Saturday, September 20, 2008

Everyone is Religious

 Recently I have been reading, "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller.  Here is a great quote from a great book so far:

(What is Religion)..."Some say it is a belief in God.  But that would not fit Zen Buddhism, which does not really believe in God at all.  Some say it is belief in the supernatural.  But that does not fit Hinduism, which does not believe in a supernatural realm beyond the material world, but only a spiritual reality within the empirical.  What is religion then?  It is a set of beliefs that explains what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing.  For example, some think that this material world is all there is, that we are here by accident and when we die we just rot, and therefore the important thing is to choose to do what makes you happy and not let others impose their beliefs on you.  Notice that though this is not an explicit, "organized" religion, it contains a master narrative, an account about the meaning of life along with a recommendation for how to live based on that account of things... It is an implicit religion."

If you want to save yourself from a lot of reading, this video is a great summary of the book, it seems.

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