Why Religious Studies Isn't Interested in Deities

But having taken the obligatory stab at the whingers at the Chronicle, here is a very interesting essay
from its latest issue by Rodney Stark on the failure of religious studies departments to take the worship of gods seriously. They'd rather be doing comparative sociology, you see, rather than seriously look into all that disguise for the "real" motivations.

It all strikes me as being spot on. There is an interesting nexus between the modern culture of cynicism and the academic's need to find the "real" motivation. Modernity, postmodernity, or laziness? Discuss.