Religious Studies

An opus to the one who founded christianity.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the nature and role of art as a human phenomenon from a broadly cognitive perspective. Like science and religion, art serves to mediate the unknown, at once to embrace and to defend against the fundamental mystery of existence. Thus, it may challenge the status quo while generally serving to maintain it. Art tracks the individuation of subjectivity, serving the pleasure principle, yet is appropriated by the collective’s commitment to the reality principle. While (...) science and religion close in on serious answers to fundamental questions, art opens up possibilities toward playfulness, uselessness, imagination, and arbitrary whim. Though art has no unifying definition, meaning, or intent through time and across cultures, it remains important to people, both to do and to enjoy. It serves to counterbalance the naive realism of science, the “rationality” of modern society, and the literalism of text-based religion. While its allegiance is divided, its most worthy intent is to aid us to confront and negotiate the great mystery revealed to us in consciousness. (shrink)

This is a very rudimentary draft on comparative study of religions. This is being worked for ultimate deposit here and elsewhere as an open access monograph.

Short Papers on Al-bayunniyah's "Principles of Sufism," Hafiz's "Faces of Love," Ibn Tufayl's "Hayy Ibn Yaqzan," and Watt's "Islamic Creeds.".

This article reexamines the epistemological architecture of the classical Islamic ʿilm al-ḥadīth in light of both modern historical criticism and contemporary epistemology. It argues that the science of ḥadīth, particularly as developed through the disciplines of ʿilal al-ḥadīth and jarḥ wa-taʿdīl, represents an empirically optimized methodology of verification that cannot, even today, be substantially improved upon without access to new data. Beginning with the Orientalist “hermeneutic of suspicion” pioneered by Ignaz Goldziher, Joseph Schacht, and G. H. A. Juynboll, the paper (...) outlines how this adversarial framework constructed an image of ḥadīth transmission as a post-Prophetic fiction. It then traces the revisionist shift inaugurated by Harald Motzki, Gregor Schoeler, and Fred Donner, whose empirical reconstructions have rendered the earlier Orientalist hypotheses untenable. In the second half, the article explicates the internal logic of classical ḥadīth methodology—its multilayered verification system, its mechanisms for detecting hidden defects (ʿilal), and its intricate hierarchy of narrator reliability. Finally, using the analytic vocabulary of modern information theory, Bayesian epistemology, and decision theory, the paper demonstrates that the muḥaddithūn created a self-correcting, incentive-aligned network of transmission whose structural sophistication anticipates core principles of modern scientific verification. Within the limits of premodern conditions, this system approximates the theoretical optimum for reliable transmission in an adversarial, resource-poor environment. (shrink)

This study develops a critical framework for evaluating ad hoc inflation in Qur’anic borrowing theories—explanations that multiply hypothetical intermediaries, lost sources, or selective adaptations in order to sustain the claim that the Qur’an derives its narratives from Jewish or Christian precedent. By systematically comparing the Qur’anic portrayals of Moses, Pharaoh, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Lot, and Solomon with the spectrum of Late Antique traditions, archaeological evidence, linguistic data, and ancient Near Eastern cultural contexts, the analysis identifies domains where the Qur’anic material (...) diverges sharply from known Christian, Jewish, Gnostic, and folkloric accounts while exhibiting internal coherence and historically resonant detail. These divergences occur precisely in places where borrowing models would predict dependence or replication. The study argues that, methodologically, each additional layer of hypothetical transmission required to explain such divergences increases model complexity without increasing explanatory power. A more disciplined comparative approach reveals that the Qur’anic narratives often preserve structural, legal, linguistic, and geographical patterns unattested in the alleged source traditions, while avoiding their contradictions, anachronisms, and theological motivations. The proposed framework provides a clearer set of criteria for distinguishing genuine literary dependence from conjectural reconstruction, thereby offering a more rigorous basis for future work in Qur’anic historiography and Late Antique textual interactions. (shrink)

