Beyond Religion And Toward Ourselves

"Beyond Religion" is a stirring call to move beyond religion for the guidance to improve human life on individual, community, and global levels--including a guided meditation practice for cultivating key human values.

This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author’s own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.

This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author's own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.

This collection of essays presents groundbreaking work from an interdisciplinary group of leading theorists and scholars representing the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and anthropology. The volume will introduce readers to some of the most compelling new conceptual and theoretical understandings of secularism and the secular, while also examining socio-political trends involving the relationship between the religious and the secular from a variety of locations across the globe. In recent decades, the public has become increasingly aware of the important role religious commitments play in the cultural, social, and political dynamics of domestic and world affairs. This so called ''resurgence'' of religion in the public sphere has elicited a wide array of responses, including vehement opposition to the very idea that religious reasons should ever have a right to expression in public political debate. The current global landscape forces scholars to reconsider not only once predominant understandings of secularization, but also the definition and implications of secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a range of multiple secularisms, is one of many emerging efforts to reconceptualize the meanings of religion and the secular. Rethinking Secularism surveys these efforts and helps to reframe discussions of religion in the social sciences by drawing attention to the central issue of how ''the secular'' is constituted and understood. It provides valuable insight into how new understandings of secularism and religion shape analytic perspectives in the social sciences, politics, and international affairs.

As more people find themselves questioning or actually leaving religions of their youth and adult life, Beyond Religion provides answers and guidance for moving ahead on one's own more personal spiritual path - either still within institutionalized religion or beyond any singular religious belief.

Do you describe yourself as spiritual but not religious? Whether young or old, church connected or not, are you spiritually restless for an authentic faith life but do not find conventional religious teachings pertinent to you? This accessible guide to a meaningful spiritual life is a salve for your soul. It reinterprets traditional religious teachings central to the Christian faith - God, Jesus, faith, prayer, morality and more - in ways that connect with people who have outgrown the beliefs and devotional practices that once made sense to them.

Beyond Religion is a thought provoking and critical look at religion and spirituality as concepts inherently embedded in the fabric of our society. Among others, one of the key impetuses of Beyond Religion is the author's view that faith, spirituality and even perspectives of God is due for a bit of reform. Religion and certain traditions must be updated to align contemporary social systems. The author leverages his deep fascination with the concepts of religion and spirituality, and more importantly how these concepts play out in our everyday life and our interaction with others to discuss relevant issues. Additionally, Beyond Religion explores influences of religion and spirituality within our culture, relationships, mental health, economy, and other social dynamics. The author masterfully and artfully uses the concept of Beyond Religion as the basis to engage key historical and cultural dynamics to discuss how the relationship, or lack thereof, between religion and spirituality influence our perspectives.

In 1999 His Holiness The Dalai Lama published the bestselling Ancient Wisdom: Modern World, which addressed the question of ethics for the new millennium. A decade later, His Holiness enters the contemporary debate about religion vs atheism, and returns to the theme of ethics with a major new work: Beyond Religion: ethics for a whole world. In this thought-provoking new book he argues that religion is not a necessity for pursuing a spiritual life. Rather, focusing on tolerance and understanding between religions, as well as tolerance and understanding between believers (of any faith) and non-believers is the way forward. The way to achieve such an approach, he proposes, is through a system of secular ethics grounded in a deep appreciation of our common humanity. Aimed particularly at the general reader, Beyond Religion: ethics for a whole world is a modern-day polemic which outlines those ethics he believes should be central to our lives.