Naming a phenomenon
(a) Paolo Friere, a Brazilian educationalist, has spoken about such a phenomenon at length in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He calls it as an ‘internalisation of the oppressor by…
Read moreIs Worship a Human Invention?
1. Let us assume that the Church Fathers (or the Apostles or whoever else) planned to introduce an eschatological doctrine and some mode of worship. (Let us further assume that their reasoning…
Read moreNeurobiological Theory of Religion
You ask whether ‘in principle’ a neurobiological theory on religion could “account” for the experience of the believers. The answer depends on what kind of an account you are asking for and…
Read moreDawkin’s Delusion or The God Delusion?
While re-reading certain passages from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (2006), I was so shocked by his combination of ignorance and arrogance. Forgive me for some Dawkins- bashing: 1. In…
Read moreSecularized Christian theology and evolutionary explanations of religion
1. People like Scott Atran and Sloan Wilson abuse evolutionary biology to produce ad hoc explanations of an explanandum whose truth they presuppose: the universality of religion. Their explanations are…
Read moreEvolutionary explanations of religion: an exercise in petitio principii
1. It is very disappointing to see how these evolutionary theorists of religion lack knowledge of religions other than garden variety Judeo-Christianity (where they seem to have at least some…
Read moreAd hoc explanations: why do puja to cows?
1. When we provide explanations, we should also look at their contrastive nature: why do puja to cows and not to buffalos? The problem in this case, however, is this:…
Read moreIntentional and Causal explanations
The first question: could we have EIA of units smaller than the Cosmos? An explanatorily intelligible account of any object, whatever that object is, is one where causal (say) and…
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