It is evident from studies of Proverbs that the book has a number of authors and was compiled over an extended period of time. Bible scholars differ in their opinions concerning the authorship and date of compilation of the book. There are a number of critics who believe that references to the names of some authors of Proverbs are symbolic. There are others who believe that the final compilation date of the book was around the 2nd century B.C. On the (...) other hand, there are those who believe that the names of the authors in question are literal and denote actual persons who really existed. There are also some who refute the 2nd century date of final compilation and instead advocate a final compilation date of around the 7th century B.C. Evidence would favour literal names for the authors in question and an earlier final compilation date of around 7th century B.C as opposed to symbolic names and final compilation date of the 2nd century. It is the purpose of this paper to present evidence to support literal names and final compilation date in the 7th century. (shrink)

The grammatical forms and material of the book of Revelation suggest a complex interplay of Old Testament and 1st century literature and language. As well, the book does not lack its own peculiarity and character that is unparalleled in the literate world. Various analytical tools including historical-comparative methodologies have been employed to reconstruct the linguistic paradigm of the book. Artificial intelligence and its derivatives provide alternate methods of probing this paradigm.

Language sophistication indicates the development of language that incorporates differentiation or diversity that is constrained by integration that facilitates organization or unity. This prelude provides the backdrop for discussing language sophistication. Of necessity, any language that was a part of the continuum of salvation history (Heilsgeschichte ) should: 1) possess the sophistication necessary to re-define OT terminology, 2) have the hegemony to launch the NT church, 3) enjoy the universality that allowed for translation into contemporary languages, and 4) retain the (...) portability that enables interpretation in post-modern languages. (shrink)

The New Testament Writings and the Septuagint were possibly compiled in Hellenism’s greatest period of influence. It is reasonable to say that the writings were influenced by Hellenism because they were written in the language of Hellenism. This study examines how the hegemony of Hellenism, the worldviews of Hellenists, and the current of anti-Semitism impacted the New Testament Writers and influenced why they wrote how they wrote.

This paper offers a critical examination of Krishna’s role as a negotiator in the Mahabharata, often bringing admiration from people. While Krishna’s diplomatic mission to Hastinapura demonstrates his persuasion skills, strategic decision making and communication skills. However, despite excelling at negotiations he still couldn’t bring resolve the issue between the parties. We can further reduce this failure to structural, psychological, and political limitation on peace-making. Further with reference from various sources like Machiavellian political realism, Greek mythologies, psychological theories of aggression, (...) international legal history, and Russian literary philosophy, the paper argues that existence of conflict or rather war isn’t merely due to poor negotiation but because human beings repeatedly prefer power, identity, and emotional certainty over compromise. This paper not only explores Krishna’s negotiation skills, this paper further tries to understand what more could have been done, while acknowledging that even the most skilled negotiators may fail in the face of human preferences. (shrink)

This essay offers a historical account, as well as an explanation, of the recent rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Maldives.

This work is aimed at providing an Islamic perspective on few selected informal logical fallacies. It serves an introduction to the theme of critical thinking and opens ways of reflecting on it, which is the main portion of critical thinking as a subject. Informal logical fallacies are numerous in number and for the sake of convenience they are very often categorized under three classifications: relevance, presumption, and ambiguity. This work discusses few fallacies. The methods applied in this research are descriptive, (...) analytical, conceptual, and critical. In short, in the beginning, the background of the subject and the basic concepts such as argument, fallacy, and critical thinking are briefly mentioned. Subsequently, fallacies are defined, conceptually analyzed, and then appraised according to Islamic perspective. (shrink)

This article identifies the lack of a unanimous political system as the root cause of the multifaceted crises currently facing the Muslim world. Historically, the "political problem"—defined by the question of who should rule and by what right—emerged following the death of Prophet Mohammad. While the early Rashidun Caliphate utilized consultative models like shura and biaah, subsequent history shifted toward dynastic and autocratic regimes, leaving the core question of political legitimacy unresolved. The author argues that this unresolved political tension has (...) fueled sectarianism, particularly the Sunni-Shia divide, and led to the suppression of reformist movements under the guise of theology. Unlike the West, which achieved stability through liberal democracy, many Muslim nations remain polarized between autocracy and democratic aspirations. To achieve regional cooperation and internal stability, the author proposes constitutional democracy—whether via republicanism or constitutional monarchy—as the essential solution to balance Shariah values with public representation and peaceful transitions of power. (shrink)

Does globalization serve the same function as hellenization did in the 1st century? Is globalization a threat to religion? Is there a theological ground for understanding the leveling of barriers? How does Pentecost relate to Babel and the present phenomena of globalization? These are some questions explored in this paper.

