heathenquestions

Heathen Questions

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Chapter 1

1. What is the contradiction in religious studies?

2. I claim that a sentence of the following sort is a contradiction: “Even though Hinduism does not have a holy book, a founder, a church-like organisation, etc., it is still a religion.” Could you reconstruct the steps in the argument explicitly so that the contradiction becomes evident?

Chapter 2

1. What is the Pagan question?

2. What is the ‘ancient puzzle’ and how was this solved?

3. What is the Christian response to the Pagan challenge?

4. What is false religion and how can a religion be false?

Chapter 3

1. Explain the title of the third chapter: Who is the whore of Babylon, and what are the revelations? (You need to look into the New Testament Bible to figure out the answer.)

2. Why the title of 3.1.1?

3. Answer, in your own words, the title of 3.3.

Chapter 4

Explain the title of chapter 4. (Look at it as something that provides the summary of this and the previous chapter.)

What are the quandaries? Why are they that?

Chapter 5

1. Whose requiem is sung in the chapter?

2. In which way is the search for the origin of religion an attempt at reproducing European history as the universal history of mankind?

3. Why is a contrastive explanation an important criterion in the context of the argument?

4. In Chapter 2, I say that the explanations that the Enlightenment thinkers give transform the Ancients into inauthentic people. On the basis of what you have read in chapter 5, is another type of a critique possible? If yes, what is it? Please provide arguments.

Chapter 6

1. What does the difference in title of 6.2 and 6.3 signify?

2. Which are the ‘twains’ and do they meet or not?

3. What is a dilemma? What is the Christological dilemma?

4. Why is the argument about the above dilemma relevant to the case?

Chapter 7

1. What is your verdict as the jury?

2. Answer the questions in 7.1.1, 7.12., 7.1.3 (The titles raise the questions.)

3. What is the problem and what is its solution?

4. Which questions are answered, which postponed, and which newly raised?

5. If you are asked to summarise each of the first two parts of the book in one sentence, what would those sentences be?

Chapter 8

1.What is the difference between classificatory and referential discussion?

2. What is my definition of religion? Is this adequate? If yes, how? If not why not?

3. What is the meta-level problem in the story narrated so far?

Chapter 9

1. Is the characterisation of religion (as developed in this chapter) applicable only to Semitic religions?

2. How is religion characterised?

3. What is the relation between ‘meaning of life’ and religion?

4. What is the relation between ‘faith’ and intolerance?

5. What is the relation between religion and truth?

6. What is atheistic religiosity? Why is it possible or impossible for human beings?

7. What are the cognitive moments in religious conversion? What is the basic mechanism of conversion?

8. Why is the heathen blind? How can he see again?

9. What are the contingent properties of religion? Why are they contingent?

10. What is worship? Could we say that ‘the heathen bows down to wood and stone...?’

Chapter 10

1. What is the relation between religion and world view?

2. Why is it metaphysically impossible that religion exists in India?

3. Why is it sociologically impossible for either religion or world view to exist in India??

4. Is it possible to build a scientific world view?

5. What is the double dynamic of religion?

6. Why is the question about the relation between religion and world view interesting at all?

Chapter 11

1. What are configurations of learning?

2. What is the relation between religion and the configuration of learning?

3. How do configurations of learning help us conceptualise cultural differences?

4. What are the consequences of looking at cultural differences as differences between configurations of learning?

5. How are cultural similarities conceptualised?

6. Is the contradiction (pointed out in the 8^th chapter) successfully resolved? What is its resolution?

Apart form these questions, transform the sub-titles and titles into problems and try and provide answers while you read through the book. This will help you better understand the book.