S. Brent Plate, visiting associate professor of religious studies, wrote an essay published on Dec. 12 on the Religion Dispatches site titled “Religion without God: ‘Cults,’ Pious Atheists, and Our Own Human Bodies.”
Plate expressed his perspective on limited definitions of religion. “…Protestant-inflected definitions of ‘religion’ are losing hold in diverse Western nations,” he wrote. “And it's about time. Religion can no longer be seen as a ‘set of beliefs in God,’ as conventional wisdom might put it. A global, plural view of religion must rid itself of emphasis on both ‘belief’ and ‘God.’”
