When a Secular Religion is sought: Finding Religion in Literature
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Abstract
Religions have profoundly shaped humanity by offering moral guidance, existential solace, and answers to their super sensory experiences. Nevertheless, they have fostered dogmatism, discouraged ontological enquiry and incited hostilities resulting in division, riots and wars. Despite these glitches, religions’ influence persists and will likely flourish. This raises a critical question: are conventional religions the only way to address the needs they claim to fulfil, or are there secular alternatives that can provide similar benefits without their associated negativity?
Mathew Arnold famously said poetry could offer moral and spiritual guidance in a secular age. Frederick Nietzsche proposed that humanity should turn to art and culture for meaning and value. Drawing on insights from such poets and philosophers, this paper claims that literature and art can also address the issues that religions claim to address and that too in a better way. By, applying a qualitative and interpretative methodology, this study analyses key literary and religious texts to reveal how literature and art resonate with the themes of religion without the glitches associated with them. Thus, it is argued that literature and art have the potential to serve as a viable alternative to traditional religions which are increasingly problematic in contemporary pluralistic modern society.
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