an introductioncreation for which humans must take responsibility, was a quest for
power that enabled humans to manipulate and negotiate their situation in
order to have space in which to meaningfully dwell.
Along similar lines of scholarship, Sam Gill, a scholar of Native
American Indian religion, denied that religion could be equated with the
sacred, an ultimate concern, with belief in a God or gods, or sui generis.
Similar to Smith, Gill argued that religion was an academic creation and
those studying it had to be aware of its multi-cultural nature. Following
similar lines of argument, John Hinnels asserted that religion per se did
not exist, but it was possible to agree that the plural “religions” possessed
adherents. He concluded that, although religion was a misleading term,
it possessed usefulness, if the scholar used it acknowledging that all
labels or categories had their limitations. The positions of Smith and Gill
probably gave too much agency to scholars who were more accurately
applying a label to something that people were practicing.
A wider version of the positions of Smith and Gill with political impli-
cations was offered by Daniel Dubuisson, who began with the observa-
tion that cultures were human creations. Dubuisson argued that religion
was a Western creation and reference point used to conceive others from
the East. The West used its creation to measure and interreact with other
cultures from an assumed superior and prestigious position. This example
of Western ethnocentrism was a part of the West’s dominant cosmograph-
ical formation that represented an unassailable norm that was devoid of
scientific status. In response to Dubuisson, it was probably too simplistic
to view religion as an invention of the West imposed on foreign cultures.
Martin Riesebrodt argued that evidence of interreligious polemics, the
process of syncretism, and royal proclamations of ancient India and
China demonstrated that non-Western cultures had recognized diverse
religious traditions, even if not classifying certain features as religion.
This suggested that religion was not a universal concept; but rather a
local concept used by scholars beyond the limits of its origins. Scholars
have used the term “religion” to comprehend unfamiliar and strange
thoughts, actions, and behavior encountered in their scholarship.
pOstmOdern and cOgnitive views Of religiOn
Although postmodernism is difficult to define because its meaning differs
from one thinker to another, it does share some features among its
adherents, such as a reaction to Enlightenment philosophy and the devel-
opment of certain trends in modernism. Postmodernists stress difference,