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Philosophical Study of Religion
1. What is religious studies?
Religious studies is the single field of study constituted by the question about the meaning and validity of religion, including the validity of such claim as religion may make or imply to decisive existential authority and truth.

2. What is the task of philosophical study of religion?
The task of philosophical study of religion is to ask and answer the properly systematic question (as distinct from the historical and practical questions) constituted by the constitutive question of religious studies about the meaning and validity of religion, especially the validity of such claim as religion may make or imply to decisive existential authority and truth.

3. How is religion to be defined and explained?

Religion is to be defined as the primary form of culture, or "cultural system" (Geertz), through which human beings explicitly answer the existential question of the meaning of ultimate reality for us, and thus express or imply a claim to decisive existential authority and truth; and religion is to be explained, accordingly, in the same way in which forms of culture generally are to be explained-namely, as one of a number of systems of concepts/symbols created by human beings and transmitted nongenetically through which they understand their existence and act to lnaintain or transform themselves together with others in society.

4.1. Why is it necessary to distinguish strata of meaning in religious language?
It is necessary to distinguish strata of meaning in religious language because, allowing that at least some religious language cannot possibly mean literally but only nonlitera]]y (symbolically, metaphorically, analogically, or what have you), one can uphold the claim that such language is cognitively meaningful, as it has to be if religion is to be defined as explicitly answering the existential question of the Ineaning of ultimate reality for us, only by identifying at least some religious language that can mean literally or necessarily implies assertions that can.

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