“Resacralizing” the Cosmos in a Post-secular Age
-
Raquel Bouso
Abstract
This paper reflects on the attempt to ‘re-sacralize’ the cosmos in the context of the ‘return of religion’ to the public sphere, which has led scholars to describe our age as post-secular. This phenomenon contrasts with the association between secularization and disenchantment with the world that seemed to characterize modernity in some Western societies. On the one hand, the paper considers the idea of the sacredness of nature as a means of promoting respect for it and preserving it. Here the question is posed as to what extent this attitude has a place in today’s religions. On the other hand, the feasibility of this possibility without displacing an anthropocentric vision of the world that seems to have been central to some religions is pointed out. Finally, these issues are illustrated with some concrete examples within the Buddhist and Christian traditions.
9. Literature
Armstrong, Karen (2022), Sacred Nature. Restoring our Ancient Bond with the Natural. New York, Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf.Search in Google Scholar
Barnhill, David L. – Roger S. Gottlieb (2001), Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Ground. Albany: State University of New York.Search in Google Scholar
Callicott, J. (1989/1990), “Genesis Revisited: Murian Musings on the Lynn White, Jr. Debate,” in: Environmental History Review, 14, 1/2, pp. 65–90.10.2307/3984627Search in Google Scholar
Caputo, John (2001), On Religion. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Darlington, Susan (2012), The Ordination of a Tree. The Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement. Albany: State University of New York.10.1353/book21405Search in Google Scholar
De Vries, Hent (1999), Philosophy and the Turn to Religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.1353/book.72309Search in Google Scholar
Duch, Lluís (1997), L’enigma del temps. Assaigs sobre la inconsistència del temps present. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.Search in Google Scholar
Duch, Lluís (2012), La religion en el siglo XXI. Madrid: Siruela.Search in Google Scholar
Filoramo, Giovanni (2004), Che cos’è la religione. Torino: Einaudi.Search in Google Scholar
Filoramo, Giovanni (2018), Il grande racconto delle religioni. Bologna: Il Mulino.Search in Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Timothy (1997), “A critique of ‘religion’ as a cross-cultural category,” in: Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 9, 2: pp. 91-110.10.1163/157006897X00070Search in Google Scholar
Harvey, Peter (2019), Buddhism and Monotheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108758390Search in Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim (2018), Anthropology. Why It Matters. Cambridge: Polity.Search in Google Scholar
James, Simon P. (2015), Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, David W. (2019). Watsuji on Nature. Japanese Philosophy in the Wake of Heidegger. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.10.2307/j.ctvjnrtjjSearch in Google Scholar
Jullien, François (2018), Il n’y pas d’identité culturelle. Paris: Éditions de l’Herne. Search in Google Scholar
King, Sally B. (2009), Socially Engaged Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.10.21313/hawaii/9780824833350.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Masuzawa, Tomoko (2005), The Invention of World Religions. Or, How European Universalism was preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
McRae, James (2014), “Triple-Negation: Watsuji Tetsurō on the Sustainability of Ecosystems, Economies, and International Peace,” in: Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought, edited by J. Baird Callicott and James McRae. Albany: State University of New York, pp. 359–375.10.1515/9781438452029-021Search in Google Scholar
Nishida, Kitarō (1965). “Basho,” in: Nishida Kitarō Zenshū, vol. 3 (pp. 415–477). Tokyo: Iwanami.Search in Google Scholar
Nishitani, Keiji (1982), Religion and Nothingness, trans. Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Panikkar, Raimon (1994), Ecosofía. Para una espiritualidad de la tierra. Madrid: San Pablo.Search in Google Scholar
Parkes, Graham (1997), “Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kūkai, Dōgen, and a Deeper Ecology,” in: Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, eds. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryuken Williams. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 111–128.Search in Google Scholar
Purdy, Jedediah (2015), After Nature. A Politics for the Anthropocene. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674915671Search in Google Scholar
Schmidt-Leukel, Perry (2019), “A Fractal Interpretation of Religious Diversity,” in: Francesca Cadeddu, ed., Euare Lectures. Ex Nihilo and First Annual Conference 2017–2018. Bologna: Fondazione per le Science religiose Giovanni XXIII, pp. 147–177.Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles (2007), A Secular Age. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Vattimo, Gianni (2003), “After Onto-theology: Philosophy between Science and Religion,” in: Religion after Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511615399.004Search in Google Scholar
Watsuji, Tetsurō (1962), “Fūdo: Ningengakuteki kōsatsu,” in: Watsuji Tetsurō zenshū, vol. 8. Tokyo: Iwanami. Search in Google Scholar
Watsuji, Tetsurō (1988), Climate and Culture. A Philosophical Study (Geoffrey Bownas, Trad.). New York: Greenwood Press.Search in Google Scholar
Weber, Max (2004), The vocation lectures, ed. by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong; trans. Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial Preface
- Preface
- Preface
- I. Time and Nature
- Embedded Agency in Early Chinese Philosophy: Time, Place, and Orientation
- Humanized Nature and Reversed Time
- Nature Is Republican – Nature and Freedom in Kant and Schelling
- Indigenous Accounts of Spiraling Time
- II. Nature and Responsibility
- What Do We Owe Future Generations
- From Guilt to Shame: Ecocide Responses East and West
- African Environmental Ethics and Its Ontological Foundations
- Ethics of Motherhood in Chinese Traditions
- III. Nature and Culture
- Japanese Gardens: Time of Letting – Time of Growth
- The Great Wall and Time
- Season and History
- A Japanese Perspective of the Mind-Body-Land Connection
- Stepping-out-of-Oneself: An Intercultural Dialogue on the Power of Things
- Auge und Atem. Ist ein weicher Weg der Modernisierung möglich?
- IV. Time and Interreligious Dialogue
- The Tea Ceremony and Christian Mass: Encounter between the Tea Masters and Jesuit Missionaries
- Spirituality and Society: A Way to Search for the Common Good
- “Resacralizing” the Cosmos in a Post-secular Age
- Bio-Bibliography
- Name Index
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial Preface
- Preface
- Preface
- I. Time and Nature
- Embedded Agency in Early Chinese Philosophy: Time, Place, and Orientation
- Humanized Nature and Reversed Time
- Nature Is Republican – Nature and Freedom in Kant and Schelling
- Indigenous Accounts of Spiraling Time
- II. Nature and Responsibility
- What Do We Owe Future Generations
- From Guilt to Shame: Ecocide Responses East and West
- African Environmental Ethics and Its Ontological Foundations
- Ethics of Motherhood in Chinese Traditions
- III. Nature and Culture
- Japanese Gardens: Time of Letting – Time of Growth
- The Great Wall and Time
- Season and History
- A Japanese Perspective of the Mind-Body-Land Connection
- Stepping-out-of-Oneself: An Intercultural Dialogue on the Power of Things
- Auge und Atem. Ist ein weicher Weg der Modernisierung möglich?
- IV. Time and Interreligious Dialogue
- The Tea Ceremony and Christian Mass: Encounter between the Tea Masters and Jesuit Missionaries
- Spirituality and Society: A Way to Search for the Common Good
- “Resacralizing” the Cosmos in a Post-secular Age
- Bio-Bibliography
- Name Index