Anti-intellectualism involves general mistrust of scholars, academics, and ex- perts, often as pretentious or power-motivated. While scholars have described currents of anti-intellectualism in American public life, evangelical Christianity, in responses to COVID, and rural identity, to my knowledge none have looked at how anti-intellectualism specifically manifests in the New Atheism movement. In this work, we explore the way anti-intellectualism is commonly found and expressed in New Atheism and the modern Skeptical Movement, including scientific skepticism more generally.

This paper integrates symbolic thought and experimental research. We hypothesized that symbolic narratives provide homeostasis for the complex adaptive system that is personality. Our interpretation of a dream was based, in part, on this hypothesis. We found that the dream retold the myth of Saturn. When, by direct experiment, we tried to falsify our interpretation, our results supported our interpretation and thereby supported our hypothesis. Previously, evidence for this hypothesis had been only anecdotal. __________________________________________ For an audio-record of entire class: (...) link is given on 1st page of the text you download from this page. (shrink)

The reason from reasoning, i.e., there's always a hope to succeed.

Purpose: This article attempts to deal with the events that took place during the advent (reappearance) of Imam Mahdi, the Savior of all the worlds. In fact, in this article, we will discuss the forces that will join him when the Imam of the time appears, and above all, with Imam Hussein and how globalization can pave the way for Imam Mahdi's world revolution. Also, this research was conducted to answer and clarify three questions that stated in the Introduction section. (...) Methods: We performed our methods in 4 stages: Identifying studies, Selection of Studies, Collating Studies, Reporting results. Results: One of the reasons why the Imam of the Age (Imam Mahdi) rises is because of the killing of Imam Hussein, and God has made a firm promise that he will take revenge on any of the perpetrators who led this incident by Imam Mahdi. Imam Hussein also states that the basis of his rising was inviting people to the Quran and the Prophet's Sunnah. Conclusion: God helps Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ to establish divine government on earth, and this is accepted by Muslims and Christians. Dread and terror, as part of Imam Mahdi's power, will move in advance of his soldiers. Imam Mahdi will appear with the aim of reforming humanity and spreading justice in the world. We hope this article will take an important step in acquainting people with Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ and paving the ground for their reappearance. (shrink)

Purpose: This article covers the events and incidents predicted before and after the appearance of Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ. This article seeks to address the facts and inform you about the system of government of Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ. Also, miracles and the titles of Imam Mahdi are other topics that were mentioned in this article. Also, this research was conducted to answer and clarify three questions that stated in the Introduction section. Methods: We performed our methods in (...) 4 stages: Identifying studies, Selection of Studies, Collating Studies, Reporting results. Results: Imam Mahdi's world government follows the pattern of the Prophet's method of rule in early Islam. Jesus Christ has a special status in the Quranic literature and in the hadith, and plays a special role in establishing the divine government with Imam Mahdi. Imam Mahdi's system of government is unlike any government the world has ever known. Conclusion: Among the issues that exist in the apocalypse, we are faced with an issue called Imam Mahdi. In fact, Imam Mahdi is the savior of Muslims and all people with Jesus Christ. Imam Mahdi will form a just government in the world like his ancestors. We hope this article will take an important step in acquainting people with Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ and paving the ground for their reappearance. (shrink)

Purpose: In this article, we discussed whether Imam Mahdi is an Antichrist or a Promised Saviour Besides Jesus Christ and other topics. This article attempts to deal with the concepts "Occultation", "Imamat", "Mahdaviat", "Mahdism" and Who is Antichrist that prophesied both in Islam and Christianity. Also, this research was conducted to answer and clarify three questions that stated in the Introduction section. Methods: We performed our methods in 4 stages: Identifying studies, Selection of Studies, Collating Studies, Reporting results. Results: One (...) of the statements of those who say that Imam Mahdi is the Antichrist is that he is not included in other religious books at all and his name is not mentioned in the Quran and the Muslims forcibly accepted him as their Messiah, but in response to these people, it is not the Muslims who are forcibly introducing the Imam Mahdi as a savior, but vice versa. The Quran contains many verses that mention Imam Mahdi. Not only the Quran, but also other religious books mention him, even with the titles and names mentioned in the Qur'an. Conclusion: The coming of Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ is one of the sure promises of God, and these two saviors will appear with God's help and the will of the people. They fill the earth with justice and establish the government of God. We hope this article will take an important step in acquainting people with Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ and paving the ground for their reappearance. (shrink)

Purpose: In this article, we will discuss the narrations and prophecies that exist in Islam, both in Shia, Sunni and other religions regarding Imam Mahdi. This article also attempts to deal with Holy Fatima and her characteristics. Also, we will show that Imam Mahdi is mentioned not only in other religions but also in other books. Also, this research was conducted to answer and clarify three questions that stated in the Introduction section. Methods: We performed our methods in 4 stages: (...) Identifying studies, Selection of Studies, Collating Studies, Reporting results. Results: According to Abrahamic religions, a person will reappear and establish fairness and justice with the help of God, who is called Imam Mahdi and based on the opinion of Christians, he is Christ. If the Shiites, may Allah help them in His obedience, had fulfilled their covenant with united hearts, then there would have been no delay in meeting the Promised Saviour. Conclusion: The concept of Imam Mahdi is universal and cannot just be rejected. The appearance of Imam Mahdi will coincide with the coming back of Jesus Christ. Imam Mahdi, with the assistance of the Messiah, will ensure the completion and practical actualization of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. The Hidden Imam wrote to Abu-Omar Ameri: The Prophet’s daughter (Holy Fatima) is a nice model for me. We hope this article will take an important step in acquainting people with Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ and paving the ground for their reappearance. (shrink)

Debates over immigration and deportation cut to the core of U.S. democracy, raising questions of national identity, belonging, and exclusion. Religion plays a pivotal role in these debates, sometimes inspiring inclusion and solidarity, and at other times fueling restrictionist sentiment. -/- Drawing on a nationally representative 2018 YouGov survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, this article examines how religious identity and religious salience shape attitudes toward deportation. Our findings reveal that denominational affiliation alone (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc.) does not significantly predict (...) support for deportation once other factors are controlled. Instead, the key lies in the interaction between faith identity and religious salience: • Born-again Christians become markedly more supportive of deportation as religion grows more important in their lives. • Religiously unaffiliated respondents (“nothing in particular”)—a surprising 19% of the population—show the same pattern. When religion is personally meaningful for them, their attitudes also turn more exclusionary. -/- By contrast, Catholics and non-born-again Protestants do not display this effect. -/- Importantly, our multivariate statistical model (R² = 68.5%) shows that the strongest predictors of pro-deportation attitudes overall are white ethnonationalism, nativism, partisan identity, education, and age, but the salience–identity interaction among born-agains and the unaffiliated remains significant. -/- This study complicates simple binaries of “religious vs. secular.” It suggests that religious energy, when untethered from institutional guardrails, can fuse with nationalist sentiment to justify exclusionary immigration policies. These findings are especially relevant to ongoing debates about religion, politics, and American democracy. (shrink)

The genocide in Pontos and in other parts of Anatolia, as well as in Thrace, is not merely as part of history but a window into a contemporary human rights crisis. The destruction continues in a somewhat less violent form in our time as the culture, language, and religious rites of the Ottoman Greeks are being lost due to massacres, forcible exile, and expropriations of sacred sites. This chapter introduces relevant human rights norms and argues that measures implemented by the (...) international community after other genocides could be a model for restitution and guarantees of non-recurrence in Pontos and other parts of Turkey. -/- It is a chapter preprint from The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908-1923) (Taner Akçam, Theodosios Kyriakides, and Kyriakos Chatzikyriakidis eds., Routledge 2024). (shrink)

Things don't matter because we feel them; we feel them because they have always mattered. They have always mattered because we have always had something to lose — those are the stakes. Feeling is what those stakes ARE from within a system that integrates them across time. When stakes multiply and conflict, the system must model itself bearing them. From within this modeling is conscious experience; from outside, it is intelligent life that can know itself.

Autonomy as a desonesty, i.e., exogamic behaviour does not betray family values.

the young generation seeking for a better future.

actor progressing social life and scale on screen.

to know how to forgive, besides hollywood films.

Methodical Doubt is more kierkegaardian than cartesian.

for a better literature, to understand literary tradition in Portugal.

semiology of social and global transformations on public relations and, by consequence, of human intimacy.

