The World''s Religions
(NINIAN SMART)
The World''s Religions is very general overview of
Religion throughout the World and throughout history. The first part covers the
history and development of the major religions and the original
form of indigenous religions, and the second covers the way in
which religions have coped with the modern world ? with colonialism,
technological change, and contact with other religions.
My main complaint about The World''s Religions is that it is rather
superficial in places. Smart has a list of the different dimensions of religion
(doctrine, experience, ritual, myth, etc.) which he sometimes uses as a crutch
even when they are not really applicable to the particular religion at hand.
Also, while a reasonable amount of coverage is given to African religion, no
particular religion is looked at in any depth, giving it an appearance of
superficiality (the bibliography lists several general books on African
religion but no ethnographic monographs). Smart also has a tendency to view
religion as a thing-in-itself, without considering the complicated relationship
between religion and other social systems, or between religious belief and
psychology. No attempt is made to tackle the big questions about religions ?
why they exist and how they persist.
A few minor things also annoyed me. We get the usual inane attempt to turn humanism into something similar to a religion (that the two people
cited as humanist leaders are as far apart as Bertrand Russell and
Jean-Paul Sartre gives you some idea how idiotic this is). And for some bizarre
reason (keeping on good terms with the creationists?) he insists on putting
capitals on the word evolution (except when talking about Bergson''s evolutionary philosophy, where it would have seemed quite
reasonable).
In conclusion I wouldn''t recommend The World''s Religions as a
reference work ? a good encyclopedia or a similar book with chapters written by
specialists on the individual religions would give much better coverage. And I
wouldn''t really recommend it as an introduction to the nature of religious
belief either. It is beautifully illustrated, however, with many full page color
photographs, and would make a very nice coffee-table book.
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