Religion in the Twenty-First Century and Beyond

The term "Religion" refers to a wide range of social-cultural systems, which include beliefs, morals, ethics, religious practices, thought worlds, worldviews, holy texts and scriptures, sanctified holy places, and institutions that typically relate to the general belief in a God or a supernatural entity. Religion has been known in a wide variety of geographical contexts and situations, and attested since very early times; as a matter of fact, even before the dawn of human civilization. As a matter of fact, there have been very few known human societies without some form of an organized or an informal religion. In the past few centuries, technology has progressed at a rapid pace, and at a rate that would have been unimaginable just two centuries ago. Many pundits predicted that the role played by religion in society would invariably and inevitably diminish; alas, such prophecies have not come to pass. Religion, and the role played by it in society, remains as deeply entrenched as ever before. As a matter of fact, globalization has unleashed a clash of civilizations, and has brought different and widely differing ideologies into direct contact with each other, often unleashing waves of terror. In the wide array and assortment of papers that we have been publishing over the years, we have introduced many different concepts that we believe can greatly help in understanding the role religion plays in relation to society. Readers can easily reference these papers. In this paper, we attempt to take our endeavours to a much higher level, to analyse how the beneficial aspects of religion can be magnified and amplified, and the negative implications of religion curtailed. We also lay out the contours of social science research that can effectively tackle the menace of religious fanaticism and hatred.