus.