ABSTRACT
The one thing that can be said with confidence about religion is that it is a very controversial subject. Some even believe that it is a subject better left untouched among friends, that it is a taboo topic in polite conversation because it is a subject that is so subjective, so visceral, that it can lead, and has led, to war. That, and the horrors visited on humanity throughout the ages in the euphemistic name of “religion”, is the reason that religion has so much bad press. Religion is not capable of simple justification; it is at once personal and com-
munal; it excites the mind and sets emotions on edge. It is said that religion is the primary cause of war among nations. In our days religion has spurred the worldwide phenomenon of jihadism, and in previous times it sparked the crusades. It is religion that causes some people to refuse to take blood transfusions even at the cost of their own lives or those of their loved ones. It is religion that has given rise to some millenarian movements that, in some instances, have resulted in mass suicides or massacres. It is religion that has at times in history justified inequality and the oppression of others; especially slavery and racism which stemmed from encounters between differing cultures during the adventures of mission and trade. In our day it is in the name of religion that sexuality has become a defining characteristic of the state of the church, and very deeply entrenched positions are taken with little regard to developments in science, social mores and society in general. It is also true, is it not, that it was men and women driven by their religious
zeal who traversed the then unknown world, bringing with them the benefits of science, discovering many other forms of human life and cultures never known to have existed before, and bringing education and health and new ways of being
to those who did not know otherwise. It was people imbued with religious consciousness who brought an end to the ideology of slavery, and who campaigned for justice in the world even as they do today. It is for that reason that I sought to organize this set of lectures under the
theme of The Phenomenology of Religion and the Artifice of Human Rights: Soulmates or Strange Bedfellows? 1 I draw this from the historical fascination of philosophers with religion, and the desire to understand why and how human beings believe. There have also been efforts to understand what the relationship is between knowledge as science and believing or understanding the God-factor in human lives. Besides, what is the engine that drives human action to feats of achievement and how does curiosity get satisfied or challenged by human experience, and inquisitiveness assuaged by a consciousness of human limitations of thought and action? In other words consciousness of religion is pervasive. I recall Cleanthes, in
David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Religion, who was getting frustrated by Philo’s enquiries about arguments for believing in God exclaiming:
You start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objections: You ask me, what is the cause of this cause? I know not; I care not; that concerns not me. I have found a Deity; and here I stop my enquiry.
