This work examines and challenges the validity of the West’s generally
accepted two category approach to the world’s belief systems. That
is, it will assess the origin of the religion / science ‘paradigm’ that has
developed over the past two centuries and then deconstruct it. It argues
that the dichotomy between the two categories was created by modernity
for the purpose of establishing an exclusive view believed to be based
on knowledge. This exclusive view, Philosophical Naturalism (science),
the exclusive view, it became the privileged interpreter and explainer of
reality in the Academy of the Western world.
As a work in the area of epistemology and the philosophy of religion,
this project challenges Philosophical Naturalism’s claim to exclusive
knowledge and its privileged position. Can its foundation for knowledge
beliefs of alternative views, Philosophical Naturalism also needs to
provide proof for its own foundational beliefs upon which its entire
system is constructed.
The approach will be philosophical and historical, critically assessing
both modernity’s and postmodernity’s basis for knowledge. Without
a rational basis for exclusive knowledge the popular dichotomy not
implications of this dissolution for ‘religious studies’ will be addressed
by offering an alternative scheme that provides a more plausible way to
divide the world’s belief systems.
