ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some basic perspectives for understanding the religions of the world comparatively. It discusses religion as the “doors and windows” between conditioned and unconditioned reality. The chapter also presents the forms of religious expression: theoretical, practical, sociological, ethics, religious experience, and art. It focuses on the ways in which both descriptive and critical approaches to religion are valid and important. The chapter also discusses religion's aspirations for the political dimensions of society. It explains the problems and possibilities inherent in discussing religion in terms of its history. The chapter then discusses the “woman question” in the world religions and how the answer to that question impacts women's lives and shapes the societies in which they live. It explores that each actual, living religion contains tensions and seemingly conflicting motifs that it tries to resolve into a pattern.
