The enigmatic relation between religion and science still presents a challenge to European
societies and to ideas about what it means to be 'modern.' This book argues that European
secularism rather than pushing back religious truth claims in fact has been religiously
productive itself. The institutional establishment of new disciplines in the nineteenth century
such as religious studies anthropology psychology classical studies and the study of
various religious traditions led to a professionalization of knowledge about religion that in
turn attributed new meanings to religion. This attribution of meaning resulted in the emergence
of new religious identities and practices. In a dynamic that is closely linked to this
discursive change the natural sciences adopted religious and metaphysical claims and
integrated them in their framework of meaning resulting in a special form of scientific
religiosity that has gained much influence in the twentieth century. Applying methods that come
from historical discourse analysis the book demonstrates that religious semantics have been
reconfigured in the secular sciences. Ultimately the scientification of religion perpetuated
religious truth claims under conditions of secularism.
