Essay Series – serie

The belief in a governing, universal, celestial principle has followed us through human history. More than 80 percent of the world's population has a religious affiliation and even in secular states, religion continues to play an important role. Politics and international relations today cannot be understood without accounting for the element of religion in cultural contexts.

The essays in this book derive from the Engelsberg Seminar of 2014, and investigate the role which religion plays in society today and in the past. They also explore religion as a phenomenon in relation to the human condition and how it manifests itself as an individual experience. In order to understand ourselves, do we need to understand religion?

We have come a long way from the religions, myths and foundation stories that created the bedrock of man s early understanding of the world and everything in it, and our stock of knowledge has increased exponentially in recent times. In this volume leading scholars in the arts and sciences discuss how knowledge and information have been preserved and transferred throughout history, bringing us up to today s digital age and the multiple challenges it presents, not least with regard to our personal data.

Amid growing tension between a cognitive elite and those who feel excluded from public discourse and decision making, alongside increasing friction in academia over freedom of interpretation and expression, will our information society turn out to be an era of enlightenment or are we entering a new dark age for knowledge?