Religious and Scientific Forces of Commoditization of Implicit Religion with Their Custodians as “Entrepreneurs”
Issue: Vol 17 No. 3 (2014)
Journal: Implicit Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies
Abstract:
In this article we take a fresh look, in the context of implicit religion (characterized by commitment, integrating foci and intensive concerns with extensive effects), at some contemporary explicit religious phenomena, and suggest that there is little significant difference between them and certain phenomena in natural science that have a welfare motive. Examples have been drawn from India to depict how different versions of explicit religion have been commoditized by their advocates, acting almost as entrepreneurs, and how the success or failure of such organizations depends, at least in part, on their relative compliance with, or deviation from, their welfare motive, suggesting that it is the motivation (best understood as implicit religion) lying behind the entrepreneurialism, that can unite both gurus and scientists.
Author: Sonali Bhattacharya, Shubhasheesh Bhattacharya
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