Examines the religious basis of society and attempts to reform it (St. Augustine, Luther and Calvin, John Locke), early European attempts to understand other cultures (Spanish missionaries in Latin America, Jesuits in China), concluding with twentieth-century social scientists analyzing religious experience (William James, Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard). We discuss what is a just war, whether we have natural rights, and whether tolerance is a utopian ideal. Carries social sciences divisional credit in CAS.