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

306 Pages·2002·0.98 MB·English

by  Huston Smith

WHY
RELIGION
MATTERS
T F H S
HE ATE OF THE UMAN PIRIT
A D
IN AN GE OF ISBELIEF
Huston Smith
To the memory of our daughter,
Karen Senyak,
and her adopted Judaism, which sustained her in her ordeal
with sarcoma cancer;
to Antonio Banuelos,
our youngest grandchild,
who bids to see more of the third millennium
than will the rest of our family;
and for Kendra,
this love poem by the sixth Dalai Lama:
I asked so much of you
In this brief lifetime,
Perhaps we’ll meet again
In the childhood of the next.
CONTENTS
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE viii
INTRODUCTION 1
PART ONE: MODERNITY’S TUNNEL 7
CHAPTER 1.
Who’s Right About Reality: Traditionalists, Modernists,
or the Postmoderns? 11
Modernity’s Cosmological Achievement. Postmodernism’s Fairness
Revolution. The Traditional Worldview.
CHAPTER 2.
The Great Outdoors and the Tunnel Within It 23
Worldviews: The Big Picture. The Decisive Alternative.
Weighing the Alternatives. Sweetening the Sour Apple.
How Much Is at Stake. Conclusion.
CHAPTER 3.
The Tunnel as Such 42
The Flagship Book. The Tunnel in Question. A Disqualified
Universe. Conclusion.
iii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 4.
The Tunnel’s Floor: Scientism 59
The Flagship Book. Tracking Scientism. Spinoza’s Conatus.
Of Rocks and Pebbles. From Warfare to Dialogue. Colonizing
Theology. The Tilt of the Negotiating Table.
CHAPTER 5.
The Tunnel’s Left Wall: Higher Education 79
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.
CHAPTER 6.
The Tunnel’s Roof: The Media 103
The Flagship Book. Kansas Update. The General Picture.
Who Pays the Piper? Conclusion.
CHAPTER 7.
The Tunnel’s Right Wall: The Law 121
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
CHAPTER 8.
Light 137
The Physics of Light. Light Subjectively Experienced.
Conclusion.
CHAPTER 9.
Is Light Increasing: Two Scenarios 145
God Is Dead. The Eyes of Faith. Clearing the Ground.
CHAPTER 10.
Discerning the Signs of the Times 154
Straws in the Wind. Counterculture and the
New Age Movement. Four Modern Giants Revisited.
iv
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 11.
Three Sciences and the Road Ahead 174
Physics. Biology. Cognitive Psychology.
CHAPTER 12.
Terms for the Détente 187
A Glimpse of David Bohm. Science Rightly Defined.
The Limits of Science. Division of Labor. The Cow That
Stands on Three Legs.
CHAPTER 13.
This Ambiguous World 205
Life’s Cosmic Inkblot. A Sidewise Glance at the Social Scene.
CHAPTER 14.
The Big Picture 213
The Great Divide. Subdivisions. A Hierarchical Reality.
Topdown Causation and the Multiple Degrees of Reality.
Return to the Inkblot.
CHAPTER 15.
Spiritual Personality Types 234
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.
CHAPTER 16.
Spirit 255
The Self/World Divide. Tacit Knowing. Spirit and Its Outworkings.
Consciousness and Light. Happy Ending.
EPILOGUE
We Could Be Siblings Yet. 272
INDEX 279
v
About the Author
Other Books by Huston Smith
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a pleasure to record here my gratitude to those whose assis-
tance has made this book possible. The Rockefeller Foundation
granted me an idyllic month to begin my work at its Conference
and Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. Stephen Mitchell and Philip
Novak have critiqued the entire typescript. Nik Warren and
Jonathan Wells, respectively, have coached me where physics and
biology enter the book. My editor, John Loudon, and my agent,
Thomas Grady, have been friends and helpers throughout. Eric
Carlson, Keith Chandler, Neal Grossman, Sarah Lewis, Robert
Sprich, and Lance Trumbull have researched a number of facts and
references. To all of these my sincerest thanks. I hate to think how
much poorer this book would have been without their help, but
none of them should be held responsible for the use I have made of
their services.
My wife, Kendra, was a zealous accomplice in the last stages of
revision. Years ago I told her that an important part of a wife’s role
is to keep her husband from making a fool of himself. Sweetly she
promised, “I’ll try.”
vii
PREFACE
Iwould place these pages last except that beginning with them
may increase the chance that the reader will hear me out.
I think I have a different window onto the world, one that enables me to
see things that others do not. I was born into a loving family whose parents
committed their lives to the highest calling they could conceive—that of
being missionaries to China. Sacrifices were to be expected, and (in the disease-
ridden China of that time) they arrived on schedule; their firstborn died in
their arms on his second Christmas Eve. My parents did good things. In the
town they chose for their lifework there was no education for girls, so their
first act was to start a girls’ school. Now coeducational, it has become the
most important primary school in the town.
The most important thing I inherited from my parents was
faith. Its substance made me, on average, a trusting person, and its
content can be stated equally simply: we are in good hands, and in
gratitude for that fact we do well to bear one another’s burdens.
On coming to America for college, I brought that faith with me,
and the rest of my life has been a struggle to keep it intact in the
face of modern winds of doctrine that assail it. If those winds were
powered by truth, I would bow to them, but as I have not found
them to be so, I must point that out.
viii