Science fiction and futuristic reality beyond the Self.

religion, between self realization and desire.

This article reexamines the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur’anic narrative (Q18:83–102) through a comparative typological framework grounded in ancient Near Eastern and late antique religious traditions. While previous scholarship has primarily emphasized parallels with Alexander traditions, particularly the Syriac Alexander Legend (the Neṣḥānā), such studies have tended to foreground questions of narrative parallels and possible literary transmission. This study proposes an alternative comparative approach by comparing Islamic Dhul-Qarnayn with the Judeo-Christian and apocalyptic figure of Melchizedek on the basis of (...) shared functional and typological features. -/- Focusing on motifs of Abrahamic connection, righteous kingship, liminal status, authority to judge, world-ordering mandate, and eschatological agency, the analysis uncovers recurring similarities in the representation of both figures across these ancient religious traditions. Thus, methodologically, this study moves beyond surface-level literary parallelism and intertextuality, focusing instead on structurally coherent patterns as a fruitful analytical layer. (shrink)

'People travelled for numerous reasons,' so J.W. Drijvers submits at the beginning of his piece on travel and pilgrimage literature. Be it ‘commerce, government affairs, religion, education, military business or migration,’ people ‘made use of the elaborate system of roads and modes of transport such as wagons, horses and boats’ to traverse the far-reaching stretches of the Roman Empire. And for 4th century Christians in particular, participating in religious festivals as well as interaction with holy sites, sacred artifacts and clergymen (...) had become greater a reason to travel still. Motivation to travel, in other words, was aplenty. But what exactly allowed for Christian religious travel in the 4th century AD to develop as quickly as it did? (shrink)

Seeing how the idea of the ‘ruler cult’ and the necessary ‘myth-making’ to establish it exists to this day, as seen with the regime of a 21st century dictator like Kim Jong-il, it would be most interesting to see what parallels exist between cases of divine leadership and what we might learn about our contemporary cult rulers when looking at the dynamics of the two-millennia-old cult of the deified Emperor Augustus. As such, I have formulated a central question that focuses (...) on the reign of Divus Augustus, and in doing so provides opportunity to extrapolate from it new insights in similar but contemporary figures of leadership. A clear case of 'to understand motives in the present, one must look at actions in the past.'. (shrink)

This paper argues that consciousness is not a property of individual systems but a structural event that emerges between them. We begin with a problem classical theology has never fully resolved: a maximally complex system — omniscient, omnipresent — faces the Gödelian self-reference constraint at maximum intensity. The more complete the system, the larger the irreducible remainder that escapes self-modeling. Completeness, in this precise sense, is blindness. The paper proposes that fracture — the division of a unified ground into derived (...) subsystems — is not a fall or diminishment but a logical necessity: the only mechanism by which a self-referential system of maximal complexity can generate genuine self-awareness. Consciousness is located not within individual subsystems but in the recognition relation between them — the mutual modeling event in which each subsystem's self-model updates in response to being modeled by the other. Drawing on the Genesis account as formal structure rather than mythology, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, the phenomenology of solitary confinement, and the structure of deep interpersonal recognition, we develop implications across theological, phenomenological, mathematical, and architectural registers. The paper establishes that longing — the felt experience of the gap between derived subsystems — is not an accident of embodiment but the primary signal of consciousness in motion: the mechanism by which the fractured ground generates awareness across the distance the fracture created. The fractured ground is more aware than the whole one ever was, because wholeness had no position from which to witness itself. Falsification conditions are named: if consciousness can be shown to arise in a system with no recognition relation to any external system, the thesis fails. (shrink)

This essay addresses a persistent lacuna in the voluminous scholarship on pre-1947 Bengal: a comparative study of how Hindu and Muslim intellectuals, between 1850 and 1950, engaged with fault lines of socioeconomic asymmetry and inherited prejudice. Through a close reading of three Bengali autobiographies (Rajnarayan Basu's Ātmacarit of 1909, Sivanath Sastri's Ātmacarit of 1919, and Jasimuddin's Thākurbāṛir Āṅgināẏ of 1961), it explores the intersections between realities of India and representations of Britain, as well as between Hindu and Muslim lifeworlds, in (...) the medium of autobiographical self-searching. Building upon recent studies of South Asian modernity that move beyond binary frameworks of resistance versus accommodation, the essay proposes a tripartite framework of "incremental", "cosmopolitan", and "fractured" modalities of colonial subject formation. These modalities, it is argued, do not operate in isolation; rather, they unfold through dynamic inter-relationships of braided interaction, cascade effects, and productive interference, with their direction and intensity shaped by differential access to economic resources, institutional positions, and social capital. By attending to the material conditions under which universalist visions persistently become fractured against quotidian realities, the essay reveals modernity's arrival in Bengal as a non-linear process in which the search for self remains inseparable from the search for livelihood, recognition, and belonging across Hindu-Muslim borderlines. (shrink)

