Why Religion Matters

by Smith, Huston

• ISBN13: 9780060671020
• ISBN10: 0060671025
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Huston Smith, the author of the classic bestseller The World's Religions, delivers a passionate, timely message: The human spirit is being suffocated by the dominant materialistic worldview of our times. Smith champions a society in which religion is once again treasured and authentically practiced as the vital source of human wisdom.

Author Biography

Huston Smith is internationally known and revered as the premier teacher of world religions and for his bestselling book The World's Religions. He was the focus of a five-part PBS television series with Bill Moyers, and has taught at Washington University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, and the University of California, Berkeley

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(6)
Part One: Modernity's Tunnel	7	(128)
Who's Right About Reality: Traditionalists, Modernists, or the Postmoderns?	11	(12)
Modernity's Cosmological Achievement
Postmodernism's Fairness Revolution
The Traditional Worldview
The Great Outdoors and the Tunnel Within It	23	(19)
Worldviews: The Big Picture
The Decisive Alternative
Weighing the Alternatives
Sweetening the Sour Apple
How Much Is at Stake. Conclusion
The Tunnel as Such	42	(17)
The Flagship Book
The Tunnel in Question
A Disqualified Universe
Conclusion
The Tunnel's Floor: Scientism	59	(20)
The Flagship Book
Tracking Scientism
Spinoza's Conatus
Of Rocks and Pebbles
From Warfare to Dialogue
Colonizing Theology
The Tilt of the Negotiating Table
The Tunnel's Left Wall: Higher Education	79	(24)
The Flagship Book
What Happened
The Pull of Science on Other Disciplines
From Nonbelief to Disbelief
The Ineffectiveness of the Theological Response
The New Professionalism. Conclusion
The Tunnel's Roof: The Media	103	(18)
The Flagship Book
Kansas Update
The General Picture
Who Pays the Piper? Conclusion
The Tunnel's Rights Wall: The Law	121	(14)
The Flagship Book
Employment Division v. Smith
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act
Marginalizing Religion
Handling Creationism
Conclusion
Part Two: The Light at the Tunnel's End	135	(144)
Light	137	(8)
The Physics of Light
Light Subjectively Experienced
Conclusion
Is Light Increasing: Two Scenarios	145	(9)
God Is Dead. The Eyes of Faith
Clearing the Ground
Discerning the Signs of the Times	154	(20)
Straws in the Wind
Counterculture and the New Age Movement
Four Modern Giants Revisited
Three Sciences and the Road Ahead	174	(13)
Physics
Biology
Cognitive Psychology
Terms for the Detente	187	(18)
A Glimpse of David Bohm
Science Rightly Defined
The Limits of Science
Division of Labor
The Cow That Stands on Three Legs
This Ambiguous World	205	(8)
Life's Cosmic Inkblot
A Sidewise Glance at the Social Scene
The Big Picture	213	(21)
The Great Divide. Subdivisions
A Hierarchical Reality
Topdown Causation and the Multiple Degrees of Reality
Return to the Inkblot
Spiritual Personality Types	234	(21)
Characterology
Ubiquity
The Atheist: There Is No God
The Polytheist: There Are Many Gods
The Principle of One-Way Mirrors
The Monotheist: There Is One God
The Mystic: There Is Only God
Spirit	255	(24)
The Self/World Divide
Tacit Knowing
Spirit and Its Outworkings
Consciousness and Light
Happy Ending
Epilogue
We Could Be Siblings Yet	272	(7)
Index	279