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Why Religion Matters The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief

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ISBN-10: 0060671025

ISBN-13: 9780060671020

Edition: 2001 (Reprint)

Authors: Huston Smith

List price: $15.99
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Description:

Supported by stories from the author's personal experiences and encounters with many of the leading thinkers of our times, Why Religion Matters is a highly original and thought-provoking book that examines the current spiritual crisis affecting humanity.
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Book details

List price: $15.99
Copyright year: 2001
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 6/27/2006
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 304
Size: 5.55" wide x 8.31" long x 0.75" tall
Weight: 0.484
Language: English

Huston Smith, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Syracuse University, is considered the country's preeminent public scholar of world religions. The author of The Religions of Man (1958, republished as The World's Religions in 1991) and Why Religion Matters (2001), Smith has influenced multiple generations of readers, artists, scholars, and students. He has been profiled in a PBS series by Bill Moyers and appears frequently on national TV and radio. Phil Cousineau is the author and editor of numerous books, including, most recently, Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times (2001), The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred (1998), and Soul…    

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Modernity's Tunnel
Who's Right About Reality: Traditionalists, Modernists, or the Postmoderns?
Modernity's Cosmological Achievement
Postmodernism's Fairness Revolution
The Traditional Worldview
The Great Outdoors and the Tunnel Within It
Worldviews: The Big Picture
The Decisive Alternative
Weighing the Alternatives
Sweetening the Sour Apple
How Much Is at Stake
Conclusion
The Tunnel as Such
The Flagship Book
The Tunnel in Question
A Disqualified Univers
Conclusion
The Tunnel's Floor: Scientism
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
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
The Flagship Book
Kansas Update
The General Picture
Who Pays the Piper?
Conclusion
The Tunnel's Right Wall: The Law
The Flagship Book
Employment Division v. Smith
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act
Marginalizing Religion
Handling Creationism
Conclusion
The Light at the Tunnel's End
Light
The Physics of Light
Light Subjectively Experienced
Conclusion
Is Light Increasing: Two Scenarios
God Is Dead
The Eyes of Faith
Clearing the Ground
Discerning the Signs of the Times
Straws in the Wind
Counterculture and the New Age Movement
Four Modern Giants Revisited
Three Sciences and the Road Ahead
Physics
Biology
Cognitive Psychology
Terms for the Detente
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
Life's Cosmic Inkblot
A Sidewise Glance at the Social Scene
The Big Picture
The Great Divide
Subdivisions
A Hierarchical Reality
Topdown Causation and the Multiple Degrees of Reality
Return to the Inkblot
Spiritual Personality Types
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
The Self/World Divide
Tacit Knowing
Spirit and Its Outworkings
Consciousness and Light
Happy Ending
Epilogue: We Could Be Siblings Yet
Index