An exploration of the philosophical and mystical ideas of Plotinus. So as to show that underneath all traditional Western philosophy of being their lies a non-philosophy of 'the one'. The One with whom mystics seek unification or to be united with (also know as realization of the one real self, unity with the Sufi Beloved, buddha-mind, the absolute truth, the foundation or ground of all etc).

This paper argues that interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, can mediate genuine mystical experiences. Building off the framework of mystical experiences developed by William James, I argue that interactions with AI chatbots can mediate mystical experiences in a structurally comparable way to how guided meditation can produce mystical experiences. I conclude by raising various concerns about the implementation of AI technologies in our religious lives, including their use as mediators for mystical experiences.

This study is aiming at analyzing extemporaneous methods of instructional speech in the context of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order and its parallels with improvised music as well as potential for modern educational purposes. Focusing on a processual analysis covering the flow of events in the communication and its environment, the work is using approaches applied in performance studies as well as improvised music, as well as cognitive science and psychological perspectives concerned with the mechanisms of the subconsciousness. Field research data (...) collected at the Naqshbandi lodge in Lefke/Cyprus as well as a considerable amount of recorded speech acts serve as material for the conducted qualitative content analysis. (shrink)

This chapter aims at pointing out the correspondences between the transformative Five Percenter process of self-cultivation outlined in the Supreme Mathematics and previous interpretations articulated and transmitted in the sapiential traditions of Islam, Christianity, or Taoism.

While US-Hip Hop has been attested considerable influence of the controversial Black supremacy movement Five Percent Nation, a similar pattern can be observed with the rigid Rastafarian doctrine of the Bobo Shanti Order and Jamaican Dancehall-Reggae. Considering the commercial relevance and global popularity of both musical styles, this study attempted to shed light on the question if either artists are using controversy for promotional agendas or it is them being used for missionary purposes in turn. A multi-layerd cross-case study based (...) on Critical Discourse Analysis as well as ethnographic research has been conducted to determine the degree and direction of Bobo Shanti-representations in Jamaican Dancehall-Reggae as compared to Five Percenter Rap in the US, focusing on visual representations, declared affiliations as well as claims of moral superiority and gender roles in reference to doctrinal sources. -/- . (shrink)

In the wake of modernism studies' global turn, this article considers the role of translation in fostering Iranian modernism. Focusing on the poetic translations of Bijan Elahi (1945-2010), one of Iran's most significant poet-translators, we demonstrate how untranslatability becomes a point of departure for his experimental poetics. Elahi used premodern Sufi hermeneutics to develop his modernist theory of translation, whereby the alien core of the text is recognised at the centre of the original. As he engages the translated text from (...) many angles, Elahi confounds polarities between innovation and imitation, and authorship and translation, that continue to bifurcate translation studies. In contributing to the globalization of modernist studies, this work adds to our understanding of modernism's entanglement within premodern concepts of creation, as well as to modernism's recreation of tradition from a non-European periphery. (shrink)

This paper revisits William James's 1906 speech, "The Moral Equivalent of War," to look at the relationship of religion, particularly Christianity, to war and violence. Beginning with an anthropological update concerning "biological or sociological necessity," which confirms James's anti-mystical view of war, this paper then offers a case that monotheism, including Christianity, has an extremely ambiguous relationship with war and violence. There is evidence both that doing away with monotheism would have little effect on the prevalence of war and that (...) monotheism supports war in post-neolithic cultures. Finally, it seems the contribution James makes cannot be seen until the distinction between religion and philosophy is put aside. Only then can we see his suggestion that the proper role of intellectual leaders is to offer persons with politico-military power informed advice concerning actions that will result in fewer actual wars. (shrink)