Religious Pluralism and Ethics

Abstract

There are countless religions in the world apart from the so-called world religions like Christianity, Islam and perhaps Buddhism. But, there is a fundamental division among these religions and this is the division between monotheistic religion and the religions that are polytheistic. Monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam make a distinction between a world that is eternal and untouched by the contingencies of the world of humans—a world that is the ‘home’ of gods. Polytheistic religions on the other hand make no such stringent division between the world of gods and the human world. Gods are regular visitors to this world in all their physical reality and temporal here and now. The essay explores the crucial differences between the ethics that emanates from monotheism and ethics that is part of the spacio-temporal reciprocity of gods and humans of polytheism. My contention in this essay is that the ethics that is commensurate with polytheism is also commensurate with the secular perspective of human life. In this context, there will also be a discussion of Dharma and Dharmic ethics which addresses the volatility and contingencies of human life and the ethics that can address the challenges presented by them. Ethics of monotheism makes the truly moral life well-nigh impossible in this world while dharmic and polytheistic ethics are deeply embedded in the necessary spacio-temporal contingencies of this world.

I am indebted to Prof. Mrinal Miri for what I say in this essay. Some of the ideas in it emanates from an unpublished paper of his which I had the opportunity to read.